Find Your Natural Tempo and Rhythm

by Kim Jeong-kyoo

Korea Times Golf Columnist

Your last thought before you start to swing has to do with rhythm rather than mechanics. It's essential to swing every club at the same, leisurely pace. Although longer clubs take a tad more time to swing, your tempo needs to be always same. Once your tempo gets faster, you'll be in trouble.

Quick-tempered golfers will swing with a rhythm comparatively fast but it still needs to be controlled and consistent.

Recreational golfers tend to speed up their swings with the longer clubs only to fail. With too quick a swing it's hard to make solid contact and hit the ball far.

If you find your rhythm is too fast, you need to focus on taking the club away from the ball at a leisurely pace for the first 18 inches. That sets your overall swing rhythm and tempo natural to you.

With this in mind, a simple way to make special shots is to just adjust your pre-swing preparations. To make the ball curve from right to left, for instance, change the position of your right foot at setup. Make certain that your eyes, shoulders, hips and knees are all parallel to the ball-target line. Then, close your stance by moving your right foot back so the toe-line is pointed a tad to the right of the target.

Closing your stance facilitates swinging the club down on a path that is from inside to out, promoting a powerful draw.

There is a lot of trouble on the ground but no trouble in the air except for wind. You'd better hit the ball high. This is particularly true when you have to play on dry and hard greens.

To hit the ball high it's essential to use lighter grip pressure and position the ball farther forward toward the target at address and open the clubface slightly. As always, you need to accelerate the clubhead speed through impact.

Also crucial here is to hit it from a shallow angle, thrust your left hip upward and keep your head and upper body behind the ball through impact.

Importantly, you need to make sure that your right hand works under the left through the ball and avoid rotating your right forearm over the left at impact.

Finding yourself having to hit a really tight fairway, you'd better select a 3- or 5-wood. That is always your best choice as they are safer than your driver as they are easier to hit straight with.

However, when you are desperate for driver distance, tee the ball lower and just hit it with your normal swing. Unless you hit it down with a downward blow, that enables you to get a lower trajectory and more roll. That way you can stop imparting a sidespin on the ball which leads to curve to the right or left. On a higher shot you are likely to get more sidespin.

What has to be done first for a shot from the fairway bunker is to avoid playing over other bunkers or hazards. Select a club that has enough loft to get the ball over the lip of the bunker, making a three-quarter swing.

Also crucial is to strive for ball-first contact. At address, transfer your bodyweight to your left foot as you dig in with your feet. Placing more weight on your left foot facilitates making a steep downswing, helping to ensure that you hit the ball first.

In a situation where you need to hit a high or low shot you need to alter the ball trajectory. There are many ways to do it and one of the easiest is changing your grip pressure.

A firm grip pressure results in a lower trajectory, which leads to more predictable roll; a lighter grip pressure brings about a higher trajectory, which promotes a softer landing.

All you have to do for high pitches is grip the club softly with a grip pressure of three to four out of scale of 10. That encourages the club to release freely and allows the clubhead to slide under the ball through impact, thus adding loft. That makes it easier for the wrists to cock and uncock fluidly going back and coming through the ball.

Similarly, grip the club more firmly with a grip pressure of seven for low pitches. That makes it easier to keep the handle of the club ahead of the ball through and during the early part of the follow-though, thus helping prevent the loft from increasing or rather, enabling you to keep its loft constant.