Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Club
5 Hybrid
7 Iron
7 Wood
8 Iron
Pitch. wedge
Driver
6 Iron
7 Wood
5 Wood
9 Wood
7 Wood
Pitch. wedge
Wedge
4 Iron
Yardage
107
131
123
123
95
142
155
107
84
94
146
119
103
160
Hole
16
2
8
8
2
13
11
16
17
8
7
6
15
3
Golf Course
Echo Mesa
Stardust
Stardust
Stardust
Echo Mesa
Echo Mesa
Pebblebrook
Echo Mesa
Desert Trails
Pebblebrook
Trail Ridge
Echo Mesa
Echo Mesa
Desert Trails
Date
11-2-2008
11-3-2008
11-5-2008
11-8-2008
11-8-2008
11-10-2008
11-12-2008
11-16-2008
11-18-2008
11-20-2008
11-21-2008
11-21-2008
11-22-2008
11-24-2008
Name
Pauline M. Phillips
Joe E. Williams
Bill Timmons
Bill Tolan
John Sheehan
Connie Erwig
Brian Hicks
Terry Hayden
Marge McKinney
Linda Swift
Don Schroetlin
Dick LeMoine
Richard Kerr
Allan Krul
Holes in One
I believe that good timing is
the key to hitting consistent
golf shots. Yes, you need other
things as well (starting with a
good set-up and proper swing
mechanics), but I have found
that timing is something many
golfers struggle with.
What exactly is timing?
Timing is the way you use your
arms, hands and body together
in swinging the golf
club. When the timing
is good, everything
works in the proper
order; when timing is
off things get out of
sync. A swing with good tim-
ing will most likely look
smooth, although it may be fast
or slow. It most likely will be
in balance at the end of the fol-
low-through.
Why is good timing
important? If the tim-
ing of the swing is
good, the chance that
the club will stay on
path and make proper
connection with the
golf ball is improved
greatly.
Besides making better con-
nection, generally a golfer with
good timing will find consis-
tency in their shots.
How do you best work on
timing? See if you can swing
the club in a smooth manner,
one that allows you to be in
balance at the end of the swing.
Sometimes counting one and
two or back and through
may help in finding a good
rhythm to the swing.
Tee up the ball and practice
with short clubs first, then as
confidence and consistency is
attained, gradually move on to
medium and long clubs.
Robin Eichten is a Class A
LPGA member and certified
teacher. She gives lessons on
alternating weeks at Echo
Mesa, Deer Valley and Pebble-
brook. Lessons are $35.
Group lessons for beginners
and intermediates begin
Wednesday, Jan. 14 ($125 for
five weeks).
For information or to sched-
ule an appointment, call Robin
at 623-322-6300 or email her
at golfinwithrobin@aol.com.
PAGE 11 WWW.RCSCW.COM JANUARY 2009
Golf
For consistent golf shots work on your timing!
Golfing with Robin
Robin Eichten
Relax into the downswing to obtain effortless power
With a two-plane
golf swing, one of the
objectives of the
backswing is to arrive
at the top of the back-
swing in a relaxed
state. If you have
done a good job of
swinging to the top of
the backswing, you
have made a backswing that
utilized momentum and mini-
mized muscle involvement of
the shoulders. You are then in
a position to drop the hands
and the club into the hitting
area.
Youll notice I said drop.
Thats the difference between a
good downswing and the
downswing we see most often.
The most common two-plane
downswing could be referred
to as tugging on the handle.
The golfer tries to maximize
his power by applying force to
the club as the club ap-
proaches the hitting
area. The problem
with this approach is it
leads to a premature re-
lease of the angle be-
tween the left arm and
the shaft of the club.
The clubhead over-
takes the hands before
impact and as it approaches the
hitting area it is traveling up
and away, not into, the ball.
The result is a glancing blow
on the ball and little power.
Some golfers recognize this
and try to pull on the club as
opposed to pushing on the
club. They need to understand
that any force applied to the
club from the top will cause it
to overtake the hands. Pulling
and pushing amount to the
same thing.
The very act of applying
force to the club for the pur-
poses of bashing the ball will
lead to this loss of angle and
dissipation of power.
Well gee, Tom, if Im not
supposed to pull/push on the
club to get power, how does it
happen? It happens by drop-
ping your hands in front of the
club, not pulling on it! Now
what does that mean?
It means, literally, that your
hands should drop out from
under the club in the same way
that a trapdoor would drop out
from under your feet. If you
look at slow motion pictures of
touring players you will see
that the club drops in closer to
them at the start of the down-
swing. There is no way to ex-
plain that by applying force to
the club. The only way to ex-
plain that is by the hands drop-
ping out from under the club
and the club falling to the in-
side.
