Q AND A WITH JIM WALDRON.

An archive of student's questions on game improvement, the golf swing, short game and mental game. Email us at info@balancepointgolf.com and we will include your question and our answer on this page.

"I understand that you have developed a "model" of the ideal golf swing from a biomechanical perspective. Is this a rigid model that you expect all of your student's to adhere to, or do you allow for some flexibilty based on things like athletic ability, and physical condition of the student?

GM, New York, NY

We do use a "model" of the ideal golf swing as the starting point for our own understanding of what in the ideal world, should  be occuring with both body and club motion. But - we don't live or play golf in an "ideal" world, so we are always making adjustments to that ideal model when working with a real live human being, our golf student. Flexibility (range of motion) and Core strength are two very important factors that must be taken into consideration before we will make a suggestion to the new student. And also any injuries, past or present. The other factors are: strength of the mind/body connection and how well the student can feel their body motion. Another is the student's ability to focus their mind on one single thing or focal point. And finally, how motivated the student is to make the changes and how much time they can devote to practice are also very important factors. Typically we advise the student to understand the overall model in a holistic or "big picture" kind of way first, and then we recommend just a few parts of the model at most, that the student should strive to achieve over a given period of time, BUT always only working on ONE major change at a time.

"I have read about your golf schools on the Web at various sites, and also in the Golf magazines, and am intrigued by your program, since it seems truly unique and revolutionary even...I am especially curious about your Total Immersion coaching method, and also your Structured Deep Practice method. How do these method work exactly and how effective are they?" 

DS, Portland, OR

Total Immersion was developed by psychologists and learning experts hired by the US State Department back in the fifites and sixties, for their Embassy personnel who needed a very fast and effective way to learn the native language at their new foreign posting. It is a very intense and challenging method of rapid learning. The method that I developed for golf is actually a blend of Total Immersion with the Asian martial arts learning and training models. The method is similar to intellectual problem-solving, employing logic and critical thinking. There are 30 Sensory Illusions and two Natural Destructive Impulsers that make learning a truly effective golf swing basically impossible for the average golfer to achieve, using trial and error learning on the golf course and driving range. The student needs to be able to really breakthrough to a radical new understanding about the golf swing, by seeing through those Illusions and learning to inhibit those Impulses. I call this learning breakthrough to the level of the subconscious mind "Deep Insight".  Total Immersion is intense, challenging and a lot of fun. But it is also tough on the ego since there is no sugarcoating and the student is expected to focus their mind and put 100% of their energy into the learning process. I liken learning the golf swing using Total Immersion to assembling a jig saw puzzle. If the student is fascinated with golf and with the golf swing, the challenge is to see how well and quickly he can finish assembling his puzzle. The puzzle pieces are the Major Golf Swing Fundamentals. The goal is subconscious mind - not just conscious mind - learning. Once the subconscious acquires a new and better understanding of the material, then the body can very quickly be trained in the new body movement pattern using the Deep Structured Practice method.

This method is primarily slow motion swinging in front of a mirror, to match the Outer Form of our swing Model. We also use eyes closed Feel sense training exercises as part of Deep Practice training, training aids and other kinds of drills and exercises. Dynamic Motion Practice is part of the Deep Practice program as well, and is performed at either Half-Speed or normal Full Speed golf swing tempos.Deep Practice is the opposite of Total Immersion - no illusions, nothing technical about it- it's very simple and concrete. You simply train the body directly.

"I have heard about your reputation as a golf teacher who has had a high rate of success with students who suffer from the yips or flinches. My own case is not in my putting stroke but rather in my full golf swing. I flinch in two places - Top of backswing and during Impact. My hands suddently tighen up and I just kind of make a jerky motion toward the ball. Any advice for how I can fix this? It is really driving me crazy since I love golf and don't want to quit, and have tried more traditional teachers - but with no improvement."  JH, Miami, FL.

