Inner Game of Golf : Back-Hit-Stop Exercise

For the next few posts I would like to summarize some of the excersise ideas from Timothy Gallway's Inner Game of Golf.

Back-Hit-Stop Exercise

The first excercise that appeared in the book and actually helped me a lot is 'Back-Hit-Stop' excercise.

Timothy mentions in the book that this excercise originated from his Tennis coaching days, and it was originally 'Bounce-Hit' exercise. A student is asked to say 'bounce' when the tennis ball hits the ground and say 'hit' when he/she swings racket at the ball.

This simple 'say' excercise increases timing and fluidity of the swing, leading to increased performance.

'Back-Hit-Stop' is golf version of the same exercise. A golfer is asked to say 'back' when the clubhead reached top backswing position, say 'hit' when the clubhead contacts the ball in downswing, and say 'stop' at the finish position.

Implementation

I tried this and really saw the performance increase, both at the practice range and at the course. The benefit of this exercise is that it allows you to focus on your body and the position of club head (which is constantly moving). What this does is to pull you from listening to the voice in your head (Self 1) that tells you to remember this, do that, don't do this and so on.

When you think about mechanics and what should be done right, you tend to generate doubt, which in turn tighten up the muscles, resulting in fat, thin, slice... all those bad shots.

'Back-Hit-Stop' is good to eliminate these doubts and unnecessary muscle tightening. This exercise allows natural flow of body movement and better impact position, resulting in solid contact with the ball and improvement in the direction.

One thing to note

As I gain successful hits by executing 'Back-Hit-Stop', I became so accustomed to it, I found I was just repeating the tempo of previous shot of 'Back-Hit-Stop' and restricting my swing. This is a big No-No and I suffered some shots because of this.

It is imperative that you consiously focus to feel the location of the clubhead during the swing and only say keywords (back, hit, stop) as the clubhead reaches target spots.

Being too used to the exercise will result in you self-restricting your swing tempo to the one you are used to, and will actually ruin your tempo because you will say 'Back' when in fact your club head has not reached its top position, resulting in premature downswing.