Feet together, legs together.

[delboy159]

I was out with a friend last week and said how I have a terrible habit of swaying. He suggested the legs together drill where I can't possible sway - because I'll fall over if I do....

I did this at the driving range yesterday evening.

Firstly, I couldn't get the ball quite as long as usual (with my 7 iron), but my contact was better, my average distance was better and I had virtually no bad shots. All in all, if I rate my normal 7 iron "results" as 5/10. The "results" with the feet together drill would be 7/10 (the only thing stopping it being an 8/10 is that distance was sacrificed a little - that being the 2 out of 10 long ones I usually get with my normal swing wasn't there - but either were the 5 out of 10 ones that weren't hit well...).

This really made me think about how badly and inconsistently I am swinging normally. I tried to do practice swings with the feet together and then a proper swing with a ball, it didn't really help to practice the drill before the normal swing.

It really did shock me to see how easy it was to swing with this drill, and how inconsistent I was with a normal swing. Does anyone have any advice on how I could build on the feet together and get my normal swing as "comapact and tight" as the feet together swing.....

[GregJWillis]

Re: Feet together, legs together.

You should be hitting it a little shorter with the drill, so that's ok.
The drill is supposed to let you get a feel of rotating around your body, using your body as a center and everything staying very balanced.
Your legs can get in your way if you are not careful. Thinking that the drive of the legs is supposed to have the body drive forward towards the target and that is adding power is incorrect. All you want your legs to do is help your body rotate. Balance is absolutely the key to have a consistent impact point. Otherwise you are having to compensate with your hands and that is really bad.
So, to help balance, the idea of the legs helping the rotation of the body and your body being the center of your swing, try the walking drill:
http://mysite.verizon.net/gregjwillis/LESSON2.htm

[msklar92]

Re: Feet together, legs together.

if you want to move your legs apart a bit, hold the range ball bucket ( a small one) between your feet and then once you get used to that, between your knees.

[sparko]

Re: Feet together, legs together.

hi
ive just been watching a dvd by david leadbetter and one of the drills he does is with a beach ball between the kneese not blown up fully, this seemed to be great for balance dont know if this will help great dvd though.

[pnearn]

Re: Feet together, legs together.

I'll probably reopen the debate about the transition again here but what this drill does is teach you to quiten down your lower body through the swing

In the backswing the lower body provides the stable base for the upper body to shift and turn. In the downswing the same base needs to be maintained to allow the upper body and arms to drive down and through the ball

If your feet are together your lower body cannot slide away from the ball on the way back or slide towards the target on the way down(leading to blocks and slices/pulls). You also have to start the downswing with your upper body and have the lower body follow else you fall over!

Heres some interesting pieces that describes this

http://www.krankgolf.com/quietgolf.htm
http://www.bostongolfschool.com/quiet-body.html

For those who are used to way over-rotating/sliding their lower bodies, this will feel like an upper body sway, but they do say that you have to accentuate opposite feelings to feel the right ones. In fact what you are doing is moving onto your right side with a convex back shape at the top

http://www.golftoday.co.uk/images/p75.jpg