The Set Up
“Practice makes perfect.” I’ve heard this saying often over the years. After 16 years of coaching and working with players of varying skill levels, I think there’s much more to practice than simply logging hours, if you are serious about game improvement.
When I was about 12 years old, my siblings and I started taking golf lessons from renowned golf instructors, including David Leadbetter. David’s explanation of the challenges of learning golf was especially helpful to me as someone who didn’t consider myself to be a natural at the sport.“Why don’t I have a good swing?” I remember asking David at one of our first lessons. I remember his response clearly. “The golf swing is not a natural motion,” he said. “Running, throwing, or kicking is more natural and intuitive. You can kick a ball poorly and it will still go forward. How many people can make contact with a golf ball the very first time they swing a club?”
If you play another ball-and-stick sport such as hockey or squash, then you probably have a leg up on someone who doesn’t. If you are athletic with great proprioception or hand-eye coordination, that should shorten your learning curve. If you learn golf from a young age, your older self will thank you, and you’ll likely pick up the game much faster. Speed, strength, and power is best built from a young age after all. So I agree with David — the golf swing is not intuitive, and with a ball that is smaller is size, it’s difficult for beginners to start off with a bang, literally.
Developing a solid foundation for golf starts with good basic fundamentals — a good grip, square alignment, and an athletic posture. These fundamentals influence how your body and club moves from the start and throughout your swing. If you watch or listen to instructional golf content, websites and t.v shows have these topics on rotation. But do you ever wonder why basic fundamentals are so important? After years of reflecting on the best response to this question, I’ve come up with my own explanation: because good fundamentals help you form a simpler swing pattern, and a simpler swing pattern is easier to repeat than a more complicated one. Repeatability is the key to consistency. That’s really it. Align your feet, knees, hips, and shoulders in all different directions like a cross roads sign and you’re encouraging a winding swing that’s challenging to repeat twice, let alone on an ongoing basis. Although good fundamentals don’t necessarily guarantee a good swing, bad fundamentals surely guarantee that you won’t have the simplest possible swing.
I want to share a few basic drills that I’ve done over the years that help fine tune my fundamentals. I especially like that they don’t require fancy tools:
Grip: first work with a coach to understand what a neutral grip looks like. If you prefer a grip that is a bit stronger or weaker that is fine, as long as it works for you. Practice gripping a club in front of a full length mirror. Grip the club first, then look at it closely in the mirror to check that it looks right. You’ll need to do this more often as you are starting out in the game, but expect to do this on and off your entire golfing life. Even the pros make grip adjustments regularly — it’s just one of those things that shift around from time to time. We are humans that wake up feeling different every day. We are not concrete!
Alignment: next up is the alignment stick, golf’s most popular training aid. One of the best ways to test your alignment is to set up to a shot on the range and ask a friend to put an alignment stick down along the lines of your feet. Notice how I didn’t say ask your siblings, because they’ll point it somewhere else on purpose just to drive you mad! If the stick isn’t pointing anywhere close to your target line, it’s time to put in some time with the alignment stick. The pros love to start off their range sessions by ‘zeroing out’ their alignment. As one of my coaches once explained it to me, alignment in golf is challenging because it’s easier to aim when you are standing directly behind the ball staring down the target line in the distance. It’s harder to aim when you are standing next to the ball and trying to get parallel to the target line. That’s why we need to practice our alignment regularly — it’s just not intuitive.
Posture: we are all built differently. We come in different shapes, sizes, and proportions. My sister and I are identical twins and we are physically strong in different limbs with different proportions — a fact that still surprises me today. The goal is to have an athletic posture that encourages a good swing, keeping your unique proportions in mind. Unless you are Tiger Woods and grew up with the most perfect golf golf set up since the age of 1, you’ll need to pair up with a coach for more specific feedback on your best posture based on your body type. Once you have a good template for posture, practicing your setup in a full length mirror will go along way. Practicing in the mirror is especially helpful as you can make adjustments quickly and get visual feedback without your coach being there. Once you have learned your ideal posture, test yourself by getting into your posture, then look up at the mirror for visual feedback.
Bonus posture tip: getting on a good mobility and golf specific training program can also be very helpful if you have trouble getting into good posture. We all have some physical imbalances and limitations — it’s normal and expected. Your body will also thank you when you’re older.
Recap
Pair up with a good golf coach early on to build good basic fundamentals — grip, alignment, and posture. Learn how to maintain these fundamentals when you are practicing without your coach. Ask for drills and exercises you can do on your own. Do those drills with a coach to verify you are doing them correctly before doing them on your own.
You’ll be working on golf fundamentals for the rest of your life so you should normalize it and not look at it as too basic to work on. Having something to work on can be comforting after all, like knowing that you’ll see an old friend on the practice range. Good fundamentals help you develop a pattern that repeats. While it may feel like it’s slow paced and boring to spend time on these basics, working on these early on will optimize your game progression down the road.