Yes, helping my students overcome the yips is one of my special areas of teaching expertise. I find the whole subject of the yips fascinating. First, you need to understand that there are a few distinct types of flinching or yipping and any of them can occur in the following areas: full swing, chipping, pitching, bunker shots and putting. And that is the order in which we find the flinches occurring, ie most commonly in the full swing, then chipping, etc. One thing that is nearly universal is that the flinch is absent when performing a "practice swing", ie no ball. Being Ball Bound is the Number One cause of the yips. And it activates not only the yips but the Hit and Manipulation Impulses. Anxiety over making solid contact between ball and clubhead is an underlying root cause as well. When you worry about making good contact, you will try to "help out" just before and even during impact and this "helping" actually creates a poor impact condition. Once you know that consciously trying to help is a poor strategy, you may find yourself still "helping", ie unconsciously or involuntarily.

To overcome this worry about impact, we will sometimes prescribe the following drill, usually done with a driver and a ball on a tee, but can be done with any club: the student attempts to make a six inch long backswing and then focus his eyes intently on the back of the ball and watch closely as the center of the clubface strikes the ball, and Finish with the clubhead about a foot past the ball position. This tiny swing is performed at a very slow speed, with no wrist or arm action, ie connected to the chest upper arms and a tiny movement of the Core and Torso as the sole power source.

The goal is for the student's mind to be awake, alert, present and so able to see the centerface impact and feeling that it is caused only by the short turning or uncoiling motion of the Core and Torso. This allows the student to feel that he can indeed make solid contact. Stage Two is the same drill but with a backswing that is about a foot long, with a two foot long Finish. We keep extending the backswing as the student makes real progress until he is performing solid contact every time with a waist high with the hands backswing. Then we repeat the process starting over again with the six inch backswing but with a body speed twice as fast as the earlier drill. Stage Three we place a tee in the ground about three to four inches ahead of the ball on the target line, ie target side of the ball, and instruct the student to focus intently on that tee until they see solid impact in the right side of their peripheral vision.  This takes the eyes focal point vision directly off of the golf ball and on a point in space that the clubhead will pass over post-impact, which is the start of real improvement, ie taking the mind's focus gradually and gently away from impact to post-impact.

One of our other main cures for the yips is the whole notion of one single Focal Point for the conscious mind's attention from start to finish of the swing, with no "gaps" or "blind spots" in the golfer's awareness. The yips happen during the "gaps", so by cultivating seamless attention span on one single Focal Point, the flinch impulse is inhibited.

"I suffer from a lot of inconsistency in both my shotmaking and scoring. Golf is the only part of my life where such a high level of inconsistency occurs on a regular basis.It is extremely frustrating! Sometimes I just want to quit the game - problem is, I really love it, but I need to find a way to achieve real consistency. Any suggestions?"

That question has many possible answers, so I will only attempt to provide a few general ideas that may help you and others who suffer from inconsistency.  First, you need to realize that this is the norm in golf - even for the top pros. The goal should be to reduce the level of inconsistency since total elimination is impossible, given the difficult nature of the game itself. Hitting bad shots is just part of golf. A realistic, yet still positive, game improvement plan will have as it's main goal the reduction in the number of really bad shots and an improvement in the quality of those bad shots, ie "good misses". 

In general, the following rules apply. For all skill levels, you need to have reasonably sound mechancis in the Long Game, Short Game and Putting Game. Poor mechanics are probably the number one cause of inconsistent shotmaking. Most our our new students simply don't have an accurate understanding of the Laws of Body and Club Motion that are the foundation of effective swing, short game and putting stroke mechanics. Because you can occassionally hit a "good shot' (by average golfer standards - not "good" by a skilled players standards!) with a poor golf swing, mostly due to random luck, many golfers believe that they are "close" to a really effective, repeating golf swing - when in fact, they are light years away from such a swing. You need to stop playing "lucky golf" and to start playing "skilled golf".  And that means making changes to your golf swing, short game and putting strokes so that those strokes are mechanically more effective, thus more consistent golf shots will be the inevitable result.

Poor mental focus and poor emotional state control are the next most common cause of inconsistency in golf. If you permit your mind to wander off at random, it is very easy to flinch in some fashion, or to have your timing or balance be affected. Negative emotions like fear and doubt can also cause you to flinch and thus hit a lot of really bad shots. All it takes is that one blowup hole per round to ruin your score for the day. Confidence and learning how to change your emotional state from a negative to a positive is a vitally important golfing skill. We have a two day mental game golf school called Breakthrough that deals with those issues.

