Fluid Mechanics Of The Golf Swing

Golf-Stay In The Game!

While there are as many approaches to teaching the golf swing as there are teachers, the fundamentals laws of physics, quantum physics, and fluid mechanics still apply.

This stuff about pushing the golf club away from your body to start your golf swing is a lot of malarkey. The back swing is basically where you store energy to initiate and execute the downswing, impact, and follow through. If you think you have to push the club away from your body and extend your arms to get a good back swing, you are disconnecting the club and your arms from your most powerful golf muscles, your back shoulders and core. You are wasting time and energy in your effort to get the club head back to the golf ball at impact.

There is a fine balance in discovering the correct method of taking the club away from the ball and completing your back swing. Strength oriented swings are great if you are able to maintain and use this quality, but flexibility and timing are even more important and more readily available to the regular golfer.

Storing power and executing a proper back swing as it relates to your particular golf swing is a result of understanding the mechanics of how your unique muscular system works. It is nothing more than finding the path of least resistance, the path of no tension, getting the club to the top of your back swing with the greatest amount of stored energy to initiate and complete your swing through the ball.

This eliminates the fighting between your mind and body, and helps your to use, what I am going to call “the fluid mechanics of your muscle system.”

To go backwards a little, any move of any part of your upper body away from the ball results in putting too much weight on your right foot. Then, in order to get the club back to the golf ball properly, you have to compensate by moving stronger and faster back toward the target. Not an easy thing to do for most people.

If you think more in terms of levers, all you have to do is keep your balance (50-50 on either leg and foot) and turn your shoulders to start the back swing. In other words, initiate your back swing with a shoulder turn instead of a hip and arms push away from the ball. Do not push on to your back foot and leg on the back swing.

Instead, stay evenly balanced on both feet.

The fluid mechanics of your muscles will then take over and create the correct lever system and power storage to get the club back to and through the golf ball in a consistently efficient manner.

Once you understand this move in practice and actually feel what it feels like a few times, the awareness of where the golf club is in your back swing filters in, and you start to know instinctively when to start the club down toward the ball.

The fluid mechanics of your own muscle system will tell you when it is time to let it fly in a more natural, relaxed, and fluid manner consistent with the way you are meant to swing the golf club.

In my own swing in starting the 2016 season, I played 18 holes with no warm up, then a few days later went to the range to hit some balls. I noticed in both instances that my left hip would not get out off the way, and I kept getting stuck against my left side and had to consistently make a great effort to get my left side out of the way. This left side stiffness is a result of many back injuries that I have suffered along my life’s path.

So I finally said to myself, “self, why don’t you just get your left side out of the way at the beginning of the swing, then you won’t have to worry about it anymore  as you attempt to hit a golf shot.”

This resulted in what I would describe as a really open stance with the left foot and hip open to the target. I then placed the instep of my right foot at a right angle to the target line then lined the sole of the club parallel to my right instep. My alignment was complete.

I then found that I was able to just rotate or turn my shoulders to get the back swing going, that my weight stayed evenly distributed on both feet, and that I was no longer pushing on to my right side. I felt lighter on my feet and much more able to move down and through the ball. My shots started to fly higher, longer, and straighter with much less conscious effort, and the club continued to release and fly through impact.

The fluid mechanics of my muscles were taking over my swing. I was taking my conscious mind out of my golf swing and understanding the motion, mechanics, and movement at a much more cellular level.

I played 18 holes the next day, shot 76, and only counted 2 swings where I lapsed and let my old muscle patterns creep in and ended up with two lousy shots.

What was really exciting was that I started to get a real feel for when it was time to let the club start down into the ball and get through impact. My swing started to take on a life  of its own. I felt confident that I was at least going to get the club face on the ball and that it was going to be a pretty good shot.