OK, so the secret’s now out - some essential elements of the golf swing are counter intuitive and seem illogical and unnatural.

One mentioned last week was that of needing a downward swing of the club head in order to get the ball into the air.

I want to focus more on this as, unless the ball is going into the air, nothing else matters really.

In most bat or racquet sports, if you want to get the ball into the air, you throw the ball into the air, hit “up” at it and up it goes.  

Whether we like it or not, we take this mindset with us to the golf course - the big difference now though is that a golf ball sits either on or close to the ground.  

If I gave anyone a tennis racquet and put a ball on the ground asking them to hit the ball into the air, after looking at me as if I had two heads, they would struggle.

A tennis racquet is not designed to play a ball off the ground.

A golf club is designed to play a ball from the ground as it has a pre-set angle (which varies for different clubs - even your putter has about four degrees of loft) so our part in the whole operation changes.

Our only job is to get the golf club to brush the grass beneath the ball, the golf club angle will do the rest - honestly.

If I lined 100 people up, some who had played golf, some not, gave them a golf club and with a small amount of coaching asked them to make a swing brushing the grass with the golf club, 90 out of 100 people would be able to do it time after time.

I can reduce that success rate to just 10 (maybe less) out of the 100 simply by putting a ball on top of that same piece of grass.

If I then put a dam or pond in front of the teeing area I can reduce that number even further - why?  

It is because that same golfer is now distracted by having to ‘lift’ the ball into the air, logical but totally ineffective. 

The number one rule in swinging a golf club is that you cannot hit up at a golf ball (unless it’s on a tee with a driver which we’ll cover later), rather, we must “simply” hit what the ball is resting on (grass or a tee) and the ball will go up guaranteed.

It’s not your fault, the game is flaws, but we’re onto it.

For more information or tips on you game contact the pro shop at Mt Gibraltar on 4862 8615.

Alternatively, visit the website www.gibraltarbowral.com.au where you can check out the current two-for-one membership deal.

- By Tony White