golfrewind.com

I'm a decent player...capable of 70s and consistent low 80s. My natural fault is a slice, mostly with the driver. My high school coach is telling me that from the transition and down, my body is outracing my arms. He wants me to sync everything up better. I just have trouble getting everything to slow down a little and letting everything catch up. Any help for me stopping this problem would be very appreciated.

Been there done that. What worked for me was to tell myself and feel like I started the downswing with my arms rather than my legs and hips.

I'm almost just like that, what has helped my amazingly, is to do a sort of "hula" on the down swing. The hula is where you're hips shift to the left (or right if your a lefty) but your head stays in place on the downswing. After you have shifted make sure you fire your hips, but dont fire them to early of you will hit behind the ball. Hope this helps.

-junior

ive also experienced that. when i first got my first couple of lessons. I just make sure that my arms are coming down before i transition my body and everything works out.

Opinions on this can differ a lot. Just to present the contrary point of view, take a look at Hogan's Five Lessons -- "you can't rotate the hips fast enough." Hogan's method has the arms being completely passive -- if you try to control the arms, or start the swing with the arms, you get out of sync and bad things happen.

This is not to say that either your coach or Hogan is more right than the other -- there is more than one way to hit a golf ball well. Just as a guess, your coach is probably more of an up and down swinger than an around-the-body swinger. Again, this is a fine method -- Tom Watson is a good example of an up-and-down swinger -- and he didn't have too many problems.

A real eye-opener might be if you take a look at some of Hardy's Plane Truth for Golfers books. There are two out, and both are standalone so you only need to look at one or the other. But, he describes the fundamental difference between the up-and-down, karate-chop, Tom-Watson, "two-plane" swing and the rotary, around-the-body, Ben Hogan, "one-plane" swing. Hardy gets some of the details wrong (some of his comments about Hogan's swing are dead wrong compared with video evidence) but the broad picture is very right. A major point of Hardy's is that you get into real trouble when you start mixing fundamentals from "one-plane" swings with fundamentals from "two-plane" swings.

Again, I really want to stress that neither method is better than the other, but it is good to stick to one set of pure fundamentals and try not to mix them together.

^^

thats why i really dont like doing anything from a magazine. they are all from different people. You should get all your instruction from one person, and not mix what someone else believes in with him. if you do, all that will happen is confusement ( is that a word?)

confusion. that's a word.

I also have that same problem. Body rotating too fast and my arms get stuck. Yesterday I was working at the driving range and I tried to keep my right elbow (I am a righty) in front of my body while making a full body turn in my back swing. And then just swing. When I make my down swing, my feet, then my hip then my body rotates, and because my right elbow is "sort of/ feels like" in front of my body, the whole arm turns with me.

Visually from the side, now my right forearm is upright, instead of slanted forward.

Today I take that into the course, I had my BEST driving and striking game. Pure driver, pure iron. Sucks on the putt. Hit 89 with 38 putts, while I usually only need 33 putts. Drove a couple out there 270-280 yards while before my normal distance is 220-230 (if I don't slice it that is, which is 80 percent of the times). Increased my iron distance by one club. I was amazed, as well as my usual playing friends.

That's the key for me.

I hope no one thinks that I am just trying to be contrary, because I want to emphasize that I am not. But, I think that it is interesting to point out that in the Hogan/one-plane/rotary type swing, it is actually preferable to keep the right arm tucked up next to your side, that all the best rotary-type ball strikers have had a bent right arm at impact.

I don't want to get into the details, because that is not really the point. The point is that obviously this is working for richard now and again, the mixing of fundamentals leads to confusion and poor results.

I also wanted to reply to this because there is a "yes, but no" feeling I have about this statement. On the one hand, I agree, because often times instruction from numerous sources is incompatible and won't fit into a swing based on other instruction. But, on the other hand, and as it pertains to the OP, a coach/teacher also needs to be adaptable to allow his students to swing in a variety of ways. If the OP is a natural one-planer, and his coach is trying to teach him two-plane ideas, the result is in all probability going to be worse than when he started. That is, it may not be so much that the OP is "getting out of sync" as it is that he is starting the rotary swing with his arms instead of with his hips and/or shoulders -- that is no dead arms/hands. Either one can cause a slice. The coach could be doing more harm than good because they may not recognize that there is more than one way to hit a golf ball.

Finally, there is always a bit of "digging our swings out of the dirt" we all have to do ourselves. There is virtually nobody who is a pure one-planer/Hoganesque or who is a pure two-paner/Watsonesque player. The vast majority of us and of the touring pros have a few things from each school in our respective swings. We all have to find what works. This is the giant reason that I would never tell richard, for example, that he is dead wrong in trying to keep his right elbow in front of him. He'd be dead wrong in trying to perform a Hogan-like swing, but obviously it works for richard and his swing. And that is all that really matters.

Well, consider this... Perhaps it is not your body getting ahead of your arms, but rather your arms getting too far "behind" your body (both timing and physically). It is very easy to allow our arms to get further "behind" us in our swings due to the natural momentum that occurs, and with a driver this is even more applicable.

I was slicing my driver and discoveedr a combination of two things that were getting me in trouble: I wasn't getting a full shoulder turn and my arms were continuing on too much when my turn away from the ball stopped. Now in any swing your arms will still move a bit, but I was taking that too far, and as a result, it was almost impossible to square the club face at impact when coupled with that abbreviated shoulder turn. What really helped me figure this out was being on a simulator which gave me the impact data.

I focused on my turn and keeping my arms "in sync" with the turn, and that really helped.

Just my humble two cents... YMMV...

I have the opposite problem in my pitch shots. My arms move more than my body on short game shots. I wish I could find a way to make the arms passive.

I read a tip that seems to help me...lift the club w/your shoulder turn not w/your arms. Doing this helps me coord my chest turn w/my shoulder turn letting the arms just come along for the ride.

Yes, I really think this is more the problem. Allowing your arms to get so far behind you you can't catch up or you move your arms so fast trying to catch up you throw the right shoulder out in the classic over-the-top move. Don't speed your arms up. Do what some have already suggested and keep your arms in front of your torso. There is some validity in what bignose says about the one versus two plane swing. However, I would bargain that if you don't know the difference you are probably a two-plane swinger.

I get in sync by getting in the address position and doing slow motion turns so I can take my time and make a big shoulder turn. As I turned I slowly lift my arms and watch as my hand lifts up in front of me as I start to throw them over my right shoulder. If your hands get behind your right shoulder you have let them go too far. Don't keep your head down, lift your chin a turn your head to watch the action. I then have that picture in my mind and make a swing. OK, weird drill, but it has helped me.

Perhaps I did not describe it well enough when I said my right arm is upright. I meant my right LOWER arm is slightly vertical/ upright, while my elbow is tucked to my side. Imagine typing on a computer, then keeping your right elbow and your body where it is and moving your hand all the way to the back as far as it would go, and then move your whole left arm around to join the right hand.

So this goes with what Bignose said, as well as I remember reading on a golf magazine about how your right arm should be like holding up a tray.