Golf Instruction: Swing release and ball striking secrets | School of Golf | Golf Channel

Martin Hall was joined by Blair O'Neal and Jim McLain, one of my favorite teachers, hands down, a fellow pg8 to each of the World Golf Hall of Fame teachers. I mean, these credentials could fill this entire meeting we're about to film anyway I'm going to pick his brain today are you ready for it ready I'm ready okay Blair let's talk about liberation now that's a broad term , means a lot of things to a lot of people, too many people think. it means you know, like a dog would wag its tail, people just move the club and around the body, would you like that kind of definition of

release

?

No, that's a bad definition, yeah, so let's talk about that. I've done more research than anyone on the gospel, although I'm trying to catch up with you, but you've done a lot and, but people influenced you, I mean, Byron Nelson influenced you, Ken Venturi. Influence on your gene Sarah's New Flute, Jimmy Ballard, a big influence on you and everyone talked about using the rights. I didn't do the right thing, so if you would take Blair to some sort of McLain 101 clinic on what it means to

release

. the right side, not just the stick, so get in there and get good at working with this girl, well, the first thing I'm going to do is take that stick off of you, okay, and then I'll take off your left one, okay, now take your right arm to feel what is happening now. the right arm creates the width in the back

swing

, so if you keep your right hand and your right arm away from you, if you now try to get your left arm up there, that's a long reach, yeah, that's extension and feeling it, yeah . you can feel the tension out there, so it's actually this right arm, if you bend this right arm close, you start to lose the strength of the left arm, you lose the width of your

swing

, which is why the right arm might be so relaxed however you want if you move that right arm away from you, you're going to have a good strong left arm, you know, at the top of the swing it feels good and then when we talk about the right arm as a power move or the release less, Martin was talking about that. it was just a back motion as we start to go down, we want this right arm and right elbow to drop and the elbow to lead the hand, it starts to go down and it gets into a throwing position, okay, and when you get here and bring Your right arm down automatically, like you did, push your left side out of the way, yeah, without thinking about it.

So naturally, one of the great things we've done in teaching Martens that he's done many times is the idea of ​​throwing a

ball

with half your hand. half arm this way or anyone who's taking a flat stone and jumping it to the right, okay, let me see that same feeling, yeah, and as you're doing that, your right arm is going from bent to extended, yeah, and that's what we want to feel, and then if you put your left hand there and let it relax, okay and you feel the same sensation of the right arm with the right hand right now, when we hit a

golf

ball

, you are doing it wonderfully, of course, He was a good, very good top-level professional, but you feel the entire right side because we just talked about the right arm, but in reality it is the right knee, the right hip, the right shoulder, everything moves and there is expansion from the arm right to the extension position, it's fine that way, so I've been with a lot of great players who have concentrated from time to time we all adjust the

golf

thinking about the right side of the path and letting this left arm be very relaxed because if this left side gets out of the way and as you move down, we I've been talking and extend that right arm out, your left arm is going to work great, automatically, right, yeah, Jim, can I?

I just make sure, well, Blair hits one here, so we both still teach a lot of common golf, right, I always say. 15 handicappers, you know players of any level and some people have the idea that you should tuck your right elbow out to the side, don't think that's what you're saying, you know the right arm doesn't go in front of the hip that way . you go and I think from a teacher's point of view, I know that the idea of ​​the elbow leading the hand is vital for good, there is no knock, if the hand starts leading the elbow, we have a real problem, I dissipated all the power, so Think when you're coming down you know how to take a step and rotate a little bit and just let the air through, but that's good too, I just got this from Ben Doyle, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, just lift it up with a swing with that hand there and that gives you bad things in golf, how fashions and trends, like we talk about when we talk on the phone and right now, shoulder external rotation is a big thing, just place your elbow to do that, that will give you everything. trails externally rotate the shoulder you need, it doesn't need to be more than that, so you should do it, okay, I'm doing it, there you go, that would be great, so let's have a practice.

I'm getting here well and I think that gives the feeling that the club is a little behind, yes, okay, it feels powerful. I feel like it's because it is, and you see Blair really continuing with the right side, your right side moves really well through the golf ball and as you go through the golf ball, the right side keeps moving, that's part of the release and it ends up being higher than the left shoulder, so the left shoulder comes from below, the right shoulder comes down, the right shoulder comes up, that's part of the whole release, yeah. of the things I'm going to do so you know that while we have Jim McLean here, you know long before we met Blair, if you can get ready for the golf ball, I'm going to bring Jim back here and in your original book the eight step swing or the first eight steps plus you talk about how important the control point is in the throw that at some point after impact the front shoulder that stops Blair's left shoulder disappears behind the next one, I think that's very important, it's part of the release because if the front shoulder stays in sight just move the club head this way if the front shoulder stays in sight inevitably then the left arm the front arm is going to clap you break people say no can you understand me that's not straight it's like Well, you won't keep your left arm straight if you don't keep moving your shoulders.

I mean this little exercise I'm doing here, where I do this with all my shoes, I'll grab and make the shoulders move, they move in a tilt, there's no doubt about it, but the shoulders have to keep moving. I mean, I think once you get moving, I don't think there's a point where the shoulders stop moving until the end of the movement, you don't want this idea of ​​that. you know your shoulder stops and your arms move because that will give you hocus giganticus oh you don't like that, no, I joke about a lot of those in my life, so here we go, one more release, the right side, good liberation, let go of that right. objective now I have another question for you Jim so you made this video 20 years ago with Sam Snead you went the Greenbrier route and you made this video with them along with Sam and that must have been fantastic so what I have Always I've been so intrigued by the fact that Sam was credited with saying "hold the club like you're holding a little bird." Now, the only time I met him, I had him hold my two fingers like the little bird and he was pretty firm and I think.

One of your mentors, Jackie Burke, said that what people didn't know was that Snead was talking about a hawk. Your view on grip pressure means how light the light is, how tight the timing is. Well, I've used the scale from 1 to 10 with 5. being in the middle of the night, I'm pretty sure at all my golf

school

s we go through it in detail up and down the scale, so you want to be around 4 or 5 in terms of stiffness, not down by one or two. but Snead had very relaxed wrists, that's what he was talking about: very relaxed wrist, soft body, fast movement, that's how you get fast movement from relaxation, when you're tense you become slow.

I think that's so good, so press with the grip, you know you can be. holding a bird, but it's about a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, it's the riffs that are maybe like Jim. I always treasure our time together, thanks for the great stuff there and I hope this helps you with the launch for more great tips be sure. Subscribe to the golf

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