I am a voracious reader of golf books, for it provides me with a variety of resources to communicate with my students. One book that I find myself opening up frequently is Golf Mind Golf Body Golf Swing by PGA professional Michael Hebron.
I would like to share some of his thoughts on the golf swing.
• Golf cannot be taught, it can only be learned.
• By definition, speed has no direction. Speed can kill the swing.
• The most significant motive force causing movement is the pull of gravity.
• The body is basically a system of moveable segments (bones) or links, where big links move smaller links.
• The skeletal muscle system that moves bones receives its directions from the brain.
• All movements of the body are caused by forces external to the body.
• Muscles produce their maximum power at one-third of their maximum velocity.
• The eyes do not see; the mouth does not taste; the ears do not hear; everything happens in the brain first.
• The body moves for one of three reasons: 1. reflexes 2. anticipation 3. or when the mind’s eye has visualization for the body to copy.
• Momentum, by definition, is a constant rate of motion and is the most important force in the golf swing.
• When the inside portion of a system moves a few inches, the outside portion moves several feet.
• Where the clubface and the ball make contact (impact), where the ball leaves the face (separation), are two different stages of a sound swing.
• The clubface needs to be square to the line of flight only at the point of separation. Trying to have a square face at impact causes a bent left wrist.
• Sound swings move from wide to narrow as the face stays square to the arc of the swing. The club head is outside the handle in the backswing and inside the handle in the downswing.
• The most important alignment in golf is a flat left wrist, bent right wrist and elbow at and through impact.
• Sound swings deliver a slightly open clubface to the inside corner of the ball; not a square face to the back of the ball.
Mike Hebron is a great believer in the geometry and physics of the golf swing. His concept of the swing is golf, which equals geometrically orientated linear force.
—Gerald McCullagh
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