"I am not a great athlete and struggle with my golf game due to poor hand-eye coordination. Any ideas about what I can do to improve my hand-eye?

DS, Orlando, FL

One of the biggest myths of traditional golf culture is that "golf is a hand-eye coordination sport". Nothing could be further from the truth. Good players can a hit a golf ball to their target almost as well with their eyes closed as open. And there are blind golfers with low single digit handicaps. In fact, the attempt to use hand-eye actually will tend to make you flinch, which makes you hit a bad shot. The ball is not the Target in golf! The purpose of a golf swing or stroke is not to "hit the ball with the clubhead" but rather to "send the ball to the Target".

Because the golf ball is stationary, you don't need to look at it or focus on it mentally or emotionally. Sure - you need to make solid contact between ball and clubface for a good shot to happen. But what creates that solid contact - consistently (not occassionally because you get lucky) - is good mechanics or skill. More precisely, proper body motion creates correct club motion, which creates a proper impact. Assuming you have aimed correctly and have a good Setup with proper Posture and Balance of course. In other words, physics and geometry determine how well you hit the ball, not your eyes and conscious mind in a futile attempt to steer the clubhead into the ball.

Great golfers never consciously stare at the ball - in fact, most tour pros close their eyes during the downswing and never see impact. Great players don't try to track the clubhead path with their internal visual channel either.  We say golfers who attempt to use hand-eye coordination are victims of the Manipulation and Hit Impulses. Manipulation is trying to track the clubhead path and steer it into the back of the ball, usually in a straight line motion in an attempt to hit the ball more accurately. The Hit Impulse is complex in it's causes and manifestations but mainly is all about trying to hit the "ball as the target" very hard with a club head that is released early from the top of the backswing. Looking at a blade of grass about two inches in front of the ball will help with being ball-bound. Focusing on an internal picture of your Target will take your mind off of the clubhead.

"I get easily confused by all the conflicting swing theory in the golf media, especially on the Web, there are a lot of sites and golf swing forums with so much contradictory advice. How do I know what is correct and if it will really help my golf swing?"  JK, Montreal, Canada

Great question. If you feel lost while surfing the Web on golf forums and instructional sites, or reading golf magazines and books, I don't blame you. I liken this amazing proliferaton of so much conflicting advice, on the Web especially, to roaming a market place in a crossroads trading city, with twenty different languages being spoken. Many of the Web sites hawking golf swing "secrets" in the form of I books are obvious frauds. A lot of golf swing advice I have checked out on both web sites and golf swing forums is from amateur golfers - including high handicap golfers! - who have never taught a day in their entire life. "Buyer beware" is a good maxim to follow. It always amazes me to sometimes find 3 handicap amateur golfers taking seriously the swing advice of a 30 handicap amateur who is a complete stranger!

First - only consider advice from a teaching pro who does this for a living. If they don't teach - with very few exceptions that I have run across - the odds are they won't be able to help you. Information is one thing - how to apply that to your golf swing takes experience. Second - you need to understand the severe limitations of word-based golf instruction. It can certainly point you in the right direction - but it is also very easy to mis-interpret the author's meaning. You need much more visual information and even hands-on your body feel feedback from a good teacher. If you are serious about improving your golf swing - you need to take a live golf school or series of lessons or at a minimum, have a web-based teacher analyze your golf swing on video that you send to him/her.

Third - there is more than one way to hit a golf ball well. In our system, we have identified four Swing Styles. Swinging- or more accurately "spin and swing" is the style most commonly used on the pro tours and by good amateurs today. It uses the Pivot of the body as the primary source of both distance and accuracy, and may or may not have a "hitting" motion with the right arm or "rolling" motion with the forearms blended into the Pivot. The arms are swung into a medium high position about to the level of the right shoulder at the Top. Upper arms have medium connection pressure to chest during impact. Moderate lateral weight shift on downswing and either no lateral shift during impact or just a slight lateral shift.Tiger Woods and Anika Sorenstam use this style.

