Chip with your legs
Leon Marks
Avoid the inconsistencies of wrists delivering varied heights and often poor contacts, use your lower body to chip
It seems that the average golfer has taken it upon themselves to reduce movement to reduce power. And although this makes perfect sense, most golfers eliminate the wrong body parts.
The wrists are the most influencing body hinge that a golfer has, able to deliver the club face to the ball with amzing speed, direction and loft.
These are indeed assets which should never be underestimated, the create feel too, which means that one should never block them out of a golf shot.
When chipping, use your legsand hips, so that you can quieten down your wrist deviations, "YES" quieten, not eliminate.
I have here a student that was over using wrists and even elbows, so a simple alignment stick was attached to the club under the from arm and look at the results.
Try it out for yourself and let me know your results
Leon
Leon Marks
Well, as a boy who played many sports to a high level, why did golf become the one that I chose.
The main reason was simply, golf beat me. I even quit the game for a year because of the difficulty of the game and the people that happened to be there at the time.
After playing squash, rugby, surfing, swimming to name a few sports, I quickly improved but in golf, at the tender age of 11, progress was horribly slow.
I played my first competition where I shot 155 over just 12 holes, because I ran out of golf balls. The 13 year old at the time who was in my group (an experienced 34 handicapper) told me that I was “The worst golfer he had ever met.”
Not really the words of encouragement that we like to hear, but enough for me to ignore golf for a while and go back to the things I liked.
However, a year later, a friend of mine started playing golf and we started (again) together. Competition started, and the dream of beating my friend. He had the same idea and after not too long, there were more kids of around our age committed to the cause of playing better than the others. Chipping competitions, putting competitions and trick shots were the norm, and often for money. The drive to beat the others quickly realised the search for a great technique and calm nerves when playing under pressure, as we often created difficult scenarios and tried to put our playing competitors off.
Soon after, the realisation of beating not just the juniors, but also the adults was taking shape and before my 16th birthday, I was challenging the club pros for money too.
At the age of 16, I was part time working as a Golf Professional whilst playing amateur competitions. At the time, in Pyle and Kenfig, my golf club had debatably, the strongest golfers in Wales, having won many titles Junior and Senior level, so competition was always nearby. Even the junior team (under 18) of 8 players had a highest handicap of 5.
After playing many competitions successfully winning events and sponsorship, whilst qualifying myself as a PGA Professional in Britain, at the age of 22 I started having back problems.
I was unable to play for many months, so I decided to move to the Netherlands to teach and see a new environment.
I stayed in the Netherlands for 1 year before moving to Luxembourg where I have been now for since 2001.
Getting injured was a sign for me, to realise that there are many factors in golf that can be improved. I started a quest for more information in all areas that could benefit my golf, and what I could later pass on to others.
After realising that the body is such an important part of golf, I learned more about movements and later, after 2 months of coursework, I went to the UK for a 4 week intensive course and became a gym instructor. This gave me the chance to understand better the bio-mechanical movement and stress in a golf swing and how to combat it.
Attending seminars from the best golf coaches, reading the classic and modern golfing techniques and testing them out myself. I always stick to the thought that, if I have not tested it, I will not trust it.
After realising the importance of technique and body and being fully qualified. I looked again at the other factors that could effect a golfers results. Psychology and equipment. I worked at Citabel golf shop in Howald and became a PING Authorised Club Fitter. I became a PGA accredited Golf Psychologist.
I have always looked for the best to achieve the best, not only in my own golf, but also to allow me the chance to pass the knowledge. I am a Samp Putt and Flightscope certified coach and have not only Flightscope and Sam Putt but also MySwing, Boditrak, Swinguru and Focusband which are the most advanced equipment for measuring speed, balance, club, body angles and any ball data available.
Even though, I have been involved in the game for over 25 years, and I have more that the essential skills, I am constantly pursuing perfection in the game of golf. I have my eyes on new courses to check out and hope that they can provide more answers to this game.
Director of GolfSchool Luxembourg
Passionate about coaching
Flightscope Certified
Sam PuttLab Certified
SwingCatalyst Certified
MySwing
Boditrak
Swinguru