Several years ago I wrote an article titled, Is Your Golf Swing A Train Wreck? I consider it one of my better golf swing articles. I’m hoping some of you still remember your train sets when you were young so I am going to use this as an analogy. Let’s compare an electric train traveling on a circular track to the golf swing through several experiments. I personally had a train set that could either be pulled by the engine or pushed by the caboose, and the passenger cars were linked together by metal clasps. 1 When the engine pulls the train the links holding the cars together are pulled ta ..read more

I like the phrase coined by the great golfer Bobby Jones: “Freewheeling through impact”, however this does not mean that you want to wave your arms over your head during the golf swing so that a plane lands on you. The golf swing’s engine is powered by a rotating pivot of your shoulders and hips into a resisting base (knees, legs, and feet). The responsibility of the arms is to secure width at address, and contain the flow of energy from the feet up through the torso and then out through them to the club head during the swing motion. This does not mean that the arms should be stiff while swin ..read more

Many years ago when I started teaching golf in the 1970’s the belief was that ladies pros’ had better swings than the men. As an instructor to thousands of golfer’s men and women alike I will address this belief as tactically and honestly as I can. My goal as a young PGA Professional Instructor was to discover the most efficient way to swing a golf club. The physiological fact that women have 1/3 less muscle mass than men puts them at a power disadvantage immediately. I always use the analogy of someone shooting a rubber band as a comparison of how the muscles are stretched in a golf swing. T ..read more

During these desperate times of world turmoil it’s important to remain patriotic and cherish our freedom even in our golf swing. Teaching legend Percy Boomer was quoted as saying “the golf swing is one and indivisible.” The reasoning behind Percy’s statement is that the golf swing should have a constant momentum and swing throughout. The golfer’s hands, arms and shoulders should not attempt to manipulate, redirect, or steer the club into positions contrary to the club heads natural momentous swing arc. That’s why many golf swing training aids are weighted so that the golfer will not be able t ..read more

Years ago Golf Illustrated Magazine presented a list of the all time golf instructors. At the top ranked number 1 was Percy Boomer from the Isle of Jersey in Great Britain. In his masterpiece golf instruction book, On Learning Golf, Boomer talks about a down feeling at the top of your backswing. This play on words could be a little confusing when you first read Percy’s book, and the number one question my students ask me after reading Boomer is what he meant by the down feeling. This down feeling is one of the most crucial feels in a great golf swing and is a relatively simple technique to ach ..read more

Many years ago 12 times PGA Champions Tour Winner and I were featured on the golf channel to show the secret to power in the golf swing. Jim Dent knows a thing or two about power as he won the first three world long drive championships back in the early 1970’s, and hit a drive 426 yards at age 62 in a Champions Tour event in Atlanta, Georgia. I personally like to demonstrate the secrets to effortless power by driving the ball one handed, and have done so with pretty good success even now at age 64 hitting the golf ball close to 275 yards. One of the favorite segments of the viewers was the sl ..read more

  I am very proud to have been mentioned in the Masters Preview Golf Edition of Sports Illustrated Magazine’s article on my partner Jim Dent, a 12 time winner on the PGA Champions Tour. The article was titled EVERYONE LOVES DENT, and was written by the illustrious sports writer; Michael Bamberger. Mr. Bamberger is one of the country’s most elegant writers on golf. His versatility as a writer and his lucid, open style are hallmarks of his work. Bamberger joined SPORTS ILLUSTRATED as a senior writer in 1995 after 13 years as a newspaper reporter. Michael Bamberger’s Jim Dent Article The wee ..read more

All of you remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. It is one of my favorites because the story provides an analogy of how the golf swing works. There has been much discussion of how the arms and body work together during the swing. The common beliefs are that the arms swing and the body follows or the body provides the force for the arms to swing. The discussion whether the tail wags the dog or the dog wags the tail are ongoing except when you ask a dog. In the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, the hare is an extremely quick animal with great speed, much like that of our arms in th ..read more

Be a Limber Jack swinging a golf club. Many prominent instructors compare the rotary movement of the golf swing to a Lumber jack swinging the ax horizontally into the tree they want to cut down. To implement this feel to the golf swing maintain the flex in the knees and bend from the waist over the golf ball to allow the golf club to swing on the correct plane. Also be limber not lumber. The golfers that strike the golf ball best have great flexibility to enhance club head speed and center face club contact through the ball like Rory McIlroy. Allow the momentum of the club head to strike throu ..read more

P Pivot O Opposition W Width E Energy R Release A great acronym for the word POWER is P for Pivot, O for opposition, W for width, E for energy, and R for release. The definition of PIVOT is a rod or pin on which something else turns. In a golfers case or torso (pin) rotates on top of our two legs. Hopefully this pivoting or rotation is centered and balanced without too much wobble much the same as a spinning top. Percy Boomer, the teacher voted as the most influential golf teacher in history, compared the pivot to an architectural compass drawing of arcs with the only difference ..read more