Set and swing

By T.J.Tomasi

The set and swing is a revolutionary new way to address the ball: You address the ball with your lead arm across the middle of your chest like a baseball player. Then you trigger your downswing with a slight "pump" or upward motion of the arms that preserves the dynamic motion necessary to make a good golf swing.

How it works

Place yourself in the correct position and pose as I am in the first photo below, then pump the club up a few inches to start your downswing. It's the same principle as hitting a baseball with a bat -- start high, pump and swing down.

Step 1: Address a ball as you normally would.

Step 2: Swing back until your lead arm is parallel to the ground and stop. Adjust your body, arms and hands to match the positions described below. It only takes a few reps to get these positions down pat. They are:

(a) Clubshaft points at the target line.

(b) Lead arm and shaft form a 90-degree angle.

(c) Shoulders turned 75 degrees.

(d) 50 percent of weight pulled onto your right hip.

(e) Lead arm parallel to and directly above your toe line.

Step 3: Once you're set, coil your torso to the right and pump your arms up. This simple move stretches the key downswing muscles just as much as a traditional backswing, giving you the same amount of potential energy to unleash into the ball. Think of a frog as it squats before leaping, ratcheting up its elastic energy to explode into the air.

Step 4: Immediately following your pump, swing back down to the ball by firing your core while transferring your weight onto your front foot. This works only if you keep your spine centered over the ball as it was at address.

I believe the set and swing method eliminates 70 percent of the mistakes that typically ruin impact. The major advantage in learning the swing this way is that since much of the backswing is a posed position, the student can go through a checklist to make sure things are correct. It's very difficult to separate out the way things feel at the top of the normal swing because there is so much happening in such a short time. The amount of "kinesthetic clutter" makes learning difficult. Not so with the set and swing.

Tomasi writes for Universal UClick.