The
Mikolov presents Dean Reimuth's take a swing at tension
Every golfer longs to hit the ball farther
However in their quest for greater distance most tend to reach back for more muscle swing harder and unwittingly produce golf's number one killer
Tension a condition of stiffness and stress that can tie anyone's game in knots
Fortunately there's a way to achieve a better swing with more power simply by reducing tension
For the past 15 years international teaching professional Dean Reimuth has taught all kinds of golfers how
Let's face it nobody can pick up a club and swing it exactly like Jack Nicklaus Arnold Palmer or Greg Norman
Your swing is as individual as you are so there's no sense in imitating your favorite player
Or trying to contort your body into perfect positions
It's far more important to learn the feel of your own swing and in a sense make the best of it
Over the years of playing and teaching Dean's developed a series of practice exercises
That can show you how to relieve tension in your swing and help you understand the important swing feelings needed to improve your game
Dean's intentionally made these exercises simple and untechnical
Because when you get right down to it a good golf swing is much like riding a bike
Once you get the feeling you won't ever forget how to do it
Hi, my name is Dean Reimuth, and I'm going to talk about the single most important element
Learning how to play better golf. It's tension. Tension affects not only the average player
But it affects professionals like myself as well. It's just at different levels
The style in which you learn how to play golf and reducing the amount of tension gives you proper form
Gives you motion and those are the elements we use to swing the club properly
If I can show you for a second this is the club head motion without my body moving and
You'll notice that the club swings freely and my arm moves very gently
Now if I try to accelerate this motion by tightening up and turning my wrist and forearm quickly
You'll notice that I don't get much action or movement from the club
So what we have to be able to do is to use our body and create more motion with the club head
Everybody's heard about club head speed. Well, this is natural club head speed
So our only attachment with this club is our hands and our arms. If our hands and arms are tight
Then we can't get the proper club head motion
So that's the first thing that we're going to work with is learning how to hold on to the club
And swing it properly with a reduced amount of tension in the hands and forearms
And Jim if I can borrow you for a second
Now Jim, I want you to just shake my hand and I want you to squeeze real tight, all right?
And you'll notice that as I'm squeezing real tight squeeze even tighter, Jim, tighter, tighter
You'll notice that I cannot turn his forearm or wrist very easily
Now what I want you to do is relax your forearm muscle
And you see how easy the forearm and the wrist move here
Because this is our only attachment with the club
We have to be able to create speed with the muscles more relaxed or free
Now you've been told that you need to relax your grip
Now Jim, if you'll just open your grip up now see Jim's grip is very loose
And if he was trying to hold on to the club it would slip out of his hands
Now I want you to tighten your forearm muscles but don't tighten your hand
Tighten them up
And you see how when I try to turn his forearm it doesn't rotate very easily
Now relax your forearm muscle
See it comes back and we get that same kind of relaxation
So the object is to be able to apply enough grip pressure to hold on to the club
Properly without increasing the tension in the forearm so that we can get proper rotation of the club face
This is probably one of the single most important elements in being able to hit the ball straight
The reason that out of 22 million golfers about 20 million slice the ball is because everyone is too stiff in their hands and forearms
Now Jim if you'll step over to my right here for a second
I want you to hold on to the club with just your left hand and your right hand
I want you to squeeze very tight here and we'll start to swing the club
And you'll notice that his arm and the club are traveling at the very same rate of speed and it's traveling very slowly
Also look at the position of his grip and his grip is faced towards you or the camera and the club face is open
That's why he slices the ball
Now I want you to relax your forearm muscles real loose
Looser yeah
Even looser and particularly down here in the wrist and you can notice immediately how much more club head motion he gets
He's just increased his club head speed a hundred times with probably ten times less pressure in his hands and forearms
Now just keep it real loose and relaxed
Now tighten it up and get real stiff
And you notice that every time he tightens up and gets stiff the hand stays in this position the club face stays open the ball will slice
This is the key problem when you go from a short club and a short distance to a long club such as driver where you're trying to hit the ball farther
The faster you try to swing at it the more you'll tend to tighten up these muscles and swing hard and the face stays open
So as we work later on I'll show you how to one relax your hands and forearms to get the club head to strike the ball as opposed to your body muscles
And also how to increase the club head speed as opposed to increasing your arm
Okay thanks Jim
Now the hand and forearm are not the only areas in which you can create a tremendous amount of tension
The other parts are up in your shoulder muscle
