THOUGHTS FROM THE SWING CLINIC
RAOUF ALLIM Grade 3 AC/grade 3 GC coach
This article is more for the folk who are interested in swing coaching!
HOCUS POCUS? A couple of years ago I was playing in the AC Intercounties, which is a tournament that I love, and always play in if I get the chance. Lots of good players turn up, and there is a great atmosphere. I happened to be sitting next to one of the Elite players, who asked me rather innocently (and clearly mischievously) what all this swing coaching was about. Surely, he said, all people have to do is look at the ball and hit it. Wasn’t it all just hocus pocus? After being on the receiving end of some good humoured ribbing I eventually offered to sell him some magic oil to rub on his mallet, which would make him a better player, and we moved onto other topics. On a more serious note, however, swing coaching isn’t just telling people to look at a ball and hit it! Things come in threes A Swing Clinic is usually a mixed bag of problems, and a common topic is what to do about something that is hurting when playing. My wife tells me that things come in threes, and many years of marriage have taught me to pick my fights carefully, particularly with regards to esoteric topics such as confirmation bias. Also, I know that having had an argument about it, something will happen to me in triplicate (such as three parking fines), and yet again I will have lost. Anyway, having recently done three Swing Clinics I realised that I had had three people come to me with a painful right wrist. None of the players had other joint problems. It’s an interesting topic, at least to a swing coach. ONE OF THE DISADVANTAGES OF A WRIST SWING! The first case was one that anyone could predict as a strong possibility for a wrist problem, and that was a player using an Irish grip with the right hand on top, using quite a wristy technique. After years of playing he was finding it difficult to bend his right wrist back as far as it used to go, and he was probably getting early wear and tear arthritis in the wrist joint. We discussed various options, including switching to a Solomon grip which is much easier on the wrists, but in the end he opted to get himself fitted with an angled mallet shaft. We discussed how to measure the correct distance for
the angulation, and agreed that he would come back with his new mallet for a quick review. Hopefully, he will do better with that, and won’t require any major modifications to his swing. HOW CAN YOU GET WRIST PAIN WITH A SHOULDER SWING? The other two were both good players, using a standard grip in right-handed configuration (right hand below the left). They were both using a two shoulder technique, and they had an identical issue. They were overusing the right wrist, and the question was why, given that they had quite good shoulder swings. The answer lay in how their left shoulders were contributing to the swing. There was an early active movement of the left shoulder in the transition (the part of the swing where the backswing changes to the downswing). This was causing a timing issue where the mallet head was slightly lagging through the downswing, and which the player had to correct through the strike with an active right wrist flick (and simultaneously with a deceleration of the left shoulder). Being good players they had built this correction perfectly into their swing, but years of using this active wrist movement were beginning to take their toll. IF YOU ARE A SWING COACH HOW DO YOU DIAGNOSE THIS PROBLEM? The first thing is there is a strong clue, which is that the right wrist is hurting, so you should be looking carefully for where in the swing the right wrist is activating. The second thing is to observe what happens when the player is asked to swing one-handed just with the left hand. You’ll only get a few chances to see what is happening, because good players automatically start to correct things if they don’t work. What you see is the early left shoulder movement, and because there is no right wrist available to sort things out the player is forced to decelerate the left
Continued on page 22
www.croquetengland.org.uk | 21
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker