This title is a very interesting one as we are often taught that feeling loose over the ball is most beneficial. I do agree having soft hands and arm pressure but in my experience and many other tour professionals, the feeling of being tight or strong over the ball gives us the most confidence. The best way to describe this is that it feels like my complete body is being activated and synced up before I take the club back.
Tiger Woods actually stated when he was going through his historic run of wins in 2000, that he finally knew the swing changes had come into affect because his swing felt tight. When you've made swing changes before and you start seeing results, you can understand what he means. It simply means that the body and swing feel very connected.
Also to be specific it doesn't mean just tighten up your muscles as this will actually be quite detrimental to your game. It simply means investing time doing practice swings in front of the mirror or simply beside the ball feeling the new motion. Also stop at certain times in your swing feeling the specific move that you're trying to accomplish. Mentally and physically it is a lot more demanding to do but over time it will start activating the correct muscles needed to perform the move you're trying to put into your swing.
So often we get caught up in just going to the Driving Range and hitting balls one after the other. We have the intention of change but without doing proper practice swings, the body will always find it difficult to adapt to a new swing move. That's why we might place the swing on video and identify what we need to work on and try and fix this problem by just hitting range balls but without doing proper practice swings, we often place the swing on video weeks later without much change. It simply means there weren't enough effective practice swings to stretch the muscles so that the new swing could take effect.
If you would like any further help in changing your swing and feeling connected just contact myself at David Waters Golf.
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