Hitting is for inflexible golfers who don't have the ability to Pivot as much as more flexible golfers. They still use the Pivot as their primary power source but add a "hammer hit" action by a fast burst of speed when the right arm angle opens up through impact, like hammering a nail. Many Hitters will also add some degree of forearm roll as well as a short and quick lateral weight shift during impact as secondary power sources. Medium to fast tempo.Light arm connection pressure. Usually a short to 3/4 backswing pivot and a 3/4 Finish. Low to mediuim height arms at the Top. Lee Trevino and Craig Stadler are Hitters.

Throwers have a steeper angle to their shoulder turn and more right spine tilt than Hitters and Swingers and a lot of lateral weight shift on the downswing and during impact. Their hips make a vertical rocking action, ie right hip higher on backswing, left hip higher on forward swing.They swing their arms into a very upright plane at  the top of the backswing. Their swings look "armsy" and "leggy" compared to Swingers. Throwers finish in the classic reverse C posiiton. Most top pros from the sixties and seventies were Throwers. It looks like their arms are making an underhanded throwing motion, kind of under and up, through impact. Light arm connection pressure. Slow to medium tempo. Young Jack Nicklaus and today's Colin Montgomie are Throwers.

Pure Spinners have a very rotary Pivot motion, a very level hip motion and a constant spine angle. Their arms are a bit lower than the Swingers at the Top or a bit flatter plane. They have the look of "all body - no arms" and a very stable lower body action. They have SuperConnected upper arms during impact, the most of the four Styles.They Pivot at a medium to fast tempo.There is no lateral weight shift during impact for rock solid balance. Hogan and Jonathan Byrd today are Pure Spinners.

Spinners, Swingers and Throwers may add an active muscular "hitting" release with forerarm roll and/or a little "hammering" action, an active release. Or - they may choose a passive release of the lever angles from momentum and centrifugal force with soft, tension-free wrists and forearms.Hiiters always use a muscular action to help release their levers by "hammering" or "rolling" or a blend of both, so it is called an active release.Hitters tend to be inflexible, Swingers and Throwers moderately to very flexible, and Pure Spinners need to be very flexible with very strong Core. There are other differences between the Four Styles but these are the main points.

You need to know which of these four Styles you are currently employing in your swing before you can make sense of the mass of golf swing theory in the golf media. And - does it match your body type -especially your level of flexibility - or not? Some golf teachers -especially Web or forum based - have strong biases toward one of these Four Styles and can ONLY teach to that style. They don't recognize the "language" of the other Styles. Which is NOT to say that all four Styles are equally effective.

Here at Balance Point, our main preference for most average golfers is a Swinging Style with a passive lever release. We have found over the past 20 years of teaching that this style is the easiest to learn and gives the best results overall - both good distance and accuracy - of the four Styles. Advanced players can learn how to add a little hammering and rolling for more distance. If we have a severely inflexible Endomorph body type golf student, we teach them the Hitting Style. Hitting takes the most timing of the lever angles release of the four styles and will not produce the distance of the other three styles. We never teach the Throwing Style since it is the most complex and difficult to perform of the four Styles and offers no advantages in terms of either distance or accuracy. It also requires the most Balance and Timing to do well, and it can lead to lower back and hip problems. But - if a 10 handicapper or better comes to us who is a confirmed Thrower, we can work with his/her style to become better.

We teach the Pure Spin style only to golfers who have above average athletic abililty, strong Core, very flexible, commited to long term improvement and who are already pretty good ballstrikers. Generally - we turn some of our advanced Swingers into Spinners. Spinning is bio-mechanically and from a Geometric viewpoint the best way to swing - fewest number of moving parts, less timing and balance issues and it can produce very good distance and accuracy. But - it is the most counter-intuitive method to learn, thus it takes the longest time to master.

Hybrids of two of of these Styles are also a possiblity. Fred Couples is almost a perfect hybrid between Swinging and Throwing. Hitting tends to be incompatable with the other Styles.

Please note - our concepts of Swinging and Hitting are NOT the same as The Golfing Machine (TGM) system of instruction. There are some similarities but also many clear differences.

"I am confused. Should I think about my arms, wrists or body during the golf swing? Which one is key to creating a fundamentally correct motion?" BH, Portland.

