Hi, I’m Rick Sessinghaus, PGA coach and coach for Collin Morikawa.
We want to hit it off the center of the face, and another key element is proper tempo. Now there are different tempos … Jon Rahm looks like he swings at a different speed than Collin Morikawa, but they own their tempos, right? That’s how they swing. Let’s develop your own best tempo. First one is, think about percentages, right? When you hit your best shot. Is it 50%, 70%, 90%? It’s probably not 100%, somewhere in between that.
And then literally practice it. So for me, with an iron, it’s 80%. Now, my only intention on this shot is to swing at 80%. And I’m trying to reinforce 80% over and over again.
Next one now, is to feel like you have a proper backswing to downswing ratio. Best players in the world, it’s a three to one. So think about counting 123…1…123…1. That’s going to help you with your transition. Unfortunately, sometimes we get quick back here and especially quick on the transition.
So can we almost feel like there’s a pause? So a good drill is certainly you can say it out loud to yourself and count it out 123…1. Then if you have some challenges with that, pause at the top so we can go all the way back…123 actually hold it and then strike it through. That’s going to help you with patience now as you make that transition.
So tempo. Yeah, it’s individual and you need to adapt it to what you feel works for you and that is already a part of your golf mental game routine. But if we can swing at a three to one ratio, if we can swing at your best percentage, you’re going to strike at a heck of a lot more off the center and be more consistent.