If you have your shoulder muscles tight your arm won't swing very freely
And there's one other one which is your feet
Your feet are attached to the ground they're the only balance point you have
And so if your feet stay locked to the ground you won't get any movement from the lower part of your body
See this makes my hips turn but if you watch good players you'll see we're very light in the feet and our feet move very easily like this
So we'll work with two basic areas one is the amount of pressure and control of the muscles in the forearms and in the arm
And the amount of flexibility and looseness down in the feet and the knees
Now Vicki if I can borrow you for a second
Now Vicki obviously is not as strong physically as Jim is and that's one of the problems that women have is that they don't feel as physically strong
But the golf club is not very heavy so women will tend to use a lot of strength as well because they perceive the club as being heavy
But it only takes a few fingers to hold the club
So what I want to do Vicki is if you'll stand here and I want you to tighten up your back muscles get them real tight
Now a lot of people are talking about the fact that they don't get a good shoulder turn
Well it's the hands the arms and the club that swing and turn the shoulders if the shoulders are relaxed
Keep your back real tight and stiff don't let me turn your shoulders or back
Now you see even though I'm much physically stronger than she is if she freezes up her back muscles and gets tense her body will not turn
Now watch this just relax your muscles
Now I'll just use a couple fingers and see how freely and easily her body turns
So what I have to do later on when we're working is to teach the students how to make a proper swing and keep relaxing the muscles so that they work freely
Now if I can use your arm for a second what I want you to do is to tighten up your shoulder muscle right here and don't let me swing your arm
Okay now you notice that the tighter she holds her shoulder the less I can swing her arm now relax your shoulder
Now you see how her arm swings freely as soon as she relaxes the muscles in her arm
So we have the rotation or turning of the hands and forearms which is what squares up the club face
You have the swing of the arms from up in here so that's relaxed and the back muscles and if all those three elements are relaxed her upper body will start to move properly and swing
And that's what we'll be working with in a little while thanks
So I want to express to you that not just knowing what to do but also how to practice is very important
And when we go through these proper procedures we have to learn these relaxation and body form positions without a golf ball first
Then we'll put the swing to the golf ball and only then will we take it out to the golf course and we will continue to help you in terms of how you get to the golf course a little later in the program
But for right now I want you to remember learn how to hold on to the club with enough grip pressure to hold the club
Work on relaxing the forearm muscles and the elbow and the shoulder joint and that will give you a free arm swing and club head rotation
That will create club head speed
Then the second stage which we'll get to in a little bit is learning how to relax the feet, ankles and knees so that your lower body can move freely as well
Let's review tension
Use a light grip pressure, relax your forearms, elbows and shoulders, feel the club head weight swinging into the finish and relax your feet, ankles and knees
Now I want to talk about the form of the swing
We're not going to use a golf ball at this point because it's more important to concentrate on developing the proper form than on making contact with the golf ball
A little later on we'll talk about how you develop using this form and also making contact with the ball
Because again our first attachment to the club is with our hands and arms you need to develop the proper form with this part of the swing
So what I want you to concentrate on here is just using a little bit of motion with your hands and arms
Now if you watch you'll notice that as my hands and arms swing the club also turns
This is as I mentioned before because your forearm muscles are relaxed
If I tighten the forearm muscles up the club won't turn but the arm will swing forward, this will create a slice
So focus on the club head weight, feel the club head weight turn over gently in a tiny swing from about waist high to waist high
And this will give you the proper form with your hands
The second area is proper form and movement with your feet
You'll notice that my feet move from side to side and the ankles roll
Now this is much different than turning the hips
This is hip turn and you'll notice my feet stay flat footed on the ground
This puts a lot of pressure on the lower back, it's one of the reasons so many golfers have lower back trouble
We need to use the movement in the feet as opposed to the hips in the back
So you roll the feet in from both sides right to left and also use the club head weight
And let the club head weight turn over along with the hands and forearms
Now we put those two together in a very slow swing from waist high to waist high
The most difficult part about learning the form is to avoid trying to make contact with the ball
And avoid trying to use a big large fast swing
Remember we're not trying to put speed to the swing now, we'll do that later
At this stage we're just trying to develop the relaxation of the muscles
Feel the smoothness and combination of the movement in the feet with the movement in the hands and arms