You are confused because you have mistaken learning swing mechanics concepts and practicing those concepts with the actual physical act of the golf swing motion. These are the three main pieces of the mechancical "puzzle" and they are moving independently but in harmony in a good golf swing. If you follow our guidelines for total separation of learning mechanics - which is a science - from the act of hitting a golf ball to a target - which is an art - then clarity will soon replace your confusion. In other words, you don't need to and should not ever "think about" those three main parts of the swing when you are swinging at normal swing speeds whether on the range or the golf course.

Once you have trained long enough to make each of these three parts work correctly and in harmony, primarily by doing slow motion mirror practice and then half speed swings with your eyes closed, they will do so at normal swing speeds - WITHOUT ANY THOUGHT WHATSOEVER! Your mind will then be free to focus on your precise target, as it should, just like in every other sport you have played. This means you must learn to master the mental fundamental called "trusting your swing"!

"I am an 8 handicap player. My driver swing is all over the place. The ball goes either dead pulled left or dead pushed right - and plenty long, just way crooked. Help!" SW, Los Angeles.

Since distance is good we can assume you are not holding onto the club too tightly with your hand pressure and that your wrists and forearm pressure is also very light. Tight pressure in these parts can cause a dead push, and contribute to a pull, but with no real distance. Usually when the "left/rights" happen the cause is a lack of harmony beween either your arms and torso/hips or between your upper and lower body pivot or both. Most of my students swing their arms across and around  their chest on the backswing and then either stay in this "arms stuck behind the body" position on the way down, which causes the dead push to the right. Or they throw their arms out in front of their chest on Transition and their right shoulder follows, causing the classic "over the top" move and the dead pull left.

You need to learn the proper arm swing action on the takeaway which is a pushing of the club and arm away from you and in front of your chest on a 45 degree angle (left arm to shoulder girdle), not a sideways pulling across, in and around motion. That means using the right tricep to attempt to push the right arm away "straight" and stretched wide for six to eight inches from your starting address postion. This arm pushaway action must occur simultaneously with your torso coil/turn - not sequentially. Doing both together results in the clubshaft staying on plane.

The second half of the backswing both arms go straight up toward the sky, not in and around your chest. This puts you in the proper "waiter's tray" position at the top. From here, with just a very slight dropping of the arms, you will arrive in the "Get Set" position halfway into the downswing with the arms in front of (right side of chest) and glued to your chest, and the clubshaft on plane. What is the key to achieving the correct arm action? It is the three arm pressures you learned about in your Great Shot! golf swing school.

You need to practice (with eyes closed to better feel the subtle pressure) these Three Arm Pressures: arm stretch from the triceps (elbows slightly bent at address- especially right elbow - to straight on takeaway) in the down and out direction, arm extension from the upper arms/shoulder connection or lat muscle in the down and out direction and the sideways triangle pressure from upper arms to hands. Your natural impulse - primarily due to the Arm Swing Illusion - is to use your arms for both power and directional control, and as soon as your brain succumbs to that impulse, your body will instantly lose one or more of these very essential three arm pressures and your overall mechanics will break down.

In addition to the overswing of the arms problem on the backswing, your forward swing also suffers when the arms take control directly and you lose your three pressures. Your body pivot will "stall" through impact and the arms will dis-connect from your chest in a sideways motion, the left arm will pull in and likely chicken wing at the elbow and the wrists will make a sideways "flipping" motion, instead of a down uncocking motion.

Keeping these very slight arm pressures a constant while your arms pushaway and then up on that 45 degree angle relative to your chest insures arriving in the proper top of backswing position so that your arms can drop almost straight down a short distance and re-connect to your chest on Transition. And that move will get your clubshaft back on plane through the impact zone. Result? A solid strike and accurate ball flight.

"I am thinking about switching to a belly putter this season. Any thoughts on this new technique?" JM, New York City.

My own testing as well as that of Dave Pelz confirms that belly putting is probably overall the best way to putt. From 5 feet or less it is almost like cheating. You just can't miss very often from that distance. From 6-15 feet - the save par or bogie on your "blowup holes" and the "make a birdie" range, it is almost as good. Only drawback is long putts of 40 feet or more, the regular puter and pendulum putting method with just a touch of wrist hinge and un-hinge action blended in is superior for distance control (especially if you play on slow greens), although with practice you can learn to master these long putts with the belly putter.

