Two swing images

By Kim Jeong-kyoo

Despite complicated swing mechanics, the golf swing needs to be simple and easy to repeat. An image of a good golf swing will help you hit your ball better. Two swing images here will leave you in position to enjoy long, straight shots.

1. Imagine you are swinging your club under an imagined electric wire

To hit your ball your best, you need to swing your club from inside to down-the-line to inside. To be a top-class ball-striker, you need to picture the path of your clubhead throughout the swing before you start to swing. Your first concerns should be your clubhead path. It needs to be straight down the target line at impact if you want to hit your ball straight.

The path of your backswing is “straight back, inside, around and up” to complete your backswing. Your downswing path is “from inside, down-the-line at impact and inside again” to finish your swing.

Granted, to swing on the correct path, you need to grip correctly and set up properly. Grip and setup mostly influence your swing path. Granted, good address posture alone will not always guarantee your swing on the proper path. Still, if you misalign your body at address, you cannot swing from inside the target line.

To swing from inside the target line, you need to stay behind your ball at impact. Failing to do this, or lunging ahead of your ball as you start down, you will come over the top. That pushes you to hit your ball with a glancing blow from outside to inside the target line. You will cut across your ball, creating nasty pulls or slices.

A blanket way to swing your club on the correct path throughout the swing is to imagine an electric wire. Picture a long electric wire that starts from way behind your ball and goes all the way to the target. Imagine it is resting a few inches off the ground. Then, picture swinging your club back and forth without touching it.

You will immediately stop snatching your club back outside the target line. An imagined wire will prevent you from lifting your club abruptly upward, helping purge your swing of too steep a swing plane.

Also, you will swing your club correctly from inside to down-the-line to inside, delivering it on plane to your ball. Picturing a wire extended backward away from the target will keep you from casting your club outside the target line. You will swing down to the inside to avoid touching the wire.

Besides, you will keep your head still and preserve the angle of your spine, performing correct hand and wrist action.

Succinctly, imagining an electric line, you will swing back on plane, slotting your club into a downswing path. If you swing your club on plane throughout the swing, solid ball-striking is a natural result.

2. Push a doorjamb left toward the target with the clubhead

To hit your ball to your best, you need to have the correct feel of impact. To put you in position for a powerful impact, set up normally, your club sitting against a doorjamb. Position the doorjamb where you would normally play your ball: just off the tip of your left shoulder. Look down at your hands. You will see they are sitting in front of your left thigh. The handle of your club needs to rest about a fist and a thumb away from your left thigh.

For correct feel for impact, push your hands left toward the target. Importantly, let your hands move forward by correct use of your body. Toward this end, keep your shoulders square with your hips open roughly 30 degrees. Also, place about 75 percent of your weight on your left foot. Allow your left leg to straighten slightly. You may let your right heel come off the ground slightly.

Critically, take care to keep your head where it was at address. Of equal importance is to keep your left wrist flat and your right wrist bent backwards. Now you are in position to hit your ball as good as you want.

Practice this as often as possible and just re-create this feeling when you swing for real. You will hit your ball far and straight to the best of your ability consistently with less effort.