Now you notice from back on this side if I use my hips as opposed to my feet
When I turn my hips the club will start to go outside the line or come across the ball
That's why we use the feet because if the feet and knees move this direction toward the target
The club will stay more inside
So our purpose here is twofold
One is to develop the proper movement in the hands and forearms and club
The second is to use the feet, ankles and knees
Those are the two elements we're going to combine in a very small swing with a very slow speed
Jim if I can use you for a second
Now what I want you to do Jim is just hold on the club here for a second
And if you'll just give me both hands on the club
Now I want you to just swing the club back slowly about waist high
And start it forward
Now notice Jim if you close your eyes, I want you to close your eyes and swing again
Feel how your upper body is moving a lot using a lot of shoulders
What I want you to do is relax the shoulder muscles up here on the joint
And I want you to concentrate more on the club head weight down here
It's going to get very loose and floppy almost to the point where it will feel like the club will fly out of your hands
It's going to get that loose
Now you'll notice as you start to do that you get more club head speed
This is what allows you to get more distance later on
But we have to be able to use this motion as opposed to going into the big muscles back here and using the shoulders in the back
That's the proper feeling of movement with your hands and forearms
And that way you can create more club head speed
Feel the motion as you get down the bottom and that will create more club head speed into the finish
Thanks Jim
Vicki could I borrow you for a second
Now Vicki I want you to take a little swing
I want you to bend down over here
And you just aim that way
And what I want you to do is just swing it back about waist high
And swing it forward just slowly
Now if you notice I'm going to use Vicki for the lower part or the feet
The problem with the legs and the feet is that
Go ahead and swing it back this way
Is that Vicki's knees, knee comes out this way
And then goes back this way and this one comes out toward the camera a little bit
It's her legs are working out and back this way
Because she's using her knees
What we're going to do here is just teach her to use the feet and kind of roll them from side to side a little bit
So I'm going to get back here just a little bit Vicki
Now go ahead and swing it back slowly
Now what I want you to do, don't look down
I want you to concentrate on your right knee
Feel how it's locked here?
Okay, so we'll start in the beginning here
Start at the very beginning right there
Now just take it back slowly
And feel the foot and then go the other way
That's it
Now you're going to concentrate more down this area where you feel your feet and ankles moving
That's it
Than you are in your knees
Feel it?
Yep
Do my knees still turn in?
No, your knees will move as your feet move
And we'll do a little more of this later when we get into the actual lesson
But if you notice the difference between her knees and feet
Go ahead and do what you were doing in the very beginning
Yours were going out this way, you see?
And actually they need to go more side to side
The reason that we want to make the feet and ankles go side to side is because if we're going to send the club head going this direction
We want our lower body moving the same direction the club's moving as opposed to moving back and forth
Thanks for the little one
So the two areas that we covered
First in the hands and the forearms
Learning to swing them and relaxing the shoulder muscles
So that the club can turn freely
That will allow the club at a very slow rate of speed to square up
The second is in the feet, ankles, and knees
So that when we use the feet, ankles, and knees
That will generate the proper motion and balance in the feet and the lower body
Because learning the proper rotation is vital to controlling the direction and distance of your shots
We've isolated this area of the swing while showing it to you in slow motion
Proper rotation should not be forced but should be smooth enough to allow your hands and forearms to turn the club head over gradually
From waist high to impact to waist high in the finish
Let's review the form of the swing
Swing the club head with your hands and arms
Use a small smooth motion
And transfer your weight with your feet and ankles
There's a little game that I want to play that will probably show you what I mean by trying to find the proper balance
Of whether you're using too much or not enough of the information that I'm putting forth
And Jim, here's what the game is
I'm going to pick a number in my head
And what I want you to do is guess the number
And all I'll tell you is whether the number you guessed is too high or too low of the number I have
Okay?
Okay
So you go ahead and guess
Eight
Too low
Twenty
Too low
Fifty
Too low
A hundred
Too low
Now, what's the problem?
The problem is you picked too high a number
That may be what you think
The problem really is that you haven't defined the other boundary, which is too high
You can't find too high
You don't know how much is too high
It might be a million
So until you find the parameters, too low and too high, you can't trap this number
All right?
Now I want you to guess the number and I'll play it in reverse
You hold the number in your head
Tell me if I'm too high or too low
Okay
Zero
Too low
Okay, now the reason I picked zero is maybe it was a negative number
You could have gone negative, see?
