How TWO PLANKS OF WOOD can help your golf game during the Covid lockdown!
PGA pro Steven Went gives you some simple golf tips and drills to work on during the Covid lockdown...
Golfers in England might be stuck indoors without any golf courses open right now due to the coronavirus lockdown, but that does not mean we can't still improve our swings. Far from it.
We caught up with GolfMagic resident PGA professional Steven Went, to learn some quick-fire tips and drills that we can all work on in the garden and inside our homes during the one-month Covid lockdown.
One tip, in particular, will certainly make a big difference to the weight transfer in your golf swing, and it involves the use of two planks of wood. Watch the video below for more:
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TIPS AND DRILLS YOU CAN WORK ON AT HOME DURING LOCKDOWN:
Wobble Board Drill
All you need is two planks of wood - one smaller and one longer, roughly around shoulder width apart. This one is perfect to improve your weight transfer. One of the key things I see my students do, they see from the weight transfer that they slide over, so the whole left side shifts over to the right. You have moved yourself away from the golf ball and then have to re-centre yourself and go back through. It can cause so many issues with the club moving outside of what your body can control. This is why understanding how weight moves through the golf swing is so important.
One of the best golf swings to look at for great weight transfer is Henrik Stenson, the former Open champion. He works with coach Pete Cowen, and they work on a system called a "Spiral Staircase". This involves the understanding that the weight doesn't shift laterally from side to side like many people think, but it shifts up in spirals through your body, so it starts from the ground and up through the hips, into your side, into your torso and unwinds all the way back through.
How can you get a better understanding of the coil weight transfer to improve your stability and keep your centre mass and spine angle exactly where we want? That's where the two planks of wood come into play.
Okay, put the smaller plank on the floor and the longer one directly on top to create your wobble board. Now I want you to stand on it. When I shift from side to side. I want you to setup so you have the front side down. You want to feel as though you have more weight on your front leg.
If you see from here, if you slide you will lose your balance and you will fall off the board. The idea from here is when you turn, you stay nice and centred and you use your hips, coiling around yourself and up through the shot. You will see from here, the weight will shift but you won't have lost your balance by falling off the board.
So from the front position, coil up, stay nice and centred with your weight shifting onto your right side. From here, plant your right foot and start pushing through from the ground up, then rotate and finish through onto your front leg with the board touching the floor.
It's a simple drill but it makes a huge difference to your weight transfer. Now take the planks of wood away, and try to get that feeling you just experienced on the wobble board but on a normal golf shot.
This drill will help improve your weight transfer, power distribution and overall ball striking.
Andy first joined the brand on a month's work experience back in April 2011, and he now assumes the Editor role. When Andy joined GolfMagic it was a small site with potential.
