Are you tense?

[fixyurdivot]

Malaska is another of my favorite on-line golf instruction sources.  I've seen this topic of "club head feel" covered by various sources but particularly like the way Mike covers it.  I also found his comments about "schools of thought camp jumping" comical - so very true. I tend to get too locked up and this is something I need to work on. So how tense are you and to what extent do you think your grip and arm tension is masking your club head feel and more natural wrist hinge?  

 

[StrokerAce]

Mike is great! He has a simple way of describing concepts and is very practical when it comes to swinging a golf club. 

I've played with all sorts of people and recently was paired with another twosome and one of the guys looked like a serious former D1 football linebacker and I was consistently outdriving him (I'm 5'9 and 180 lol). Why? he had too much tension on the club. I've seen tension kill plenty of good golf swings and I have to remind myself of this as well.

There's a fine line between clubface control and too much tension. Once you hit that sweet spot you're in flush mode.

 

Sidenote: I could spend all day long at that range too!

[fixyurdivot]

2 hours ago, StrokerAce said:

Mike is great! He has a simple way of describing concepts and is very practical when it comes to swinging a golf club. 

I've played with all sorts of people and recently was paired with another twosome and one of the guys looked like a serious former D1 football linebacker and I was consistently outdriving him (I'm 5'9 and 180 lol). Why? he had too much tension on the club. I've seen tension kill plenty of good golf swings and I have to remind myself of this as well.

There's a fine line between clubface control and too much tension. Once you hit that sweet spot you're in flush mode.

 

Sidenote: I could spend all day long at that range too!

Agree. In addition to his keep it simple approach, his personality leads me to think he would be an awesome instructor.  I know from my swing videos that I'm too tense and too rigid.  I nick-named myself "stoneman" after seeing my first clips .  Much better now but still have work to do on reducing tension and slowing down on the tempo. 

[MacTourney]

49 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

Agree. In addition to his keep it simple approach, his personality leads me to think he would be an awesome instructor.  I know from my swing videos that I'm too tense and too rigid.  I nick-named myself "stoneman" after seeing my first clips .  Much better now but still have work to do on reducing tension and slowing down on the tempo. 

Mike is more a meat and potatoes approach without excess gravy clogging up the arteries.   Tipping the club upside down for feel is something Watson did more than a few times during a round to keep smooth leading the parade.   

[NC Golfer]

My basic instruction to my son who is a beginner is "let the clubhead swing". That doesn't sounds too different than what Mike is suggesting here. I need to take my own advice. I tend to do well going back. But, for some reason, I squeeze the handle really tight on the through swing. 

[Goober]

Saw this young man yesterday on the range (for me anyone 45 or less is still young. Hahaha). Using a very unorthodox style of swing. It was like a massive loop. But it looked like it took the tension out of the swing. He was really nailing that ball. I asked him where he learned to swing that way. And he said he was a joe joe swing instructor. Never heard of a joe joe swing. So I changed the name of my swing to dumb dumb. Maybe it will catch on .