Guest Post by: Robert Van Dusen
I bought Bobby Clampett’s “Five Dynamics” video set the other day and I learned that Bobby Clampett does not care about my swing style. I was a little hurt by this because he seems like such a caring guy. So why wouldn’t he care about my swing style? Because, to him, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is impact.
According to Clampett there are five dynamics at work in a good golf swing.
1) A flat left wrist.
2) A four-inch divot in front of the ball swing bottom
3) Loading the club on the backswing
4) Lagging the club on the through swing
5) Get the ball started on-line
That’s it. That’s all you’ve got to do. And Clampett tells you how to develop each dynamic.
Of those five dynamics the one that seems the most important, the one that makes Clampett raise his voice, the one that is the key to life, the universe and everything, is the four-inch divot in front of the swing bottom. Clampett believes (and who am I to argue) that he can determine a person’s handicap by how many inches in front or behind the ball they take their divot. Four inches in front the guy or gal may be a tour player, four inches behind is the guy who tees off ahead of you every weekend. So the closer you can get to a four-inch divot in front swing bottom the better player you will be.
Clampett’s favorite drill to attain the four-inch swing bottom is to draw a line in a bunker, then straddle the line as if it were your golf ball and swing taking a divot in the sand. He recommends you do this drill until you can hit in front of the line every time. Then move on to the tic tac toe drill.
This drill has the player draw a tic tac toe board in the sand*, straddle the intersection of two lines as if it were the ball and then swing. The divot will not only show you where your swing bottom is, it will also show if you hit the sweetspot of your club and which direction your club was traveling at impact.
Unfortunately, it is quite possible to do the drill and still screw up the fifth dynamic. In fact, this was my problem. I got pretty good at hitting four inches ahead of the ball but I did it by coming over the top.
But one of the great perks of buying the DVDs is that you get to have a conference call with the great man. I told him about my tendency to pull my nine iron forty yards left of the target and he told me to concentrate on the fifth dynamic. Thanks Bobby. One of these days, when I get out of this stupid bunker, I will do that very thing.
