Prerequisites for great swing

By Kim Jeong-kyoo

Korea Times Golf Columnist

An essential requisite for solid strikes is the smoothness of the swing, which depends greatly on the proper pre-swing basics. Grip, posture, alignment and ball position are the four most critical factors that ensure fluid golf swing and help effect solid, powerful strikes.

Hold the club lightly but firmly with your fingers and loosen your grip on the handle of the club as if you were holding a toothpaste tube so it is not squeezed. After setting up to the ball, check your grip and see if the crease formed by your lower thumb and index finger is pointing at a spot somewhere between your right ear and shoulder at address.

A sure-fire way to effect a light grip pressure is to let go of the club just before starting to swing. That way you will be left with better chances of gripping the club lightly but firmly just enough to control the club during the swing. Too tight a grip pressure is tantamount to choking the club.

With the handle of the club throttled, there is no transmitting the energy generated by the legs, hips, torso, shoulders, arms and wrists to the clubhead through the hands. The handle of the club in the golf swing is same as your throat. Don't do anything like strangling yourself. Once you are choked, you are finished.

Now, check to see if your spine is straight and tilted slightly to the right away from the target with your shoulders directly over the feet. You need to be able to draw a straight line vertically from your armpit to the ball of your foot through the kneecap.

Above all, make a point of aiming the clubface first at the target, then align your body square to its leading edge so your shoulders, hips and feet are all parallel to the target line.

To sharpen your alignment it's always best to use an intermediate target within your vision such as a blade of discolored grass or a very small part of a divot mark. It facilitates a more precise clubface alignment, encouraging you to swing better.

The shots that go all over the places rather than travel straight toward the target imply that the clubface is not square at impact. Irrespective of the clubhead path through the ball, the ball veers to the right at the end of its flight if the clubface is open in relation to the clubhead path at impact; the ball deviates from the intended line toward the left at the later part of its journey if the clubface is closed relative to the clubhead path at impact.

To encure square clubface at impact, you need to check to see if your pre-swing preparations including grip, posture and alignment are proper. It is usually a poor grip, a bad posture or an improper alignment, or all of these that cause the clubface to be immoderately open or closed at impact only to bring about slice or hook.

To fix your slice problem adopt a stronger grip with your hands rotated a tad clockwise and stand slightly farther from the ball with the ball positioned slightly forward in your stance. That presents a good chance to swing the club more on an inside-to-out path relative to the target line and square the clubface at impact.

Similarly, to correct your hook, use a slightly weaker grip and stand closer to the ball, which needs to be placed slightly backward toward the right foot in your stance. That prevents you from swinging on a path that is too much from inside to out, leaving you with less chance of closing the clubface through impact.

To correct pushes to the right, take the club back along the target line for as long as possible lest you should swing too much from inside the target line; to eliminate pulls to the left, take the club back slightly inside the target line so you can swing slightly to the right of the target through the ball.