Forward Press

[Simon Woo]

Re: Forward Press

Can someone help clarify. Are we talking about an actual address position, or a movement you do right before takeaway?

[ubizmo]

Re: Forward Press

Can someone help clarify. Are we talking about an actually address position, or a movement you do right before takeaway?

Could be either, but those who use it as a trigger make the movement to initiate the takeaway. It's really a slight turn toward the target before taking the club back.

[LowPost42]

Re: Forward Press

When most people talk about a forward press, it's a slight movement just before takeaway - like ubizmo said, more of a swing trigger.

[ubizmo]

Re: Forward Press

When I first started playing golf, a couple of seasons ago, I hadn't learned anything about the golf swing and didn't really know what I was supposed to do. I took a club and some balls and went to an isolated park and experimented. By trial and error I found that if I addressed the ball with a fairly exaggerated forward press, I could manage to hit it okay some of the time. I think I was using the forward press to correct for a number of other flaws, including a faulty ball position and bad posture.

Today, although my swing is nothing great, it's certainly better than it was then. I use a slight forward press to start the takeaway. This, I think, presets the right wrist into the lag position, instead of doing it in the takeaway. For anyone with a tendency to get too "wristy" in the backswing, I think this is an advantage. I pretty much hold that position throughout the backswing, and then in the transition to the downswing, the inertia of the club pushes the position a bit further, which I can feel. Then, if all goes well, I hold that through impact.

This business of "presetting" the impact position really helps me. It's also why I cock the right knee toward the ball at address, because I want to be turning toward the target at impact, and if I don't cock the right knee I have a tendency for my hips to remain "dead" and square to the ball at impact, resulting in power loss in the best case, or an open club face and push in the worst. In conjunction with the cocked right knee, the slight "reverse K" position of the body presets the "swinging under" (as Nicklaus calls it) and from the inside. These are all small adjustments, but for me they add up to a better swing. I imagine a person with better athletic intuitions for swinging a club wouldn't need them.

[msklar92]

Re: Forward Press

I think a foward press works for some and not others. I think the main point is to keep your swing triggers and preshot routine consistent. Personally, I have been working on a Mike Weir type trigger where you get the feeling of bringing the club back maintaining the initial triangle setup and maintaing the same distance between the elbows.

[Simon Woo]

Re: Forward Press

The grip is ok now but he noticed that I have a forward press and told me that I was deloffting the club by doing that and convinced me that I would bring much more power and better strikes if I concentrated on breaking that habit.

Hmm the forward press delofts the club and shouldn't bring less power and worse strikes, right?

[GreeBoman]

Re: Forward Press

Hmm the forward press delofts the club and shouldn't bring less power and worse strikes, right?

Well like everything I guess you can take it too far!