An Arnold Palmer Golf Tip (Video)

Tom Saguto is a wild man, folks. You can see that clearly in this video. But the tip from Arnold Palmer he found in an old Golf Digest is a good tip, although I think his version is a bit... stiff. I'll suggest how to 'loosen up' after the video, but watch him spaz out first. It's entertaining as well as informative!

This tip -- pointing your lead shoulder at the ball when you reach the top of your swing -- makes sense to me. I think it's a very easy move to make if you straighten your back leg during your backswing as Arnie did. I've done a couple of posts about Arnie's straight leg before:

• this one with Brandel Chamblee's take on its value
• and this one which shows that Arnie isn't the only great golfer to use the move

But Tom's approach seems destined to create an overly flat swing plane which will make getting the ball out of the rough overly difficult. So let me make a trio of suggestions that will give you a more relaxed swing that's a bit more like Arnie's or Jack's swings.

• First, connecting your upper arms to the sides of your rib cage is a sound principle up to a point. But your trail elbow HAS to move away on the backswing or you're going to restrict your swing and create that overly flat plane. The pros have frequently used a drill where they hold a glove under their lead armpit to keep that arm connected through impact. That's enough connection in your swing.
• Second, you don't need to keep your arms ramrod straight. In fact, as you may have noticed, your trail elbow HAS to bend by the time you're at waist high on your backswing. As for your lead arm, it's okay for it to flex a bit as long as it doesn't start making an angle at your lead elbow. The pros refer to this as a 'soft' arm.
  
• Finally, you don't have to keep your weight on your lead leg during your entire swing ALTHOUGH keeping your trail knee straight will help keep you from swaying off the ball. The idea of keeping your weight on your lead leg during your whole swing is basic to the Stack and Tilt swing, and it's not a bad thing. It will help you to hit crisper iron shots because it's what you do in your short game. But Arnie, Jack and most of the other players who use the straight trailing knee allow their lead heel to come off the ground, and you can't do that if you're too rigid in your efforts to keep your weight on your lead leg.

What Tom says in this video is all basically sound stuff, folks, and a lot of you will find that pointing your lead shoulder at the ball while keeping your trail knee straight (but not locked ramrod straight) will indeed help to stabilize you over the ball and should help improve your impact. Just don't get too stiff about it, okay? You don't want to hurt yourself!