Influences
I
often get asked who my influences are in terms of the way I swing the golf
club, also on what I teach.
Luther Blacklock, inventor of the Explanar was my coach for over fifteen years,
and remains a close friend and mentor. When I started seeing Luther I had
a bad grip, bad posture and no real understanding of what I was doing. Luther gave me an excellent understanding of
the fundamentals of the game, of grip, of posture and of the movements of the
hands and arms in the golf swing. It was under Luther’s guidance that I
reached the final of the English Amateur in 1995.
Luther's concept of the Optimum Biomechanical Swing plane is the key principle
around which the Explanar is designed, and a principle which I believe will be
accepted and adopted by the wider golfing community in years to come. If
the golf swing were a racing car, you could say that Luther's teaching provides
the chassis and the steering.
As an amateur and in the first few years of my professional career I was a
straight hitter with a decent short game. I did OK, but always struggled
on big golf courses or in bad weather because I just didn't hit the ball far
enough. I always felt I was under pressure, because I was working hard to
make pars, and wasn't picking up easy birdies on the par 5's.
I felt like I was hitting the ball as hard as could, but wasn't getting any
extra yards, and was often out driven by my playing partners. I wasn't a
consistent ball striker, which meant I was always putting pressure on my short
game and putting. When I was sharp, I could compete, but when my short
game or putting was a bit off, I missed cuts. The game was changing too,
especially at the professional level, becoming much more about distance off the
tee, and less about straight hitting and consistency.
I was getting really frustrated. I
thought a fresh pair of eyes might help, so I went to see a few different
coaches. I went to the gym and changed
equipment, none of which really helped. It felt like the harder I worked,
the harder I tried to hit it further, the worse I was playing. My game
was on a plateau, and I was not enjoying the game as much as I did when I was
just playing for fun. Getting a proper job was starting to seem like an
attractive option.
Luther and I often discussed the golf swing, with regard to the best way to use
Explanar, his concept of the swing plane, and what other top coaches and the
best players were doing and saying about the golf swing. One day we
got talking about Jim Hardy and his concept of there being two 'different'
swings for different body types, a 'one plane swing', with the club moving
around the body, and a 'two plane swing', with the arms and hands lifting the
club and the overall swing plane being much more upright. Luther’s view,
(in my opinion the correct one) is that there are not two different types of
swing, just two different ends of the Swing Plane Spectrum.
This was interesting. I had been trying to get my hands higher and wider
in the backswing looking for more power. But it just felt very weak and
disconnected. I realised I was probably a more natural one planer, but
had been trying to build a two plane swing. I did some more reading, and
started to understand that power in the golf swing came from the rotation of
the body, rather than from the hands and arms.
I was searching for more information about Hardy's ideas, when I came across www.RotarySwing.com. It is a website run by Florida based
golf coach Chuck Quinton. There was a video of Chuck hitting a six iron,
and his swing was awesome. That immediately made me sit up and take
notice. Chuck is a similar size and build to me, and he was hitting a
six iron about 185 yards with what looked like absolutely no effort at
all. I read some of his articles about the fundamental movement of the
golf swing being a rotation, and the penny dropped. I joined the site,
started working on a few of the drills and practicing the movements on the
Explanar, and within a couple of weeks had a completely new feeling for my golf
swing.
I remember emailing a video of my swing to Chuck at the end of 2005. The
first thing he said was, 'You have a good golf swing. Why do you want to change
it?' I explained to him the problems I was having with distance and
consistency of strike. He came back with a couple of drills to focus on
and we talked about the feeling I was looking for. Over the winter of
2005 and spring of 2006 I must have hit thousands of golf balls on the Duchess
Course practice ground at Woburn. I would email Chuck on my Blackberry
while I was practicing, and he would come back to me with answers and pointers
to keep me moving in the right direction.
This was a really valuable experience for me, in terms of learning how I
learned. I didn't have a coach standing there telling me what to
do, I had to just try it, feel it, watch the ball flight and interpret
what was happening, then do it again. This meant I went down a few wrong
turns and blind alleys before I understood what Chuck was saying and could
really feel how my body should be working. This has been extremely
valuable when I started teaching other people, because I have made a similar
journey to the one they are on.
The Explanar has been an invaluable tool in remodeling my golf swing. The best way to learn a new movement is to do it over and over again, without the distraction of the golf ball. Explanar allows me to do this. The weight of the roller allows me to feel the movement more easily and therefore speeds up the learning process. I use the Explanar with virtually every one of my students, as it is the best way to get someone to ‘feel’ what I am trying to get them to feel.
As Luther himself says on the Explanar website:
“Chuck Quinton’s study of the golf swing
is totally thorough, precise, well thought out and bio-mechanically sound. A
stable of Tour Pros uses his methods and hundreds of Golf Coaches around the
world study and teach his principles. Of all the information out there, the
Rotary Swing requires the very motor skill that I designed Explanar to create
in pupils.
The full golf swing requires the golfer to coil with the athleticism of a
discus thrower combined with the poise of a snooker/pool player! I believe the
most difficult thing to teach or learn is the first inch of the backswing. That
transition from the Set-Up into the takeaway is required on every shot; Chuck’s
Rotary Swing understands that movement as well as any swing technique in the
world today.
Another great benefit of The Rotary Golf Swing, unlike many methods, has a huge
amount to say about the Short Game as well as the Long Game. As with Explanar,
training a correct Biomechanical movement totally integrates Long Game and
Short Game methods. Chuck Quinton teaches and understands the need for all
muscle groups to work in sympathy, no matter how big or small the shot is. “
I can honestly say that Rotary Swing has really
moved forward the way I think about the golf swing, the way I swing the club
and hit the golf ball. The website is without a doubt the best golf
instruction resource anywhere on the internet. I am hitting the best golf
shots of my life now, and I am having great success teaching Chuck's ideas to
my students, of all ages, and abilities from beginners to scratch
golfers.
The difference in my ball striking has been huge. I used to carry the
ball 230 yards with my driver. I can now carry it 280 if I need to.
I can hit a 4 iron high and stop it, rather than having to carry a 7 wood like
I used to. I feel like I am swinging within myself all the time now,
rather than operating right on the limit, and sometimes over it. Bottom
line, my golf is much more fun than it used to be.
I am really happy to become an Affiliate of RotarySwing.com.
I believe it is the best learning resource on the internet for golfers of all
levels and abilities. I swing the club this way myself, and many of my
students are playing the best golf of their lives. But it isn't just the
technical side of the game that impressed me. Chuck's philosophy about
the golf swing, about the way we learn, and about the game of golf itself are
similar to my own. The golf swing is just a part of the
game of golf, and that what you learn about yourself through the game is at
least as important as what you learn about hitting a golf ball.
I have been a member of the site since 2005 and consider the $15 I pay every
month as an essential investment in my game and in my coaching business .
I am really looking forward to seeing the new stuff that Chuck and Alison are
working on, and to taking my own game and those of my students to the next
level. Thanks Chuck!
