April/2005

In golf, seniors will note there has been a change in the teachings of older players like Johnny Miller, one of his era’s greatest shot makers, and today’s Butch Harmon who coached Tiger Woods and Ernie Ells. Johnny Miller taught cocking the hands immediately on the backswing, keeping the right elbow close to the hip, and rotating the entire body back and forth equally for power. Butch teaches stretching the arms straight out in the backswing for a larger arc with late cocking of the hands, keeping the lower body dormant while the upper body turns 90 degrees.

The result is a powerful coil that when released on the downswing, along with late un-cocking of the hands, produces the powerful 300 yard plus drives that we see today.

As we get older the body is not as flexible and we tend to revert back to Johnny Miller’s teachings, while this sacrifices distance, a controlled 200 yard drive down the middle is much preferred to 250 yards into water, trees and sand traps.

Bill Hawkins  

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