Easter: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and My Golf Swing

Well, today is Easter and it is the holiday celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I am a confessing and hopefully practicing Christian (although I swear too much) to whom Easter has immense spiritual significance!

Metaphorically today I am using the Easter theme of resurrection on my golf swing for this particular blog entry, and while I am a professing Christian (albeit with many questions) this is not a religious blog so back to the golf stuff!

In my efforts to resurrect or relearn the golf swing, essentially I am going to crucify my old golf swing, bury it, and hopefully resurrect it to the real thing!

The blog title “Golf Backwards”‘ has a symbolic meaning to me.  I believe I swing a golf club backwards from the way I should.  Actually I don’t golf, I flog (thanks Ned) and so the result is opposite from what is should be:  topped shots not high ones, crooked shots not straight, and high scores not low ones hence flog!

I am going to briefly attempt to explain the correct muscles and actions necessary for executing a golf shot as opposed to a flog shot.  This may not be easy for you to accept coming from someone who once putted into a bunker on a par three hole at Carolina National Golf Club on the way to a nine.  By the way I shot a 124 on that course and cheated.  I actually believe I cheated on my score on that par three hole!  Yes, I remember!  I putted into the bunker picked up on the hole and told my playing partners to give me a nine!

The problem with making a golf swing is that we tend to use the front muscles when we swing.  Muscles such as the biceps (which on me are tiny), chest muscles (again, tiny) and outside leg muscles (need I say more?).  These muscles can only produce crappy golf shots or flog shots.  I am an expert at using these lousy shot producing muscles!

The back muscles (whatever the heck they are called), the under muscles of the arms, and the inner muscles of the legs are the ones to use when hitting the golf ball properly.  Dang they are hard to activate!

Centrifugal force is what you want to produce.  You want a turning action which can only be produced by the back and under muscles of the body.  Otherwise the other muscles will cause lurching, swaying, and basically off-balance swinging.  The correct action with the back muscles is so damned hard to do, but possible I think.

So in order to resurrect my golf swing from the dead I need to replace it with a new swing:  back muscles instead of front ones.  Golf instead of flog.  Sounds like a plan.

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