The average amateur in the game of golf uses a lot of arms,
hands and wrists in their putting stroke.
This is a “flippy” motion that is extremely difficult to produce
consistent speed with. That little flip
or push at the bottom with the wrists and hands adds an amount of speed that is
difficult to predict. Professionals
isolate this motion to a bigger muscle group and rely on judging the correct
pendulum (rotation of the shoulders) to judge speed.
When those I work with start out working to isolate this
motion to just the shoulders, the first thing that happens, generally speaking,
is that they stiffen up these muscles in an effort to engage them. The reality is that stiff, tight muscles do
not want to move very much and these players find that while they are now
rotating their body…their whole body (head, hips, knees, etc.) is moving
around. A general principle in the game
of golf is that relaxed muscles move and tight muscles restrict movement. To isolate the motion to the shoulders they
must be engaged and yet also relaxed enough to rotate.
This is challenging to accomplish at first. Think of it this way, in any “life and death”
situation we brace for impact. Our
bodies have an innate protection mechanism that tightens the shoulders up to
help protect the most important of bodily organs, the brain. Unfortunately, this instinct shows up in
situations that are far from “life and death”.
The putting stroke or golf swing more generally would be a good example
of this. Golf is not “life and death”,
as much as our minds and bodies may conceive of that to be the case.
As was mentioned in the Putting Fundamentals sections, the
proper setup holds the key to get the body in a position where the structure of
the skeleton holds us in the proper posture to cradle the club from underneath
and engage the shoulders in a relaxed and rotational way.
Shoulder Rotation Drill
*Optional – Put on some music that you like the rhythm of.
In the comfort of your home and without holding a club or
relating to a golf ball, get into the fundamental posture that was discussed in
the Putting Fundamentals section.
Let your arms hang down underneath the shoulder sockets and
set your hands in a cradling position, with an imaginary club resting in the
middle section of your fingers and your thumbs up and off the imaginary
club.
*Instead of a golf club, you can imagine that you are holding
a baby bird in the second section of your fingers and you are rocking that bird
to sleep, being careful not to make any quick and sudden movements in your
hands.
Relax the shoulders and see if you can maintain a relationship
where the shoulders are hanging down in the sockets throughout the motion.
Begin slowly and gently turning the shoulders around the
spine in rhythm. “Tick-Tock Goes the
Clock” can serve as a kind of mantra for this drill. Start out with small turns that are equal on
each side and slowly expand those out to bigger and equal turns on both sides.
You should feel the big muscles in the core of your body
working and the rest of your body relatively relaxed and quiet.
If you find your hands/wrists flipping (as if that baby bird
in your hands is on a roller coaster instead of a gentle rocking motion), pay
attention to your shoulders. Are they
relaxed or tense?
We are looking for every part of the body to stay relatively
still except the relaxed rotation of the shoulders.
·
Head/Spine should stay centered and still
·
Feet, Knees and Hips are solid and very quiet in
the movement
·
The shoulders should be turning very slightly
away from the target and through the target (in an arc around the spine)
·
After doing it back and forth for a while it should
feel like hardly any effort is required for the club to swing. The pendulum is doing the swinging and you
are basically just there to witness this effortless power.
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