"I am confused about the best way to chip. I know some teachers advocate a shoulder stroke and others an arm stroke. Which is it?" PB, Atlanta.

We teach a chipping stroke controlled by the body pivot, not the arms, although the arms do move a little bit away from the chest on the backstroke for medium distance and long distance chips, but return to the chest on Transition and re-connect well before impact. Short chips the arms stay glued to the chest with super-connection for the entire stroke. This method utilizes the fewest moving body parts and is thus easier to learn and most importantly to repeat with good timing, especially under pressure. There is a very strong impulse to "help out" with the arms, elbows or wrists when chipping under pressure, which is really a form of the yips when it becomes habitual. Using the body and it's "slow twitch" muscles makes it much less likely to flinch/yip!

After our students "graduate" from this basic level ("grammar school") of "body only" chipping mechanics, we introduce them to the next level ("high school") which incorporates a little backwards right wrist hinging on the backstroke, and a "holding firm" of this hinged back or angled right wrist on the forward stroke. We call this the "hinge and hold" technique and it is essential for chipping from the short rough or from a tight lie in order to make a slightly more downward angle of attack into the ball for solid contact.

Our third level ("college") of chipping allows for a slight "un-hinging" forward of the right wrist on the forward stroke - but never past your original address wrist angle, ie no "flipping". We call this "hinge, un-hinge and hold". This is the best method from longer rough and when you need more height on the shot, and also allows for a little more "touch" for better distance control. The top chippers on Tour - Tiger, Vijay and Ernie - will usually use this method for most of their chips around the green: body pivot as the main power and control source with just a touch of wrist blended in.

"I'm a 9 handicap and usually hit it great on the range but lose my swing out on the golf course and hit a lot of bad shots. Do I have a mental disease called Multiple Swing Personality Disorder or what!!!" DS, Portland.

There are several causes for one's inability to take your practice range swing to the course. The most common is lack of an effective and repeating pre-shot routine and especially the most important part of that routine which is your mental focus. You need to know where and how to focus your mind during the two seconds from just before you trigger your swing to the finish of the swing. Most golfer's minds are wandering all over the place during those two seconds! We teach our students to have only one positive or at least neutral focal point, and how to keep that focal point a constant, meaning no interrupting thoughts. And that focal point is never swing mechanics, the golf club, the golf ball or impact!

"Seamless" focal point awareness in one of the three primary sensory channels (visual, hearing and feel) with no switching of either the channel or the focal point itself is the Number One fundamental of the mental art of shotmaking. For most of our students, that means holding a very clear image of your precise target in your mind during the swing. When you change channels or focal points mid-swing  - you flinch! The communication between brain and body is disupted and that tiny muscle spasm - the flinch - is the inevitable result. Our golf school called Rip It to the Target deals effectively with this problem and will help any golfer to "flinch-proof" their swing.

"At what point during the downswing should I start to release my wrist cock? It seems like I either snap my wrists too early and hook the ball or I release the angle too late and block the ball way to the right." RS, Chicago

We get this question a lot. The answer may suprise you. You should never try to consciously release your wrist cock angle, by using the wrist or arm muscles directly. The true release is a two-stage process: first you "pivot thrust" with your body when your hands reach the halfway down to impact or our Get Set position, ie hands at hip height and clubshaft parallel to the ground. Pivot thrust is three major things that occur simultaneously: rotation from the ground up - hips, belly and torso/shoulder girdle in that order; tilting the spine to the right from the middle of the spine which rocks the shoulder girdle left side up and right side down, and the "scissors action" of squeezing your inner thighs toward each other for a micro-second along with the formation of the "left leg wall" of resistance, ie the lower left leg and ankle especially will tighten to accept the right side of the pivot action.

Very much like a karate black belt who creates tremendous speed when punching by twisting his body weight  - from the hips, abs and shoulders - against the ground's resistance. He never tries to create power directly by using the muscles in his punching arm. For the expert ballstriker, this fast and very powerful body move creates tremendous rotary force, which then creates a lot of centrifugal or outward-pulling force, which will automatically snap your wrist cock angle open in the downward direction. We call this a passive release of the wrist cock angle.