When the downswing is un-
dertaken in this way, the re-
lease of the club comes late in
the downswing and explodes
into the back of the ball. The
weight of the entire club is ap-
plied to the ball, not merely the
clubhead. This is the essence
of effortless power the maxi-
mum application of mass into
the back of the ball. Therefore,
the effective downswing is one
that is characterized by relax-
ing the shoulders and allowing
the club and the arms to drop
together. This enables the
hands to reach the ball first,
ahead of the clubhead, and to
deliver crushing impact.
Space limitations prohibit
me from going into the one-
plane downswing at this time.
Well undertake that next
time
NOTE: The free clinics
meet at 3 p.m. Fridays. In Jan-
uary, the clinics will be Jan. 2
at Pebblebrook (short game),
Jan.9 at Stardust (putting),
Jan.16 at Trail Ridge (full
swing), Jan. 23 at Deer Valley
(short game) and Jan. 30 at
Desert Trails (putting). In Feb-
ruary, the clinics will be Feb. 6
at Echo Mesa (full swing), Feb.
13 at Grandview (short game),
Feb. 20 at Pebblebrook
(putting) and Feb. 27 at Star-
dust (full swing).
Future clinics will be an-
nounced here throughout the
season. The clinics will run
through April 24.
Tom Drisler is the teacher at
Trail Ridge Golf Club. The
Intensive Care Daily Golf
School meets every day, Mon-
day through Friday, at Trail
Ridge. For more information,
to obtain an emailed brochure,
or to schedule a lesson, call
602-316-0419.
Tom Drisler
There always seems
to be a big argument
among golf instructors
about the role the hands
play in the golf swing.
All good golfers use
their hands, some more
than others.
The hands, mainly the
cocking and uncocking
of the wrists, play a big part in
supplying power and speed to
the golf swing. Using the
hands to do so however makes
it difficult to square the club-
face at impact and hit the golf
ball straight.
There is no doubt that the
wrists and forearms play a
huge role in both the
power we supply with
the club and the direc-
tion the ball goes.
It does not appear
readily to us that some
of the best players in
the world use their
hands a great deal, but
they all do.
When we see professional
golfers such as Tiger, Phil and
others who possess long flexi-
ble swings, we see a lot of leg
drive and weight transfer that
seem to dominate the swing
(and it does), but there is still a
tremendous unleashing of the
wrists and forearms in prona-
tion or rotation that provides
speed to the club.
If youve ever seen slow mo-
tion of Phil or Tiger after im-
pacting the ball, you will see
the hands turning over and al-
most coming off the club.
Body type, age and injury
greatly effect how we see the
use of the hands. When we
watch older or less supple
golfers swing, it does not ap-
pear as rhythmic and fluid and
it appears that they use their
upper bodies and their hands
and arms more in the golf
swing than the more flexible
players.
When we see this type of
swing, it appears to us that
these golfers muscle and
hit the golf ball instead of
having a nice smooth swing
with a lot of finesse. If thats
your body style, then learn
what parts of your body can be
used to generate your best re-
sults. Arnold Palmer always
muscled the golf ball. He
never really possessed a loose
and flexible body and he did all
right for himself!
Doug is a PGA member and
a certified instructor for the
Sun City West Recreation Cen-
ters and gives lessons by ap-
pointment at Grandview,
Stardust and Desert Trails.
Doug can be reached at 623-
866-9163 to schedule a lesson.
Gift certificates for lessons are
also available.
How you use hands depends on your body style
Doug Weber
Building a Better Golf Game
Sun City West golfers are
reminded the cut-off time for
the tee time lottery has been
changed to give golfers more
advance notice of their con-
firmed times.
The lottery run-time has
been moved to seven days
out from the day of play. Tee
time requests must be sub-
mitted through paper slips or
Webtimes by 2 p.m. a week
in advance of the requested
date. For example, submis-
sions must be in by 2 p.m.
Monday for play the follow-
ing Monday. Lottery results
will be available by 6 a.m.
the following day.
Reminder about
lottery requests
Greg Waldon was presented with a 300 game
and an 803 series recognition award from Sports
Pavilion Manager Donnie James during an Oct.
16 Bowling Committee meeting. Those high
scores are few and far between, and the Sports
Pavilion staff is pleased to be able to present
them to our bowlers for such an outstanding ac-
complishment. Congratulations Greg!