Swinging Down Through The Golf Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles
Swinging Down Through The Golf Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if we’re now in a position where we’re committed to making this Zack Johnson style of strong grip and we’ve also understood the pitfalls of that or the fact that if the lower body doesn’t work, the hands are going to take over too fast, we’re going to start hooking the ball. So we know that Zack Johnson makes the swing work for him by being very aggressive with his lower half and really driving his bottom half through the ball very aggressively to stop his hands overtaking. Now, if you’re going to make this commitment, you’ve really got to keep working on that lower half, make sure that from the start of the transitional phase of your swing, your legs and your arms moving unison to each other but your legs are moving ahead of your hands and arms the whole time not letting the hands go and past.

So a couple of key pointers to make sure that works well for you. The first one would be to really make sure that you work from the ground up so the legs are going to drive very quickly from the feet upwards. So from the top of the backswing, we really feel the pressure go on to the rear leg and the inside of the rear leg in a pushing across and upwards fashion driving that front hip and leg out of the way with a lateral rotation and really pushing from the ground up to get that body weight shifting. If we get on to the outside of the rear leg and we’re slow to transition, the hands will come down, that strong grip will come over the top and you’ll pull the ball down the left-hand side quite violently which could be a big problem. Now, once we have initiated that transition, we’ve started to drive across, we’ve then got to make sure we don’t lose our confidence halfway through that down swing. We sometimes see, you know, we start at moving across then we panic. We’re fearful of turning through in which we’re fearful of sliding too much and we pull out of it. And the golfer that moves and then pulls back is again going to struggle with those hands turning over the top too much. So we’ve really got to make sure that we’re not getting scared of this transitional motion and we’re not pulling out and looking back. So as I set up again here from the top of the backswing, we turn to the top, we drive the hips and the legs and we keep spinning the lower body, we keep rotating. Anything where we got a bit stuck on the back leg, just see that flat hook down that left side because my legs got stuck and didn’t move. And that might require an exaggerated version. But honestly, I see that on a day to day basis coaching where people get here with their hips instead of driving through. And particularly if you’ve got the Zack Johnson style of strong grip, you can’t be less than fully committed with your lower body rotation driving from the ground upwards and full commitment to turning your hips through the golf ball. 2016-05-12

So if we’re now in a position where we’re committed to making this Zack Johnson style of strong grip and we’ve also understood the pitfalls of that or the fact that if the lower body doesn’t work, the hands are going to take over too fast, we’re going to start hooking the ball. So we know that Zack Johnson makes the swing work for him by being very aggressive with his lower half and really driving his bottom half through the ball very aggressively to stop his hands overtaking. Now, if you’re going to make this commitment, you’ve really got to keep working on that lower half, make sure that from the start of the transitional phase of your swing, your legs and your arms moving unison to each other but your legs are moving ahead of your hands and arms the whole time not letting the hands go and past.

So a couple of key pointers to make sure that works well for you. The first one would be to really make sure that you work from the ground up so the legs are going to drive very quickly from the feet upwards. So from the top of the backswing, we really feel the pressure go on to the rear leg and the inside of the rear leg in a pushing across and upwards fashion driving that front hip and leg out of the way with a lateral rotation and really pushing from the ground up to get that body weight shifting. If we get on to the outside of the rear leg and we’re slow to transition, the hands will come down, that strong grip will come over the top and you’ll pull the ball down the left-hand side quite violently which could be a big problem.

Now, once we have initiated that transition, we’ve started to drive across, we’ve then got to make sure we don’t lose our confidence halfway through that down swing. We sometimes see, you know, we start at moving across then we panic. We’re fearful of turning through in which we’re fearful of sliding too much and we pull out of it. And the golfer that moves and then pulls back is again going to struggle with those hands turning over the top too much. So we’ve really got to make sure that we’re not getting scared of this transitional motion and we’re not pulling out and looking back.

So as I set up again here from the top of the backswing, we turn to the top, we drive the hips and the legs and we keep spinning the lower body, we keep rotating. Anything where we got a bit stuck on the back leg, just see that flat hook down that left side because my legs got stuck and didn’t move. And that might require an exaggerated version. But honestly, I see that on a day to day basis coaching where people get here with their hips instead of driving through. And particularly if you’ve got the Zack Johnson style of strong grip, you can’t be less than fully committed with your lower body rotation driving from the ground upwards and full commitment to turning your hips through the golf ball.