Better Rhythm To Improve Your Topped Golf Shots (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Better Rhythm To Improve Your Topped Golf Shots (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

So we sometimes see that the rhythm of a golfer’s golf swing can actually cause them problems with topping the golf ball. They might make really good technical positions, but because their rhythm is either too quick or too slow, they actually find it very difficult to make that a repeating action. So if they look at themselves on video camera and frame by frame, look at what they are doing, they are always hitting the key positions that they want to hit in the swing. But when it comes to actually hitting the golf ball, because all those key positions don’t blend together very well and they are very rushed it doesn’t look so good at full speed as they did it frame by frame, we then see the golf ball is topped. So one thing I think we can work on to help you make a slower and smoother and a better tempo in your swing is actually just getting rid of the club for a second, and start working on how your shoulders are going to turn in the backswing, because when you focus on turning your shoulders in the backswing, the movement will be inherently slower than if you are focusing on your hands and arms.

Moving hands and arms can be quite quick, but moving shoulders is generally going to be a slower, steadier motion. So take your arms, cross them over your shoulders and hang around to your shoulders and then feel like you turn your shoulder this way. You’ll turn your shoulders more slowly than if you were just lifting up your hands and arms particular if you are a bit fast with your hands and arms, so here, turn the shoulders and then turn back through, turn the shoulders and turn back through. And you will feel that’s a slower more controlled motion than just letting the hands, particularly right hand get involved in picking the golf club up too quickly. So I think that’s a nice turning motion to give you the feeling. Now the next thing is make sure that you’ve got good rhythm and tempo for your downswing. So we’re going to have a little pause at the top before we swing down. So from a good address position here, we are going to go nicely up to the top, focus on the shoulders turning, shoulders turn to the top, pause for two and then swing down. And the feeling of pausing at the top for a lot of golfers feels like they have taken age at the top of the swing, it feels like a minute. Turn to the top, one, two and swing down. And it reduces this sort of half backswing swipe that a lot of golfers get. But they don’t really allow their backswing to finish ands complete because they are so keen to come down and hit the shot. Now we can feel quite awkward to swing to the top, hold for two and then hit the ball. But if you can get well practiced at this, that pause at the top can then just get gradually shorter and shorter and shorter until it isn’t there, but at least you are not rushing and throwing it from the top. It’s a nice slow transition before you swing down. So we take a nice set up again, we swing to the top, hold it for two and then hit down through the shot. And as long as we’re staying down nicely, we got a nice big chunk of turf flies up; we hit the ball straight down there at our target flag, because we have that nice little pause at the top. Try and bring that into your practice routine and then blend it out again so that you make sure that when you go and play you’ve got good rhythm, but you are not too quick from the top. 2015-10-09

So we sometimes see that the rhythm of a golfer’s golf swing can actually cause them problems with topping the golf ball. They might make really good technical positions, but because their rhythm is either too quick or too slow, they actually find it very difficult to make that a repeating action. So if they look at themselves on video camera and frame by frame, look at what they are doing, they are always hitting the key positions that they want to hit in the swing. But when it comes to actually hitting the golf ball, because all those key positions don’t blend together very well and they are very rushed it doesn’t look so good at full speed as they did it frame by frame, we then see the golf ball is topped. So one thing I think we can work on to help you make a slower and smoother and a better tempo in your swing is actually just getting rid of the club for a second, and start working on how your shoulders are going to turn in the backswing, because when you focus on turning your shoulders in the backswing, the movement will be inherently slower than if you are focusing on your hands and arms.

Moving hands and arms can be quite quick, but moving shoulders is generally going to be a slower, steadier motion. So take your arms, cross them over your shoulders and hang around to your shoulders and then feel like you turn your shoulder this way. You’ll turn your shoulders more slowly than if you were just lifting up your hands and arms particular if you are a bit fast with your hands and arms, so here, turn the shoulders and then turn back through, turn the shoulders and turn back through. And you will feel that’s a slower more controlled motion than just letting the hands, particularly right hand get involved in picking the golf club up too quickly. So I think that’s a nice turning motion to give you the feeling. Now the next thing is make sure that you’ve got good rhythm and tempo for your downswing. So we’re going to have a little pause at the top before we swing down. So from a good address position here, we are going to go nicely up to the top, focus on the shoulders turning, shoulders turn to the top, pause for two and then swing down.

And the feeling of pausing at the top for a lot of golfers feels like they have taken age at the top of the swing, it feels like a minute. Turn to the top, one, two and swing down. And it reduces this sort of half backswing swipe that a lot of golfers get. But they don’t really allow their backswing to finish ands complete because they are so keen to come down and hit the shot. Now we can feel quite awkward to swing to the top, hold for two and then hit the ball. But if you can get well practiced at this, that pause at the top can then just get gradually shorter and shorter and shorter until it isn’t there, but at least you are not rushing and throwing it from the top. It’s a nice slow transition before you swing down. So we take a nice set up again, we swing to the top, hold it for two and then hit down through the shot. And as long as we’re staying down nicely, we got a nice big chunk of turf flies up; we hit the ball straight down there at our target flag, because we have that nice little pause at the top. Try and bring that into your practice routine and then blend it out again so that you make sure that when you go and play you’ve got good rhythm, but you are not too quick from the top.