The reason the vast majority of golfers have such trouble timing a shot satisfactorily is that, subconsciously or consciously, they try to regulate the speed of the club head directly with their hands, without using the intermediary links of the hips, shoulders, and arms. When they do this they get an early but never very great reaction, in terms of speed, from the club head.

This is the old familiar “hitting too soon” or “hitting from the top.” When the intermediary links are used and the chain reaction is allowed to take its course, there is a late reaction by the club head, which then accelerates to great speed at impact. There is a common expression to describe the player who uses the chain reaction: “He waits on the club.” It may not be grammatical but it is descriptive.

What this all comes down to is, the expression of good timing is the late hit. The expression of poor timing is the early hit.Here, as we discuss timing, we isolate one key move that leads to good or improved timing. It is this: Let the body—not the hands—start moving the club on the downswing.

Once you can do this you are on the road to vastly better golf. You will have the feeling that you are starting down with arms and club close to the body—close to the axis— where they should be at this time.

So much has been written over the years about the importance of the hands in swinging the club, that many of us are entirely too hand conscious. A standing vote of thanks is due Bill Casper for stating, in a description of his swing as it reached the hitting position: “At this point my body is still swinging the club.” Many of us have been sure of that for years, but Casper, to our knowledge, was the first of the top tournament pros with the courage to say it.

The hands will take over soon enough, as an automatic, reflex action. The problem is to keep them out while still keeping them moving. If we keep them out while our body moves the club from the top, our timing will be far better.

Rhythm and Tempo

Rhythm and tempo can be considered together, because in golf they mean very nearly the same thing.

We mentioned earlier that the rhythm in the swing of a good player is noticed because of the measured cadence in the upward and downward movement of the club. In his swing there appears to be—and there is—a definite relationship in time between his backswing and his downswing. It is measured in two parts, from the time the club leaves the ball until it stops at the top of the backswing, and from the time it starts to move again until it hits the ball. The club does have to stop at the top, of course, for the instant required to reverse its direction, whether we feel it or realize it or we don’t. No object, not even a golf club, can be traveling in opposite directions at once.

These two segments of the swing can be accurately timed by a motion-picture camera, by the simple process of counting the number of pictures the camera takes during each segment. Such a count shows that the backswing of a good player takes almost exactly twice as long as the downswing.

This two-to-one ratio is the rhythm of the swing. The total time or tempo of the swing will vary with different good players, but the ratio or rhythm will not. Nor will it

 

vary from club to club. The ratio will be the same for the 8 iron as it is for the driver. The tempo of the swing will not change, either, for the individual player.