January 15, 2020- by Steve E. Greer
After making a lot of progress, I realized that I still have a terrible problem of tilting the spine to the right at impact. Rather than extend the right arm to get the club to the ground, I crouch over and tilt the body.
Well, that is a terribly hard thing to fix if you have done it for decades. The eyes and inner ears of our vestibular system do not like to be messed with. I knew that I needed some old-fashioned Jack Grout physical manipulation of the head.
So, I told Professor Bottke about my problem and we devised a novel teaching aid. I found it most effective to have the rubber grip pointed at my temple as he stood to my right. It added the sufficient resistance and proprioceptive feedback that holding the club from the front lacked.
Almost no teachers use this drill today because physical manipulation raises too many concerns of litigation from parents. But that is an unfounded concern somehow propagated by the PGA of America and other programs. It is just dumb.
From watching the Chris Como show on the Golf Channel, I did see that a few teachers use proprioceptive feedback, such as Grant Waite and Davis Leadbetter. It works. Ask your instructors to get hands-on.
If you have a golf instructor who stands back, arms folded, collects TrackMan data for an hour, mutters a few comments about what you are doing wrong, and little advice on how to fix it, then fire them. You are wasting your time and money.
In general, becoming an equal partner with your instructor(s) and owning your swing are how you get the most out of instruction. There are no golf gurus out there. You are the only one swinging the club.