I know
Now, a thousand
Too high
All right, so now I've got it between zero and a thousand, five hundred
Too low
All right, so you see I'm trapping it
And that's the game is that you have to first find out whether you're using too much tension or not enough
Obviously, if I swing the club like this, that's not enough pressure or tension to hold on the club properly
If I swing it like this, that's too much
And somewhere in the middle is the right amount
That applies to every single aspect of the information that I'm going to cover today
I want you to work with being too tight and then find too loose
And somewhere in the middle will be the proper amount of pressure
And as we go through this in the other segments, you'll see how I work with the students in this aspect
So the two areas that I want you to concentrate on
Learn how to hold on to the club with the proper amount of grip pressure
Use a swing that is too loose and floppy and the club will start to slip from your hand
Then use one that's too tight and you'll feel the club will not swing freely
And then start to relax the pressure until you find one that allows the club head to swing freely
And you can still hold on to the club
The same thing applies with the feet
Keep your feet firm on the ground and try to swing
And then loosen your feet up a lot and they'll get almost too loose and floppy
And somewhere in the middle is a balance
That's the point at which I'm trying to help you find
Is the proper balance of that flexibility and motion in your own swing
And if you follow these couple tips, I think you'll be able to find the right amount of pressure or tension
That will work for your golf game
Yeah, but what's your number?
My number?
Yeah
700
Mine's 586
Well, I won, mine's higher
Let's review finding your own feel
Practice one swing feel at a time
And use a too much, not enough approach to practice
Music
I want to talk to you about the forward swing direction
Obviously you're going to aim in the direction of target
And you've probably read about alignment and ball position
But the part of the swing that you need in order to get the ball in the direction of target
Is the forward swing direction
We talked a little bit about squaring up the club face so that you can avoid the slice
This has to do with whether you push the ball off to the right, pull it to the left, or hit it straight toward the target
Now, what you'll notice is the first one I'm going to pull over to the left
You'll see the club come from across the line, going from outside in and finish over here left of my body
And you'll notice that that finishes quite a bit left of the target where I'm aiming
Now, the second one, I'm going to adjust and instead of swinging from across the line
I'm going to swing from too much inside to outside the line
And the ball will start out to the right of the target
You see that's quite a bit to the right of where I was aiming
Now, this one I'm going to try to swing toward the target down the line
That will come in from slightly inside, be on the line at impact, and go toward the target for short ways
That's sending the ball in the direction of the target
Now, you need to develop the forward swing direction with this little mini swing
You can't find this feeling if you take a big full swing with a driver
The other area is that because we're using our hands and arms to create the forward swing direction
Is when you finish, your balance position, if you've swung too much across the line or to the left
Will feel like the body weight is left in your feet and your body will be positioned tipping over backwards
If you swing too much forward, out, inside out, your body weight will go toward the toes of your feet
And your hands and arms will be out above your head
Neither one of these will give you a very good balance position
So you work with first swing it too far to the left
Where you feel your body weight fall behind you
Then try to swing it too far to the right where your body weight goes forward on your toes
And then try to find a balance where the swing falls in between
You'll notice when I finish here, my body weight is pretty straight up and down
And the club and hands are over my shoulders more than they are below the shoulder or above my head
And that's the proper finish position for the swing
So I want you to work on a very short swing
Let the club go from outside to inside and pull the ball to the left
Then take the second swing, go inside out and let the ball go too far to the right
And then try to find the feeling that goes in the middle of those
And you'll notice that that shot goes closer toward your target
Let's review the forward swing direction
Use a short swing with a short club
Swing too much outside in
Swing too much inside out
And then swing forward towards the target
I'd like to talk about your ball height and learning to develop the proper form
And taking it to actually making contact with the ball
If you try to learn the form with the ball on the ground
You'll tend to concentrate on making proper impact more than on proper form
So use this approach
Try practicing with the ball three different height levels
First, with it very high off the ground
Make the same swing with the ball a little bit closer to the ground
And then eventually put the ball all the way down on the ground
Use that practice approach and keep the proper form as you do this
Now that the ball is down on the ground
I want you to use a practice exercise that will help you in making contact
With the ground in the proper location
The white T represents the proper ball position
And where you want to learn to strike the ground
The red T represents a ball position that is too far forward
This would tend to top the ball
And the yellow T represents a ball position that is too far back
This would mean you would hit the ball fat
So here's the exercise
Set up with the club at the white T
Take your practice swing and try to contact the ground
Even with the red T
That's the first exercise
Like this
You'll notice that I made contact over here where the red T is
Set up the club behind the white T
With the practice swing
And touch the ground over by the red T
That's the first step
