How to Cast the Golf Club

Marc: Welcome back to Golf is Hard TV, the golf show for the rest of us. We are clapping, we are getting our keys. It is the most -- what it is most? The most passionate show on the Internet-- Dave: The most passionate, the most informative, the most fun -- Marc: Unbelievable and we are finally, we are excited; we are finally ready to talk about the full swing. And I don’t know where to go, here we go. I know I posted about this the other day on the blog there, thanks to oobgolf, I won a contest. I never win any, you won any? Dave: How did you win that? No, I hardly win. Marc: I don’t even know. I have been using with golf for ages and now I have a driver that comes with adjustable wrenches and stuff. Dave: That is there. That is scary. Marc: Scary, but -- Dave: So is that legal? That’s a thing I have seen the ads on TV and you can adjust the face angle, it is open, close whatever -- is that legal? It must be, I don’t know. Marc: I think you can only adjust it -- you can’t adjust the middle around because it is a different club, right? Dave: That’s a good question. Marc: I don’t know, maybe somebody out there who knows E-mail us, Twitter us. But there it is Dave, look at that, look at that thing. Dave: That’s the Nike SQ. Marc: That’s my new driver. Dave: Dymo, Nine and a half. Marc: Really nice, it's straight fit. But the head cover, I think is the most impressive part of this. If I had two of them -- Dave: Oh! It is crazy. Marc: It's ridiculous. Anyway, it is a great club, really enjoy using it, finally hit a couple of straight ones today. Boy! This is so long; I will hit it far with this thing. Dave: 460cc head, which means 460 cubic centimeters and I think that’s the face. Marc: And that’s a biggest, it is allowed right. Dave: The face mask which is the max allowable right now, it will change next year. Marc: So we have been talking of putting, we have been talking chipping, but we have not talked about the full swing driver or other ones. So I am excited to get some lessons here about the full swing. I know today on the course you give me a tip about my -- start my swing with maybe turning my knee and as soon as I did that, the ball started flying great. Dave: You hit some great shots. Yeah we talked about footwork, hip turn. But that stuff like we said is more for the advanced player, well, we are going to talk about what it takes to get the average golfer immediately to hit better shots. Marc: Sounds good to me. Dave: And it is the opposite of everything you have read about -- not everything you have read, it is the opposite of what you read about maintaining its angle on a down swing and that’s been the biggest killer for most -- Marc: So is this our first golfers Hard TV controversial episode and we are going to get hate E-mails from Butch Harmon and people like that. Dave: In coming -- not really because he would probably agree to some extent with this. Jim Flick would agree with this. Marc: Alright, so it is not really controversial, but it is not what -- Dave: Some teachers teach the opposite. I would say, less experienced teachers will teach the opposite. Marc: Alright let me get out of the way. You do your lesson, I won’t be coming. Dave: And we are going to keep it very simple. It basically called “cast it from the top” and you have actually heard teachers and I have to say I spent three years working with the Jim Flick schools. Mr. Flick if you are out there, hope you are doing well and I hope you don’t mind the reference because I learned a lot watching you teach and watching the professional that you hire teach the game at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale. This is the problem, a lot of people want to cure the slice. This is the beginning of learning how to rotate the face so that ball doesn’t slice anymore. So we have already covered off on why you need to hit down and through the ball, hit the little ball before the big ball, very important. So now we are going to talk about – now we are taking for granted that you have watched our episodes, your grip is good and you have good posture. So those are crucial, so if you haven’t had a chance to go back and look at those, please do because the posture and the grip are very, very important to make this work. So if you are at that point now and I am going to start from the top of the swing and what you want to think about what you want to feel. So you have taken your setup, nice backswing, you know you want to hit down and through the ball, but how do we make that happen. And you want to think about this right here, this club head is the farthest thing from a golf ball, the top of a swing. It is not the grip, it is not the hands, it is not the elbows, it is not the hips. The farthest thing from the ball -- now at the top of the swing, little wind damage there -- is the club head. So what do we have to get moving first to the golf ball, anyone? Well if we had an audience, some would yell out, the club head. Marc: The club head, club head. Dave: Exactly right, the club head. So we take the club to the top or at the top of our backswing, you got to get this club head moving first to the golf ball which means we have got to feel this. We have to feel the wrist, unhinging and starting to throw that club head down to the ball so we can get that down swing going. And also what that means is how about if we pan mark right down here at the ball. Here is the square club face -- is that if we talk during the shot, is that okay? You can hit it if you want. So we have a square club face, now we are going to pretend that this is impact on the down swing. When we start thinking about throwing a club head from the top, we are going to get that club face to square up and start to roll over and that’s’ going to begin, that will eliminate the slice. And here is a quick thought on what the club head does throughout the swing. It starts square; it opens 90, closes 90. It's 180 degree movement of the club head, that’s it. This is the top of the swing, we need to get that club square by the time we get it down back to the ball and then we just want to let it roll over and Marc, maybe you can take a look at my hands what they are doing. This is how I get the club to rotate 180 degrees, when you start to incorporate a little bit of arm swing you can see my hands completely rotate through and this is what you want to happen through the shot, right here. What does the average golf from slices, what do the hands do? They do this through impact. That’s over-exaggerated but the face is basically staying open through the shot. Okay, so get it to the top and really think about this. There is a nice chip right there, I think he has been watching golfishardtv.com. That was a great shot. Okay, so we are at the top of the swing and we want to think about unhinging the wrist right away, nice light grip pressure, get that club head moving. What you may have read or what if you have taken lessons, you have been taught to hold on to that club, maintain at 90 degree angle as long as you can to create power and it has the opposite effect, so let’s try it. I am going to take it to the top, just roll that club through the ball and there you go, cast it from the top.