There’ll always be the long term debate within golfing circles of who had the best ever swing and I'm sure may club houses and many 19th holes around the world are full of golfers chatting about whose got the best swing be it from the golf club or even from the P.J Tour in the TV that they’ve seen, but for me if you could come by in 2 golf swings it would be the technical positions that Ben Hogan creates and the effortless rhythm that Ernie Els creates. And I think if you smash those two golf swings together the guys swing you come out with is Trevor Immelman. Most people on the P.J Tour would rate that as definitely in that top 5 best ever swings possibly of the current era maybe even of all time, its right up there as the best positions. And I think one of the things you notice with Immelman is when he’s playing well he has very few swing thoughts. He sets up to the ball, quick waggle, quick check and of he goes. But that doesn’t come naturally too much, he has to work quite hard in his set up routine on the practice ground to make sure his fundamentals every single week are the same, and if his fundamentals are the same that allows that beautiful looking fluid golf swing just to perform, just to happen.
Unlike most of the other South African golfers the Ratief Goosens’ the Ernie Els that I mentioned before, the one thing that really sets his swing apart is just the effortless rhythm that he has throughout the swing. Now if you want to create that, one of the biggest killers to that smooth rhythm that I see from a lot of club golfers is too much grip pressure and too much tension. You watch Immelman you watch Els you watch Goosen as they set up to the golf ball, everything just seems to be in slow motion, just super relaxed and then away they go… there doesn’t seem to be any rush in any part of their swing. Now if we do that slightly differently now with grip pressure and try this yourself, try hitting a few shots really relaxed like that then try hitting a few shots strangling the golf club as much as I can.
If I set up to this now I'm going to grab this golf club 10 out of 10 and squeeze it and straight away everything just becomes a lot more tense, right through my fore-arms, right into my shoulders. My golf swing gets a lot quicker, gets a lot shorter, I rush everything. I really don t feel like I could play good golf and I certainly don’t feel I could play good golf under pressure consistently.
So when you are setting up to the golf ball, think about gripping the golf club almost so it falls out of your hands and number that a 1 out of 10. Then grip the golf club as tightly as you possibly can and squeeze it and number that a 10 out of 10. Now think about holding the golf club like Trevor Immelman, that’s a 4 out of 10. Nicely relaxed with the hands, nice and smooth rhythmic, rhythmical smooth golf swing producing beautiful results like all of the South African players.