|
AJ Bonar
became popular a few years ago from his infomercials for an instruction in which
he demonstrated ball striking with a miniature baseball bat on the end of a golf
club. He advocated a twisting of the forearms - a deliberate rotation of
the arms and wrists "to get the clubface square for impact."
I don't have first hand information on his
method or pointers, but I did read this comment on one of the golf discussion
forums:
I personally didn't get much
out of the [AJ Bonar] tapes. He does a good job of doing card tricks, singing,
and playing the guitar, but I got much more instruction out of the "very first
golf lesson" tape by George than I got out of all the AJ tapes.
Any kind of additional in-swing effort is
INSUPPORTABLE in real life. Why? Because in the milliseconds in
which the release occurs THERE SIMPLY IS NOT ENOUGH TIME FOR APPLICATION OF
SOMETHING DELIBERATE and "cognitive"; once a
swing begins (an action that takes two seconds or so from start to finish and in
which "the release" takes less than a 10th of a second), it is just plain
impossible to expect to be able to control or cause "something" like squaring an
open clubface by effort.
One reason many people profited by Bonar's DVD
[entitled "AJ Bonar Reveals The Truth About Golf"]was
because they had learned golf using what I call "a slice grip," i.e., a grip
that was simply too weak to hit the ball straight. SLICERS LOVED HIS
VIDEOS!
What do I mean, "slice grip?" It is a grip
that FOR THAT GOLFER is so weak (with the hands turned too far to the left on
the club) that it won't AUTOMATICALLY return the clubface square for impact
without effort or consciously applied force. Using a grip too weak is
exactly the same as taking your setup with the clubface wide open, so to get it
square for impact YOU HAVE to twist and exert and struggle to close it with a
deliberate effort. As I said above, this is an insupportable burden.
As John Daly says in his book, in effect, "If I used that grip to play golf you
would never have heard of me: I would be pumping gas for a living. I am
not strong enough to get the clubface square with a weak grip!" The bottom
line is that if YOUR grip is not strong enough for YOUR ANATOMY to close the
face for impact automatically WITHOUT YOU TRYING TO CLOSE IT, you'll have to
struggle, and you'll never win that contest. His theory is based on a
faulty premise, namely that the sweet spot of the club revolves around the hosel
of the clubhead, hence requiring you to "slam the door" to close the clubface.
This is the opposite of reality: the center of gravity of the clubhead IS the
sweet spot, so that when you spin the club by hanging it down between your two
palms and spin the club, you can see for yourself that the bottom of the center
of the clubhead remains steady and the hosel revolves around a line running from
the grip cap to that spot on the center of the sole of the clubhead!
David Lee had a wonderful way of expressing
this kind of error--an error we both recognized as perhaps the most pernicious
deception in all of golf. He said that when you play with a grip that is too weak and you are "a slicer" as a result, YOU'LL NEVER CORRECTLY ATTRIBUTE YOUR SLICE TO THE GRIP;
YOU'LL BELIEVE THAT SLICING IS A NATURAL PART OF TRYING TO PLAY THIS DIFFICULT
GAME -- I.E., THAT SLICING IS NORMAL FOR "AMATEURS!" SO WHEN SOMEONE COMES
ALONG AND SHOWS YOU THAT BY AN EXTRAORDINARY EFFORT YOU CAN TWIST THE CLUB
DURING THE SWING TO SQUARE IT AND YOU HIT A FEW SHOTS STRAIGHT WITH YOUR NEW
PROCEDURE, YOU WILL FOREVER AFTERWARDS COME TO BELIEVE THAT THE TWISTING YOU DO IS A
NORMAL REQUISITE/PART OF A GOOD GOLF SWING. YOU WILL THEREAFTER GO AROUND POURING
OUT YOUR SOUL TO OTHERS HOW YOU DISCOVERED THE HOLY GRAIL OF STRAIGHT GOLF, AND
FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE YOU'LL TEACH OTHERS HOW NOT TO SLICE WITH YOUR NEWLY
DISCOVERED "SECRET". Of course in an inattentive moment on the course,
you'll go back to your old slice, especially when you get distracted, or
possibly a little tired later in a round. IT IS SIMPLY INSUPPORTABLE TO
HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DURING YOUR GOLF SWING TO AVOID SLICING A BALL: IT SHOULD
BE, AND IT IS, BUILT INTO GOOD GOLF SWING TECHNIQUE HOW TO
FIND THE GRIP THAT
AUTOMATICALLY CAUSES THE CLUBFACE TO SQUARE UP FOR IMPACT!
(Have you ever seen a golf magazine that does NOT
have an article in it, "How to fix your slice!" There is one simple reason
for this: it is the fact that almost
ALL
CONVENTIONAL "CORRECT INSTRUCTION"
TEACHES PEOPLE A TOO WEAK GRIP (A SLICE GRIP) AND THEN ASKS THEM TO DO SOMETHING
DURING THE SWING TO MAKE THE BALL GO STRAIGHT. If you want the REAL "truth
in golf" [it's so ironic that Bonar uses that phrase to describe or
characterize his golf system],
look at the grip used by Couples, Daly, Azinger, Duval, VJ Singh, Langer, and
thousands of other really good golfers. As I said, the grip that anyone
needs to use varies by the personal anatomy of the golfer in the same way that
the angle of the feet of different people varies -- some walk "toe inward" a
bit, and some walk with feet angled out more. THE STRENGTH OF YOUR GRIP
THAT PRODUCES STRAIGHT BALL FLIGHT IS SOMETHING YOU NEED TO FIND,
NOT SOMETHING YOU DO IN OBEDIENCE TO THE COUNSEL OF SOME GOLF TEACHER WHO HOLDS
HIMSELF OUT AS "THE AUTHORITY FOR WHAT'S RIGHT." I will never be less than
furious about the harm done by the horrendous teaching on this point that is so
common. )
Bottom line: I could not be more in opposition to
a swing theory that requires anything be done mid-swing for any reason,
least of all for squaring the clubface.
Back to Home Page
Site Map
|