The body part - stage one - is active or something you must learn to do with your core muscles, but the wrist part - stage two - is passive. Just learn to do nothing with the wrists, elbows and arms during Release! That's why it is called "release" - it is a letting go of control both emotionally and physically. This passive release is something you can learn to do on a fairly repetitive basis since the pivot thrust that creates the release is a big muscle or slow-twitch muscle move, which is easy to time. Trying to use the smaller or fast-twitch muscles directly to time the release is impossible to do with any degree of consistency.

The passive release does require a fundamentally sound grip position and overall very light grip pressure and no muscle tension in your wrists and forearms. It's just like cracking a whip - you need soft and flexible arm and wrist muscles so that the energy of the swing can flow freely through those soft muscles and crack the whip at the bottom of your swing - just a micro-second before impact.

What do you believe is the single fastest way to significantly improve any aspect of your game? I know it's more complicated than that in reality but is there any overiding Rule Number One so to speak? SK, New York.

Great question that is frequently asked. There is a Rule Number One - and it has nothing to do do with Mechanics or any purely physical  fundamental. Here at Balance Point we call it Preparation or Meta-State, which means a deeply imprinted mind-set comprised of Core Values, Beliefs, Skills and Attitudes. There are seven main aspects of Meta-State. Perspective, Self Esteem, Perseverance, Intention, Passive Awareness and Humility - or Overcoming Self-Importance. We have found as teachers, players and students of the game here at Balance Point that golf students whom we work with that have a strong Meta-State are the people who learn the fastest, practice the most effectively and certainly achieve the most dramatic performance breakthroughs on the golf course. 

Perspective means understanding that life itself - especially golf! - is always in a constant state of flux. There is nothing to hold onto that will truly last. Accepting this allows the golfer to see that golf is truly "just a game" and that there are many more important things in one's life than the current state of your golf game. Perspective allows you to see the larger view and apportion your time and energy to golf in a balanced blending with the other parts of your life. 

Perspective leads the way to one of our Core States we call Positive Indifference or "not-caring" about the golf shot outcome at a very deep level of your being. Practicing "not-caring" or Non-Attachment over your golf shot, whether on the range or course, is the fastest way we know of for intermediate and advanced players to significantly improve their shotmaking and score. It takes all of the doubt away from your mind and the fear from your heart, which takes away the "flinch" from your body motion, allowing you to make more solid contact.

When your ego is overly concerned about the shot result - whether failure or success - it will interfere with the communication between brain and body in an a futile attempt to "help out", either to prevent failure or to guarantee success. Both intentions result in a flinch, which hurts either your Balance, Coordination or Mechanics - usually all three - thus creating a poor Impact and a bad shot outcome. Great golf shots are primarily the result of a detached, "care-free" state of mind, along with a courageous heart ("no fear") and a clear mental focus on just one thing - usually the Target.

We place "not caring" at a higher level of importance than overcoming both fear and doubt because fear and doubt have their origins in caring too much to begin with. "Not caring" is a state quite foreign to golfers raised in a Western culture but is understood and practiced widely in traditional Asian cultures. Like any state, it can be learned and mastered through practice.

Self Esteem, or "unconditional self-regard", means simply that you are comfortable with who you are. There are no "dark" hidden away parts of yourself that you are ashamed of. You feel deeply that you deserve happiness and success. That kind of Core Belief enables you to avoid self-sabotage - a very common syndrome in golf. Humility means overcoming the innate human tendency to see yourself as a victim of negative circumstances. Self-Importance needs to be confronted and overcome. Sometimes in golf, bad luck happens and "you just happen to be in the neighborhood that day" is a good way to think of it. When your ego freaks out about your last bad shot or bad score on a hole or for the day, you are indulging in way too much Self-Importance. You need to learn to laugh at yourself when bad stuff happens. That keeps your overall attitude toward the game and your chosen game improvement plan positive and enthusiastic.

Perseverance is essential to achieving success at your game improvement plan since in golf, real improvement often does not come easily. There are setbacks, and times when it feels to you like there is no real improvement taking place. Effective practice demands that you persevere. When you are patient and persist, you can really breakthrough to a much higher level of golf skill and performance.  Passive Awareness is the ability to observe your internal state - thoughts, sensations, body motion, balance, tempo, time sense and emotions - and how you react with your environment, in a kind of objective way, free of judgements. This is the foundation of real learning and effective practice.