Second one is you need to learn the opposite feeling
Or hitting too far behind the ball
That's the yellow T
Set the club at the white T
Take your practice swing and make contact with the ground
Where the yellow T is located
You'll notice that I made contact with the ground
Back by the yellow T
That would mean I would hit the ball fat
Now I want you to practice making contact with the ground where the white T is
Which would be in between those two feelings
You'll notice that as I swing
I will make contact where the white T is
That's the proper downward angle feeling to make good contact with the ball
Let's review striking the ball
First, practice with the ball on a T
Feel your forward swing into the finish
And then gradually lower the ball height until the ball is on the ground
I want to talk about two things right now
One is how you practice
Because not only is spending time practicing important
But the quality and how you go about practicing is important
Concentrate more on your good swing feels as opposed to your bad swing feels
Take a few practice swings and find the best swing you've got
If you don't like the first practice swing
And you don't like the second practice swing
But you like the third one
Keep that feeling in your mind
And then when you approach the ball try to duplicate or copy that good feeling when you're over the ball
If you keep using that approach
Concentrate on the good feeling you make
That'll be your best shot
And your best shots will get even better
And the second thing I want to cover is we've used very slow easy short swings
But that's not going to hit the ball very far
And I think you know it and I know it
So what I want you to do is to take three practice swings
And accelerate each practice swing just a little bit
Like this
Here's the first one, slow speed
It's relaxed and feels pretty smooth
Now I'm going to try to accelerate the second one
If I can accelerate the second swing and it still feels smooth to me
I'm going to try to accelerate it a third time going a little faster
You'll notice that the third swing was much faster and yet it was still smooth
If at any stage your swing gets tight and jerky
You're using big muscles and strength trying to hit the golf ball
Start over again
First swing very smooth and relaxed
And slow
Second swing a little faster
Smooth and relaxed
And accelerating
Third one a little faster yet
And accelerating even more
Now watch when I practice
I'll use the slower swing first
And that swing will go a very short distance
Now I'm going to use a little bit faster swing
I'll make a practice swing first
Getting the feeling that I like
That's a little bit faster
And you can tell from the sound even if you can't pick it up by your eyes
That that ball traveled much farther
Then I would accelerate faster yet
To the point where my swing became jerky and tight
That's the level that's too fast
So in order to accelerate that ball
I'm going to use the slower swing
That's too fast
So in order to find the right speed for your swing
Go through this same practice exercise
Take a practice swing first
Find the best feeling you have
The one that's the smoothest and most relaxed
Then take a couple practice swings
Trying to accelerate the swing each time
And that will allow you to hit the ball
Much more solid
And much farther
Let's review proper practice
Use several short practice sessions
Always find your best practice swing feel
Then duplicate that practice swing feel over the ball
As you can see all of my students have different swings
And have different levels of ability
During the following private lessons
I will be instructing each of my students
On one of the four major swing problems golfers face
Having covered these areas earlier in the tape
I hope these lessons will give you the idea
To see how you should work with your own swing
As if I were there with you
By practicing each of the exercises on this tape
You'll learn how to swing with less tension
And hit your best shots more often
Irene, all I want to do is work with your form
Since you're just getting started
I don't want you to worry about hitting golf balls
Or anything else until we can work on your form a little bit
So if you just take what you feel is your normal swing
At this point we'll give you a couple adjustments, okay?
Okay, now if you just hold, do that again
One more time and hold your finished position
Hold, okay
Now, what I want you to do is don't look down at your foot
I want you to concentrate on your foot, okay?
I want you to concentrate on this area right here
Feel the difference between this
And let it go all the way up to here
Okay, you feel that?
All right, take another practice swing
And let it go all the way up to here
Okay, now you're going to do the same thing
All right, take another practice swing
Hold, that's it, just relax
Do it one more time
Okay, now this is going to be more your finished position with your feet
Okay, your balance, look forward
Concentrate on the feeling of your feet, all right?
So that's the finished position
Now I want to work on your backswing just a little bit
Okay, just relax your hands a little
Relax your wrists more
That's it
Much less grip pressure
And feel the club head, relax the wrists
Feel the club head turning a little bit?
And that's the feeling I want in your hands
Feel the club turn like this?
I feel like I'm going to lose it though
Okay, now the reason that you feel like you're going to lose it
Is because you were squeezing with such tight pressure
That now to relax it to normal
It feels too loose
Watch, keep loosening it up just a little more
Until it starts to fall out of your hands
You see, now that's too loose
Okay, all right, so let's go from here
Feel it turn this way
Then this way
And all the way up to
Your hand rotates then, right?
Right, yeah, see it turns over
So you want that feeling where it rotates or turns over
Like that, you see?
And then it goes up to there
Okay, let's start here
A couple of practice swings
Good, do it again
Hold, concentrate on your foot
Feel it turn a little more
That's the position, feel that?
Okay, that's the position of your feet
Do it one more time
That's it, there you go
Is that better?
