Senior Golfers Get Your Distance Back

A few words about being stiff and losing your swing.
Believe me I know all about a stiff body and pain. I’ve played golf in pain for 34 years. Ithink I am sufficiently qualified to talk about a stiff golf swing and losing distance off the tee.
Yes, I do trash some Lee Trevino advice. Not all Touring Professionals are good teachers. That’s a fact!

Purple Planet https://www.purple-planet.com/

oh my word good morning we’re all getting a little bit older and a little bit stiffer and a little less flexible so what can we do about it I mean we’re not hitting the ball as far a handicap is inevitably Rising what on Earth can we do about it now in this video I’m going going to use Neville my friend Neville as an example and I’m going to be quoting some famous names first one is Harvey penck and if you haven’t read his books then you really need to go and buy his books and read them they’re like little paragraphs little Parables little stories about players he taught Ben kensaw and Tom Kite so he knows what he’s talking about and he was a teacher for decades and he taught a lot of old people one of his little stories was uh an older golfer coming in he said um I’m not hitting the ball as far as I used to I’ve lost my back swing I can’t make a big back swing anymore and that’s true as you get older you can’t make a big back swing Harvey penck said it’s not the back swing that hits the ball it’s he says falling over it’s the follow through a full complete follow through that’s what you’re losing when you lose distance Harvey said golf muscles aren’t for sale so you must earn them the one thing he suggested was a 20 ooun Golf Club That’s mighty heavy now I don’t have a 20 hours Golf Club I’ve got this thing it’s called a Tempo trainer they’ve got a variety of names but the one thing is is it’s very heavy now you can use this as a Speed Stick quite simply swing this heavy thing as hard as you can but Harvey doesn’t say that Harvey says swing this in control this momentum this weight will help you get through see this is what we looking for we’re looking for a follow through that’s complete for the belt buckle facing the target you see you lose speed when your finish is a bit and you can only get to here and your belt buckle is still pointing way right of Target now Lee trino had an answer in one of his videos on YouTube he says draw the right foot back to get the right hip out of the way so you can make a bigger back swing and he’s right if I draw I’m not even in the picture so if I draw this right foot back then I can certainly turn away from the ball better and I can make a bigger back swing there’s only one problem with drawing the right foot back is you create a wall out of the left side of your body that is very difficult to get past see so when I draw the right foot back about five or 6 in I can certainly turn away but trying to get through this left side is incredibly difficult and this is what my friend Neville is doing he had a lesson last year and he was taught to draw that right foot back but you make a wall out the left side of your body that is difficult to get past to that full follow through so you lose speed because you can’t complete your swing you’ve lost speed yeah you you’ve got a big back swing now but you’ve lost speed the better thing to do is with your feet is turn the trailing foot out to 2:00 if you turn that toe out then you will get the swing without building a wall out of your left side and the trouble with building a wall out the left side is you now have a two-way miss the first Miss is where you can’t get through it your belt buckle is still pointing right and that’s where the ball goes out there to the right the second issue is is the momentum of the club head when the body stops turning the club head wraps over and then you got this low hook into the left roof and because there’s no height on it because you’ve reduced the loft of your driver instead of you hitting your 190 yard drive you hit 140 yards into the left roof now if you go back to the rolls of mouth video you’ll see Neville hitting both of those shots now it doesn’t matter if you do you know if you if you draw this right foot back and close your stance and you turn your s ion into a six ion and it comes out lower and it runs a bit that doesn’t matter but it m matters a hell of a lot with a driver when you’ve only got 10 or 11 degrees to start with and you turn it into 7 degrees and it’s going into the left roof it’s not running out from the left roof so what’s the answer to our stiffness now I had a motorcycle accident in 1990 I was hit headon by a car who was on the wrong side of the road since then I have had stiff neck stiff up upper back I’ve had 34 years in an ill-fitting office chair so I get the stiff lower back I know all about stiffness I know all about pain I’m in pain now just stood here I will be in pain in the round of golf this afternoon and if I sit down in the bar afterwards for an hour I might not be able to get out of that chair without screaming so what is the answer so what can we do well we go back to Harvey penck and his 20 o golf club and we earn ourselves some golf muscles so you can swing this quite slowly it not only helps with rhythm Tempo timing whichever word you want to use it also helps stretch you out another exercise you can do at home you can do this in the living room watching the golf on TV so stick your left hand in your left pocket and simply turn and hold turn and hold then go the other way put your right hand in your right pocket grip your imaginary clo and go to a full follow follow a full follow through even turn and hold finish on your toe like you would in a normal golf swing turn this belt buckle to your target turn it to your living room wall while you’re watching the Telly so stretching is so important but there is another thing that you can do and this is the opposite of what a lot of teachers just teach and that’s just stand a little open let me try and show you what I mean with a real Golf Club so if I stand right foot back as people are being taught and a strong grip and a strong Club face I struggle to get through in fact it’s quite a strain on my lower back to get through now if I start again and I move this leading foot back an inch inch and a half get that left hip moving out the way there’s considerably less resistance in my body to making a full swing what do you do if you’re chipping you stand open why’ you stand open you stand open to get this left hip out of the way and then you can swing down the line it works perfectly as well with a five iron and your driver and everything else in the bag if you are a fraction open this hips out the way which allows the arms to come through with some speed that you lost and then you finish complete and your belt buckles facing the Target now you’ve got your speed back you got your distance back and more importantly you’ve got some high back now you’ve probably been taught cuz so many PR Pros teach a draw well you can still draw with your left foot 2 in back I’m not taking it as far back as they teach with this kind of like closed stance I’m just moving it back an inch two inches just enough room to give my arms to pass and padrick Harrington says in one of his videos when you get older and you can’t turn as well and you can’t fire your body through the shot before the club you know that classic impact position of a professional golfer is everything’s turned through and the club head is lagging we can’t do that we can’t hit the ball like a professional we couldn’t hit the ball like a professional when we were 30 so certainly not going to do it when we’re 60 or 70 what he says is the am the older amateur gets their speed from their arms and they Square the club face with their hands and because they’ve been playing golf 30 or 40 years they know how to do that so even if you stand a little open you can still swing a little out and hit your draw but I honestly wish that Pros wouldn’t teach a draw to somebody who’s losing distance CU all you’re doing is lowering the ball flight you’re lowering the carry and as Jack Nicholas was said when he was asked why does he hit the wall high he said because air has less resistance Than Dirt so if your ball is going to the ground early because you’ve got everything closed down You’ got your Loft shut down you’re not going to hit it as far as the guy who can stand a little open can swing he’s now got room to swing his arms as quick as he can cuz we’re all still reasonably strong I can actually get through the shot and point his belt buckle at the Target so if you’re getting old and you’re a bit stiff and you’re losing distance and you’re losing height you’re losing carry there’s exercises that can be done stretching with a 20 O club or one of these heavy things they’re not that expensive really you know a couple of dozen of very very cheap golf balls that’s all they cost guess something heavy swing it in control do your stretching exercises in front of the TV and get that tiny bit open not that big bit close cuz the other thing with losing height with this close stance and this strong grip you can’t get over Fairway bunkers anymore you can’t get over that ditch that crosses the middle of the Fairway and because you’re Landing your iron short so far short of a green to run it in you’re running into all the front bunkers if you can get open you get your height back then you take hazards out of play and you’ll enjoy your golf more but seriously go get those Harvey pennet books and have a read and you’ll be surprised how many of the little Parables he teaches in those books apply to us TR [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]