Passive Awareness is the foundation for our Deep Insight method of learning golf skills. Without the sensory feedback/conceptual understanding feedback loop that Awareness allows, you will be unable to internalize the information that your instructor has given you. When you first internalize, when your "light bulb" comes on, you have really "got it " and that insight becomes the foundation you need in place for the second stage of habit formation to occur through quality practice.

Intention means clarity of purpose - choosing one single positive intention for every act that you peform. "My intention is to hit this 6 iron 170 yards to that target in the center of the green with a low trajectory and a three yard cut." Concentration - or active "narrow" awareness (mental focus) - on your chosen Intention for your golf shot is one of the most important fundamentals in the game. "Keep your eyes on the prize" is a great way of thinking about this state.

Meta-State is the foundation of several other Core States of Excellence such as: Courage, Letting Go, Concentration, Detachment, Composure, Commitment, Clarity, Positive Indifference, Trust and Confidence. Learning mastery over these states is essential for really achieving your potential in golf and especially for truly enjoying your time on the golf course and while learning and practicing as well.  Ben Hogan had a Rule Number One that he encompassed in a single phrase "Be kind to yourself" The seven elements of Meta-State are all present in that simple statement.

"What starts the backswing, ie which moves first, the clubhead, arms, wrists or body?"   DS, Honolulu.

There are three parts of the start of backswing: 1. body trigger or Start Up motion, 2.a Core/Torso turn/shift and 3. the wrist cocking/hinging and arm pushaway motion. We teach more than one body trigger method, depending on the student's skill level, balance and body type as far as how to initiate the backswing in the first stage.

For many of our students, including professionals, we recommend the traditional body forward press or Start Up Motion for the first stage, a slight rocking motion forward to the golfers left and then rebounding back to the right with a tiny amount of lateral motion. Think, bump forward one inch, rebound back two inches for a total of one inch of actual lateral weight shift, measured  at hip level. This a great way to establish rhythm in your golf swing and a natural, athletic, non-thinking way to get your swing started. Probably 99% of great golfers have historically started their backswing with this "triggering" method. The second stage happens along with the rebound phase of the body press, ie a fast shifting of the oblique abs to move the belly to the right is blended in with the tiny lateral weight shift action.

Another method is the Tiger Woods way - no body press, just an immediate and fast Core movement or belly shifting to the right. You are eliminating stage one and start with stage two. Better for your balance than the body forward press but can be poor for rhythm for some players.

The third way works best for most senior golfers, high handcappers, golfers with less than average athletic ability, and very tall golfers. You basically pre-set the one inch or even a little more of lateral shift as in the body press as part of your setup routine,(ie statically or you stop the tiny lateral shift after it is completed, and pause for a second or two before you fire your belly to the right), then start your swing motion with the Tiger belly shift. My experience over the years has shown me that for these kinds of golfers, the tiny lateral and dynamic motion of Start Up or body press tends to be done way too much, hurting their balance and/or too mechanically, ie lacks rhythm. They seem unable to grasp how tiny, fast and rhythmically this move should occur and with the right muscles creating it, ie a whole body weight shift back and forth that shows up visually more in the lower body, ie hip level, although many players feel the motion start and end in the soles of their feet or in their knees.

The fourth option is a very tiny, fast and dynamic oblique ab shift to the left as your trigger - but with no lateral weight shift - followed by a rebound oblqiue ab firing to the right, to trigger the Torso turn. Many of the younger tour pros today use this method.

Stage three is the blending of three actions simultaneously: the continued belly shift/turn along with the torso/shoulder girdle coiling to the right, the arm pushaway action on a 45 degree angle to the shoulder girdle (about 6-10 inches of motion) and the wrist action, or hinging back of right wrist to flatten the left wrist in line with left forearm, along with cocking of the wrists upwards. These three motions - body turn, arm pushaway and wrist action - must happen simultaneously and continuously until Takeway segment is completed. If you fail to make this three motions simultaneous, your arms, wrist action or body coil will be out of synch with each other during the rest of the swing, ie your timing will be way off.