Gi - See Emily Play

with Stuart MorganPHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID CANNON/GETTYIMAGES.COM

The astonishing ability 10-year-old Emily Price has to swing agolf club so beautifully used tobe explained as natural golfingtalent; today, through extensiveresearch and a better under-standing about junior coachingmethods, we now know thatshe is able to do this becauseshe is an athlete first and just sohappened to take a liking to golf.With Emily’s help, let me showyou how an assortment ofbeach toys is all you need toimprove some of the key movesin a sound swing. And if theenergy and sheer fun in theseimages doesn’t inspire you toplay better golf, well, nothing will!

GOLFINTERNATIONALMAGAZINE

ESSENTIAL READING FROM THE BEST IN THE GAME

GOLFINTERNATIONALMAG.COM JUNE 2010130

INSTRUCTION WITH STUART MORGAN

with Stuart MorganPHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID CANNON/GETTYIMAGES.COM

The astonishing ability 10-year-old Emily Price has to swing agolf club so beautifully used tobe explained as natural golfingtalent; today, through extensiveresearch and a better under-standing about junior coachingmethods, we now know thatshe is able to do this becauseshe is an athlete first and just sohappened to take a liking to golf.With Emily’s help, let me showyou how an assortment ofbeach toys is all you need toimprove some of the key movesin a sound swing. And if theenergy and sheer fun in theseimages doesn’t inspire you toplay better golf, well, nothing will!

THROW IT! Feel the windup as you go for max distance

HIT IT! Shift yourweight to whack the ball!

RELEASE IT! Spin the frisbee forconsistent flight

SEE EMILY PLAY!

JUNE 2010 GOLFINTERNATIONALMAG.COM 131



What you are looking at here are three wonderful sequences of perfectly natural athleticmotion – one of which just happens to be a golf swing. Emily has an advanced level atFUNdamental movement skills, like skipping & hopping and is now using FUNdamental Sportsskills to hone her golfing technique. My job is simply to fine-tune what she does instinctively tohelp her apply her natural skills to golf. In consultation with Emily’s father, Kelvin, my role is tomake sure that she continues to develop her love for the game.

As a coach, I know only too well how easy it is to over-burden a student with complicatedswing theory and often irrelevant information that does nothing other than hinder a player’sability and freedom of expression. In Emily’s case, the jargon of typical ‘golf-speak’ has beenkept to a bare minimum – and the results speak for themselves. The sequence at the top ofthis page, I think, illustrates perfectly how you can get a youngster to begin to develop agood swinging technique. Throwing a Frisbee from a sound golfing posture (either left orright handed) similarly reveals how a natural wind-up and release mirrors the arm and bodyaction we look for in a repeating golf swing. Specifically, you can see that she learns the correct extension and wrist release, promoting a flat left wrist at impact.

Nothing complicated here. And you can improve your own golf by following in Emily’sexample – all you have to do is raid the toy cupboard and then out and enjoy yourself as you let your instinct improve the shape of your swing.

Here you can see Emily doing a ground strike with a foamball and a polo stick – and what’s most impressive is hernatural instinct to step in to the ball and strike it

Look at the way she plants her forward foot asshe completes her backswing and winds up theupper body – terrific ‘athletic’ movement

Great set-up,arms nicelyextended andlovely angleacross theshoulders

Arms workingtogether as theshouldersturn – eyesfixed on theback of ball

Great extension ofthe left arm –just as abovewith bat andball!

The skill Emily learns with this exercise – just as youcan learn – is the correct ‘dissociate’ change of direc-tion, i.e. the upper body fully turned as the lower body

Building on pure athletic motion

Hold your posture andkeep your eyeon the imaginary ballas you wind up

SEE EMILY PLAY!


Unwind yourbody to accelerate yourarm for thethrow

Body rotates toclear the wayfor the armsand the club

No holdingback throughimpact! Look atthe extensionof the arms!

Picture-bookfinish

begins to work back towards the target. This isnot a position Emily has been taught – this is anatural instinct to want to hit the ball

In repeating this exercise and trying to strike the ball ashard as she can, Emily also learns a lot about the timingthat is required to maximise speed at impact

Of course, she doesn’t know all this – she simply getson and has fun doing it. And holds her finish in balanceas she lets fly!

Release the leftarm to the targetand watch it fly!

Hold your poiseand balance



The natural throwing action sees Emily shift her weightacross and onto the rear foot as she ‘loads up’ the arm-swing, storing up energy as she prepares to unwind

Poised at the ‘set-up’, the muscles in the handand arm relaxed – just as you should be at theset-up with a golf club in your hands

Weight flowsinto the rightside as Emilywinds up theswing. Greatleverage in theleft arm/wrists

Balanced andunhurriedchange ofdirection

Weight now onto the left sideas the club isreleased

SEE EMILY PLAY!


Transferring your weight correctly in the swing is one of thesecrets to consistent, repeating ball striking. And the more effi-ciently you take care of this element of technique the more speedand distance you will create. Throwing the vortex or torpedo, justlook at the way Emily ‘loads’ into her right side before springingforward and creating terrific leverage to throw the object as far aspossible. In all of the featured exercises I stress that I want her todo it at the maximum speed in order to develop the naturalspeed required to play great golf.

In exactly the same way as she instinctively shifts her weightto ‘load’ and release when throwing the rocket, her golf swingfeatures this wonderful dynamic as she allows her weight to flowback and forth in tune with the swing. For such a young player,she demonstrates a fantastically mature body action, her legsstabilising the motion from start to finish.

If I asked you to throw a ball or a rocket as far as you could Idoubt you’d stand there and try to swing your arm withoutinvolving your body – and yet that’s exactly what so many golfersdo with a club in their hands. So the next time you practice, whynot spend the first 5 minutes of your session throwing golf ballsdown the range, rehearsing this body action and encouraging thefree transfer of weight back and through? The more efficientlyyou marry this action with the flailing/throwing of the arm, the fur-ther you will throw the ball. Likewise, the better you combine thisnatural weight shift with your arm-action in the golf swing, themore speed you will create and the better you will hit the ball.

This is the future of junior golf development. As we all know,the game takes a long time to truly master, and with juniors start-ing out so young it is so important that we keep it fun, and thatthe skills then gradually become more challenging as the golfergets older. This way we keep motivation high and avoid younggolfers burning out as they take the game to seriously to young.

There’s a valuable lesson here for you, too.

Body reverses the momentum, the weight shiftingtoward the target in readiness for take off!

Full release of energy in the directionof the throw – just as we look for thatfull release in the direction of the target in a good golf swing

Load it up, then release

Gi - See Emily Play

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