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I had to go to the dentist today and my dental office subscribes to Golf Digest. I know Golf Digest has taken its hits both here and elsewhere and I understand the issues folks have with Golf Digest.
However it did something for me today that in my view deserves a commendation.
This was the June issue. There is an article in there that discusses the difference between those that are throwers and those that are draggers as it relates to swing characteristics. There are similar postings on the Internet that use the terms Swinger vs Hitter but the idea is basically the same.
At any rate it was a revelation for me. In truth I have always been a thrower (defined as someone that mainly throws the club head at the ball.). The dragger tends to have a more traditional swing approach with one exception. The major difference between the two approaches is that the thrower releases his wrists during the downswing while the dragger holds his wrist hinge as long as possible and into the hitting area. In addition the thrower makes a full body turn with the associated weight shift and finishes with a full swing. The dragger tends to make less of a turn and leaves much of his weight 50:50 during his backswing and tends to have a shorter swing finish. As you can probably tell, draggers take bigger divots than throwers do.
I have always been a thrower. However over the course of my most recent swing improvement efforts I have tried too hard I think to integrate features of the dragger's swing into my own. The article points out that most of us are somewhere in the middle and I agree with that as well.
Mainly I have been too much influenced by the whole "take a divot" thing. Surely taking goodly sized divots makes a good deal of sense for draggers. However a thrower would tend to take a much smaller divot and in some cases may not take one at all. Interestingly during this period I have not elevated the ball as much as I am used to and attributed that to my lack of success with the dragger swing while in fact as it turns out I was likely only exacerbating my problem by trying to adopt more of the dragger swing.
Today as soon as I went back to my much more thrower like swing, I was elevating the ball as I should and making solid contact as well. At the very least this turned out to be a liberating experience for me because I had been bound and determined to "correct" my thrower tendencies regardless of how much aggravation it caused me. Frankly I had not really done that much with the dragger swing which is probably why my natural swing characteristics came back so quickly.
At any rate it is a good article to read. I would hope that for either thrower or dragger, the article might result in some degree of relief for you if you have been fighting your natural swing tendencies.
There is also a very good article in there about Matt Koucher and the changes that Foley made to his swing. That also made good reading and there are likely some tips there for some if not all of us. There were a number of other very helpful and practical training aids in this edition. It may in fact be the best Golf Digest I have seen in a long time.
I had to go to the dentist today and my dental office subscribes to Golf Digest. I know Golf Digest has taken its hits both here and elsewhere and I understand the issues folks have with Golf Digest.
However it did something for me today that in my view deserves a commendation.
This was the June issue. There is an article in there that discusses the difference between those that are throwers and those that are draggers as it relates to swing characteristics. There are similar postings on the Internet that use the terms Swinger vs Hitter but the idea is basically the same.
At any rate it was a revelation for me. In truth I have always been a thrower (defined as someone that mainly throws the club head at the ball.). The dragger tends to have a more traditional swing approach with one exception. The major difference between the two approaches is that the thrower releases his wrists during the downswing while the dragger holds his wrist hinge as long as possible and into the hitting area. In addition the thrower makes a full body turn with the associated weight shift and finishes with a full swing. The dragger tends to make less of a turn and leaves much of his weight 50:50 during his backswing and tends to have a shorter swing finish. As you can probably tell, draggers take bigger divots than throwers do.
I have always been a thrower. However over the course of my most recent swing improvement efforts I have tried too hard I think to integrate features of the dragger's swing into my own. The article points out that most of us are somewhere in the middle and I agree with that as well.
Mainly I have been too much influenced by the whole "take a divot" thing. Surely taking goodly sized divots makes a good deal of sense for draggers. However a thrower would tend to take a much smaller divot and in some cases may not take one at all. Interestingly during this period I have not elevated the ball as much as I am used to and attributed that to my lack of success with the dragger swing while in fact as it turns out I was likely only exacerbating my problem by trying to adopt more of the dragger swing.
Today as soon as I went back to my much more thrower like swing, I was elevating the ball as I should and making solid contact as well. At the very least this turned out to be a liberating experience for me because I had been bound and determined to "correct" my thrower tendencies regardless of how much aggravation it caused me. Frankly I had not really done that much with the dragger swing which is probably why my natural swing characteristics came back so quickly.
At any rate it is a good article to read. I would hope that for either thrower or dragger, the article might result in some degree of relief for you if you have been fighting your natural swing tendencies.
There is also a very good article in there about Matt Koucher and the changes that Foley made to his swing. That also made good reading and there are likely some tips there for some if not all of us. There were a number of other very helpful and practical training aids in this edition. It may in fact be the best Golf Digest I have seen in a long time.