Right, now concentrate here
Notice how your hands are all cock head, they're kind of twisted
What's the difference between that position and this one?
Close your eyes
Feel this? Yeah
Feel this one? We're going to go with this position
So close your eyes
Go from here
To here
All right?
Here, to there
To there
Okay?
Here
There
There, okay?
Do it one more time
All right, now don't look down
Concentrate on your foot
See?
Now, so it takes contrast in two areas
One is down here in your feet
The other is up here in your hands
Now you're getting better at the feet, but your hands are still
You don't have the feel here yet
So what I want you to do, and we'll just work with this just for a little bit
Is get the feeling in your hands
So put your feet closer together
Now, start from this position
Take it back very slow
To here
Feel that? Yeah
Feel the difference between that
And this
Right, that's the pressure
Right, and that pressure you feel down here, that's why it takes so much strength
So go ahead and hold on
Let it turn this way
And then back to here
Turns this way
Back to here
Okay, just do that one
That's it
That's it, almost
That's it
Now let it turn over, keep going
And let it turn over to there
Let it turn a little more, go that way
Let it turn
Hold
Feel the pressure
All right, so start down here
Now, this is what I want you to work with
When you go and practice
I want you to first put your feet close together
And only work with the feeling in your hands
From here
To here where it turns or rotates
Back to here
And then over to here
Vicki, what I want to work with you on
Is the speed of your swing
And making contact with the ground
Because you tend to top the ball and swing a little bit too fast
So take a couple of practice swings
And concentrate on the club head
Touching the ground down in this area
Right here? Yeah
Okay
Now just concentrate on the club head and feel it hit the ground
That's it, do it again
That felt good
Do it one more time
Now the problem is consistency here
All right
That's all right, relax it, concentrate on the club head weight
And feel it touching the ground all the time
That's the only thing I want you to concentrate on
Feel it touch the ground more
It's okay, just concentrate on the club head weight
Feel it go down and touch the ground
Down, that's it
Do it again, a little more on the down
Are my feet okay?
Yeah, don't worry about that
See if the club doesn't hit the ground you can't hit the ball
So I want you to feel it touch the ground
See how you miss the ground?
Totally miss it
Try to take a divot out of the ground
All right
That's it
And do it again
Pretty good divot, huh? Not bad
A little bit bigger divot
Okay
Feel it go down
That's it
Now that's one feeling that I want you to concentrate on
Because unless the club head hits the ground
You're going to tap the ball all the time
It'll just go along the ground
Now the second one is go ahead and make your swing
Hold your finish position
Feel it hit the ground first
Now hold
Now don't look
See how your head's positioned down?
This is real hard on your back
So what I want you to do is let your head
Look forward towards me
When you finish that'll take the strain out of your back
I concentrate so much on looking
At the ball that I forget that I can look
Away after I hit it
So two feels, heel the club head
Hit the ground and then allow your eyes
To look forward toward the direction the ball's going
All right
Just feel it touch the ground a little bit
Now look forward
Keep going, let your head get that's it
That's your finish position
Now do that one more time
Well at least I wasn't like this, right?
Okay
That's it, one more time
I did it
Okay
Good finish
You just missed the ground a little bit
Okay, one more time
Go touch the ground
And there, all right
Now what I'm going to do is put a ball in for you
Now all I want you to do
Is I want you to concentrate on the same two feelings
Feel the club head touch the ground
And then look forward
And the ball has to go
Don't even worry about the ball
You concentrate on the contact of the club head
At the ground
Right
Just feel the club head touch the ground
Finish
Hold
And look, see where the ball goes
You see
Now the reason it does that is because
You're getting consistency with the club head
Touching the ground
And the reason that you want to look forward is to take the pressure off
The back of your neck
And that way you can find where the ball goes as well
Now, one what I want to work with you on
Because it's the biggest problem you have
Of all the different parts of swing
Is how you turn the club head over
With a shorter club
You can turn the club head over
More down to the bottom
Where the ball is
With a longer club as you were talking about
When you slice it, you've got to start to let the club
Turn back here a little bit
So relax your forearm muscles
Feel the head weight turn over
Alright
Now relax it
Just concentrate on the club head, relax the wrist a little bit
That feeling, feel how it loosens up
Alright, now watch, swing faster
Now you feel your body up in here
See it gets real jerky up in here
That's why you slice when you try to hit the long shots
Is because you're pulling the club with your shoulder muscles
So instead of that
When you swing faster, relax all the muscles
And feel the club head turn over
Now watch, notice that you can turn the club head over now
Without hitting my body
That's right
Now watch, go and swing fast the other way
You see how your arm runs into my side
So concentrate on the club head turning over like this
And that will get the club face to square up
Which will take the slice off the shot
Alright, so what I want you to do is
Relax these muscles in your shoulders
And feel the head weight turn over
And that will turn the ball from right to left
Okay
Allow the shoulder muscles to relax
And feel the head weight turn over
That's it
See how it turns over from right to left
That's it, that's better
Now, the faster you swing
The more tendency there is
To use this muscle
And pull it this way
If you swing real slow
You can get too much of the other
You can relax the arm so much, slow down like this
Flip the club over
And start hooking the ball too much to the left
If that happens, then you have to let
The club swing forward a little more
As opposed to letting it turn over
So you have to balance it out between
The club head feeling turning over
And the arm swinging forward
Okay
Let's give it a try
Just relax the shoulder muscles
Concentrate on the club head
And just feel the club head turn over gently
That was a little late
Do you feel it tight at all?
