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SWING: THE
POWER SEQUENCE
T&L SMART Golf
GREATER DISTANCE BEGINS WHEN YOU ADDRESS THE BALL (By
Harry Hurt III)
Once upon a time, the term "athletic"
was seldom applied to the golf swing. Tiger Woods has
changed all that, along with almost everything else
that applies to the game, and over the past few years
both professional and top-level amateur golf have become
power sports. Accuracy and finesse are still important,
but as Tiger as shown, the ability to drive par fours,
say, provides a multi-shot advantage over the field.
With his natural physical attributes being further developed
by a highly secretive workout regimen, Woods personifies
golf's new athleticism.
But short of trading for new and improved DNA at the
local gene cloning center, is there any way the rest
of us can ever hope top catch up with Tiger Woods? Probably
not. We can, however, add length to our drives and more
riflelike consistency to our iron shots with a more
athletic approach that utilizes our own physical attributes
and doesn't require untold hours in a gym. David Leadbetter
has been preaching about athletic swings for more than
a decade, but his method-oriented instructional approach
has products its best results with already gifted athletes
such as Nick Faldo, Nick Price and Se Ri Pak. Happily,
Mitchell Spearman, a 37 year-old former Leadbetter protégé,
has evolved the concept of an athletic swing to make
it more accessible to the rest of us.
"I ask my students to
do what they can do, not what they can't,"
says Spearman, who stands just five foot eight and weighs
152 pounds. "I try to
work with what people have, not try to make them acquire
something they don't have or can't ever have."
Born in London, Spearman turned pro at the tender age
of sixteen and played on the European PGA Tour. He later
moved to Florida, where he served as Leadbetter's top
assistant from 1988 until 1998. Spearman is now based
at Manhattan Woods Golf Club, outside New York City,
from April to October; he spends most of the winter
months at Isleworth Golf Club in Orlando, Florida, where
Woods is a member.
Spearman's private lessons are intensive and expensive.
He charges $1,500 for a minimum three-hour session.
But unlike a typical golf school, instruction it always
one-on-one, with no mother students or teachers present.
"I'm serious, and I want
serious students," he
says. "At the price I
charge, my students are more apt to listen to me. I'm
not just taking a group and teaching them a method.
I'm taking individuals and making them better players.
That's what makes it fun and effective."
A lesson with Spearman begins with a questionnaire sent
out to every student at least a week before you set
foot on the practice range. Along with eliciting such
basic facts as age, handicap level and frequency of
play and practice, the questionnaire asks what you perceive
to be the strengths and weaknesses of your game, whether
you consider yourself to be a technical player or a
feel player, and what goals you've set for your game.
Once you arrive for a lesson, Spearman peppers you with
even more detailed follow-up questions. He then makes
a before videotape of your swings with short or medium
irons and your driver. "I
really try to get to know my students and their swings,"
he declares, "not just
have them hit balls and balls and balls out on the range."
Given his aversion to method teaching, Spearman makes
every lesson different because every player is different,
giving each student no more than one or two specific
things to work on to improve. In my case, Spearman focused
on my setup and take-away. I often lean against my left
leg at address and take the club back on a path that
Spearman said is too inside. Because the club gets cramped
to my body on my backswing, I have to compensate with
a hip slide, a shoulder lunge and/or flip of my hands
on the downswing. As Spearman observed during our review
of my before tape, my swing had an overall look of "power
leakage" because my inside take-away did not allow
me to capitalize on the natural length of my arms or
the muscles of my legs.
To my surprise and relief, Spearman did not try to cure
my manifold ailments by directing me to assume a series
of positioning poses, instead, we focused on what he
calls sequencing - moving the swing components in proper
order. ("Better sequencing
promotes better positions - not the other way round,"
he said.) The faulty sequencing in the swings captured
on my before tape was actually a kind of non-sequencing;
in other words, I started my backswing with the club,
my arms, my upper body and my lower body moving at the
same time. This non-sequencing, in turn, resulted partly
from my left-leaning setup.
Spearman immediately improved my setup with a simple
stance-opening choreography that reminded me of a ballet
drill and effectively put my weight much more on top
of my right leg at address (see "Three
Steps to a Power Setup"
below). Then he led me through a brief sequencing drill
in which I moved the club, then my arms, then my torso
and upper body. Moving my lower body was the final link
in the sequencing, but rather than turning my hips,
Spearman directed me to resist with my hips to create
more coil and torque. ("They'll
still turn somewhat," he
noted, "but not nearly
as much as before.")
He then showed me how to extend my arms in order to
achieve more space and a wider arc on my backswing,
and how to cock my wrists earlier so that I didn't end
up wrapping the club around my left ear.
When we returned to the practice range, I was stunned
by the new power in my golf swing. No, I didn't hit
every shot perfectly right out of the box. But within
fifteen minutes, I started gaining distance to the tune
of five to ten yards on six-iron shots, and ten to fifteen
yards on my drives. Spearman insisted that this sudden
transformation was not a matter of magic or mystery,
but what he strives to achieve with all of his students
by utilizing their own individual athletic abilities.
"You only need little
improvements to make a big difference in someone's swing,"
he told me. "It takes a bit of patience and playing
to own it, but you should see results instantaneously."
THREE STEPS TO A POWER SETUP
If you want to play power golf,
you've got to start with a setup that enables a more
powerful swing. The key is assuming an address position
that permits you to coil around your right leg on your
backswing to create resistance and torque. Following,
Mitchell Spearman's three-step procedure.
STEP 1 Stand
with your feet five to six inches apart, and flex both
knees as you would in a normal address procedure.
STEP 2 Extend
your left leg to the width of a normal stance and turn
your left foot out so that the toes are pointing parallel
to the target line rather than perpendicular to it.
You should fell most, if not quite all, of your weight
on top of your right leg. Your sternum should be slightly
right of the ball. To check for proper position, simply
look down. Your right knee should be covering the back
half of the shoe, but it should not be angled inside
toward the ball.
STEP 3 Turn
your left toe slightly back toward the target line,
but don't overdo it. Make sure to maintain the openness
of your stance, and make sure not to let your weight
slide toward your left leg. By keeping the weight on
top of your right leg at address, you won't have to
move as much to the right on your backswing to achieve
the coil needed to play power golf.
To view the other Press
articles featuring Mitchell click
here . . .
For more information on Mitchell
Spearman click
here . . .
For more information on the
Tour
Players Mitchell is
currently working with click
here . . .
For information on the other
Staff
working for Mitchell Spearman Golf
click here . . .
For information on receiving Individual
or Corporate
Instruction please
click
here . . .
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