Tip #55 - Post Impact

Once past impact there's nothing you can do to influence the flight of the ball, but since a good follow-through is the result of a sound swing, it pays to know what the proper finish position looks like.

Rhythm and tempo can't be taught, they must be absorbed.

Basically, you're facing the target. About 80 percent of your weight has transferred back to your left side. In fact, after impact that weight is for the first time on the outside of your feet, as you roll onto the side of your left foot while balancing on the toe of your right. Your hands, which have been pulled almost violently through impact, now begin to come back inside and upward, into a final position over your left shoulder. Most important, you're in balance: not tilting back or forward, left or right, but totally stable.

A couple of years ago, one of the trademarks of my swing was a pronounced slide of my right foot toward my left foot just after impact. That happened because I transferred so much of my weight onto my right side on the backswing, then returned so much of it to my left side on the downswing. A swing computer once measured the pros on the PGA Tour and found that I made the most pronounced weight shift of anyone. Over 90 percent of my weight was going back and forth during the swing. That pull simply brought my right foot along with it.

These days, I set up with a slightly wider stance than I used to. In this way, I start with a bit more weight on my right side at address, and therefore I don't have to shift as much during the swing. This minute change has virtually eliminated the slide. It's also had the benefit of counteracting a tendency to hit the occasional errant shot to the right.

The one aspect of the swing I haven't said much about is tempo. That's because I feel it's largely an individual matter and should be matched to your overall temperament and the speed with which you generally do things. If you walk and talk quickly, you should probably swing quickly (although not too quickly). If you do things in a more deliberate fashion, then by all means, adopt a more leisurely pace of swing.

Just be sure you keep to your tempo throughout the round. One problem that all of us have is a tendency to speed things up a bit when the pressure is on. I know I do. Back at Turnberry (site of the 1986 Open Championship), when I let a couple of shots get away from me and bogeyed the fifth hole of the final round, my caddie said to me, "Slow down. You're swinging fast, you're even walking faster than normal. I'm going to walk a bit more slowly, and you just keep pace with me." That put me right back on my natural tempo, and I had no problems from there to the finish.

With regard to rhythm -- the way the backswing and downswing work together -- the downswing clearly must be faster paced than the backswing. But that doesn't mean you should consciously speed up on the way to the ball. Good rhythm and tempo can't really be taught, they must be absorbed. My best advice is for you to go to a Tour event, sit by the practice tee for a while, and watch the pros. Seve Ballesteros is a particularly good model. His marvelous rhythm and tempo never vary, no matter what club he has in his hands.

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