It's a little tight here
Keep trying to relax the shoulder muscles
And focus your attention on the weight
Of the club head turning over
See the start turn over?
Now that's the feeling I want
You've got to concentrate on this side
Of the golf ball where that club head
Starts turning over
The shorter the club, the closer it will be to the ball
The longer the club, the sooner the downswing will start
So if you had a long iron
That turning over feeling will start up in here
If you have a shorter club
It's going to start down here
Okay
But you have to learn to relax these muscles first
Or you'll pull on it like this
And then you'll never be able to get it to turn over
And square up
What I want to work with you on is creating
A little bit more club head speed
So we can get the distance
One of the things I notice in your swing is that
As you try to swing faster
You use more muscles up in the shoulder area
And the club actually swings slower
So what I want you to do is take three practice swings for me
Hold on with just your left hand
Just relax it
And I want you to concentrate on the club head weight
Feel it?
And I want you to swing the weight faster
Like this
Feel it turn over faster?
Without using these muscles up here
Now watch, tighten up these shoulder muscles
Now swing
You see, just like most people
When you use these muscles, the club drags behind
So you don't create club head speed
You create upper arm speed
So I want you to feel these loosen up
And concentrate on the head weight
Going faster, like this
Alright?
Now here's the exercise, take three practice swings
The first one very slow
Feel the club head weight
The second one try to accelerate the club head weight more
And the third one even more
Just do that
Now just concentrate on the club head weight
Slow
We'll start the slow one first
All the way to the finish
Alright, that's the first one
Now, swing the second one a little faster
Can you hear the sound?
Yep
Alright, concentrate on that weight and the sound
And swing it even faster
That's the feeling of speeding up the club
As opposed to your body
Your ears concentrate on the sound
And your mind concentrate on the club head weight
Alright?
Okay
Do that again
And what I want you to do is three practice swings
First the slow one
All the way to the finish
Do that again
To there, second one a little faster
That's it
Third one a little faster
That's the speed
At which I want you to swing over the ball
Okay?
So keep that feel in your head
And swing over the ball
That's right
And the club head speed
All the way to the finish
That's the swing
See?
When you first started
Because your hands and arms were so tight
The only part of your body you could use to swing faster
Was your big muscles up here
So you swung like this
Now you're swinging like this
So you're using the club head speed
Let's do another one
Okay
Because you're using about 80 percent of your strength
To try to get all of your distance
Now we're using speed and motion
First swing
Good
That's the speed
Of the swing
Use that all the way to the finish
Oops
Now did it feel
Okay
Isn't that something?
Try to swing harder
Instead of faster
That's the difference
The feel in your head
Has to be a faster movement
Not harder
That's it
A little faster
And concentrate out there
That's it
See it?
It's where you locate your concentration
Instead of locking into harder
Which dictates the big muscles up here
You have to concentrate
Hold on
You have to concentrate
Relax the muscles up here
Feel this club head weight
Right
And listen to the sound
See?
And that will dictate the speed at the end of the club
As opposed to up into your body
You never made any sound before you know
I know
After an informative and enjoyable day of instruction
Dean and his students retire to the club lounge
At the Weston Mission Hills Resort
For a few final questions
And to discuss their performances during the day
And now
A conversation with Dean Reinmuth
The question that I have is
When I
I'm really concentrating on trying to hit the ball
I'm trying to remember all the things you've told me
But sometimes I totally miss it
Why?
I mean
How many reasons why?
The club, the technical reason why
Is that the club is traveling above the ground
So you like that one
That's good
So what happens is the club travels above the ground
So it tops the ball or if it travels a little higher
It whiffs the ball
The reason that that happens is because your brain
Hasn't locked into the feeling
Of the club head going down low enough
To touch the ground
That can be caused by trying to
Concentrating more on trying to hit the ball too far
So you'd swing so fast that your body
Would kind of lift up off the ground
Or it changes
Your focus of attention
From the club head touching the ground feeling
To the speed feeling
So in order to
Get a better consistency for that
You have to practice a slower rate of speed
And keep your concentration
Focused on making the club
Kind of touch the ground on a consistent basis
But with your method Dean
I mean you could just take a club
Go out in the backyard, put the three T's in the ground
For instance, I mean the one where you
Come across and the one where you push
And the one where you hit straight for instance
10 or 15 minutes and you could
With me I mean the answer was
Feeling the club head and feeling
The speed with which it was going through and the effortlessness
That it took to make that happen
That blew me away
And that's one of the reasons that I try
To develop some practice exercises
That a person could use
Where they could feel the difference
So they could feel when it was too far in front
Or too far behind or they could feel when it's
Too tight or too relaxed so that you have the chance
Without an instructor there
To teach yourself how to play better
I've noticed that I don't get out enough
And I should get out
For shorter periods of time
To maintain that feeling
Yeah particularly in the learning process
You need to have
A session
Quite often
In a condensed period of time
If you had one long session today
And you didn't have another long session for a month
You'd be in the same place
In terms of your performance level
You need to go out in shorter sessions
But closer together
It's like learning how to swim
If you learned how to swim today but then you didn't
Practice it for another month or so you'd have to start back
At the beginning
So use shorter sessions that way you'll find
That you can get away from the office
And you're working more you can get out for 15 or 20 minutes
You can practice it
It's a lot easier than saying
Well I need to dedicate 6 hours today
And I don't have any time to do this
The next 3 weeks
The other thing that you can do is
Because the mental practice or repeating the feeling
In your head going through it in a chronological
Order will also be as effective
As actually practicing
Remember it's setting the feeling
Into the memory bank
So it has to develop
On a consistent basis
Versus the intermittent basis
I want to ask you I've never played before
Because it's my first time
So what do you recommend
For me to do
You know I have no idea really
I just know I want to golf that's it
Get to the driving range
Take some instruction on a regular basis
Work on the feelings
Of the swing and not on the technique
Start with very short strokes
How often
Well that depends on how much time you have
To practice in the middle but about once a week
Or once every 2 weeks
You should go back for a refresher
You need to get out several times in the middle
If you just took one lesson and then another one
You'd be overburdened with lessons
You need to work it out
In your own head
In terms of the feeling
And how it feels for you as opposed to
How somebody's maybe telling you to do it
Dean when I'm playing
And I play a longer
Iron I try to hit the ball
Differently than I do with a short iron
7, 8 or 9
Why is that
Our eyes see
A target or distance much farther
Away
That transmits to our body to give it more
Force or effort
And that makes the big muscles take over
And we try to hit it harder
We really don't want to hit it harder
We want to swing it a little faster
But smooth
And that's why it takes so much practice
To develop learning how to
Increase your speed without
Increasing the amount of tension or muscle
Because as I was showing you with the arm twist
The tighter you get
The slower it goes
So it's almost opposite of what you'd think
But the easiest way to learn that is to take the long club
Get it up off the ground
Start with like a half speed swing
Then take it up just a little
And then a little faster and you'll start to notice that
The ball will start traveling farther
Even though it doesn't feel like you're hitting it any harder
I've been playing golf
For about 20 years
And I must tell you
I have to confess that I was a little bit
Skeptical because I thought I had
Read everything, heard everything
And tried everything
And I didn't see how just making it so simple
And fun could produce such results
But you
Increased me right away
Immediately two clubs
On my irons
I was flabbergasted
Now I noticed when I looked back and saw you
Smiling that you were enjoying it as much
As I was
You really do like teaching don't you?
Yeah I enjoy teaching as much as I do
Playing actually I might even enjoy it more
It's fun for me when
I can
Give something to the people that
Love to play golf as much as I've loved to play golf
And to see them play better and be happy
You know people work hard and they want to go out
And have a good time
And to go out to play golf and
Enjoy themselves that's my job
That's what I like to do and that makes me feel good when
I can see them you know be happy
Well I can tell you that the Dean
Reimuth way works
Dean Reimuth
Take a swing
Attention
Has been presented by
Mikolo
Promotional consideration provided by
American Airlines
Something special in the air
Music