So being in Rossland there’s a bit of a ski culture to the community. With that being the case I want to share a way to use some of your skiing skills to improve your golf game. We’re going to focus on how we balance, more specifically where we distribute our weight on the soles of our feet. When we ski we always use the inside edges of our skis to balance against when turning and stopping. So we balance against the inside or instep of our outside foot when skiing. Anyone that skis knows how unnerving it is to get caught on the outside edges of their skis. If we relate this to our golf swing, specifically the back-swing there are some similarities. As we complete our back-swing if our weight moves to the outside of our back foot (right side of the ride foot for right handed golfers) we create a position where it is extremely difficult to transfer our weight to our left side as we start our down-swing. In most cases this will cause us to start the down-swing with our arms, casting our club on an outside to in path, limiting our speed and making quality contact difficult. Translation short and crooked. Instead if we focus on keeping our balance on the inside (left side) of our right foot we will create a position where we can push of our right foot to start our downswing. This makes transferring our weight to our left side much easier, allows to the club to follow an inside to square path and maximizes speed by allowing us to generate power from the ground up. So how do we get the feel for this? The next time your at the range take a club and place the grip end on the ground under the right side of your right foot for right handed golfers (the opposite for lefties) and make a few swings. You’ll instantly feel how this restricts your ability to move your weight to the outside of your back foot and how it keeps you in a well balanced athletic position where you can push off your back foot to generate power and transfer your weight most efficiently. Get on your inside edge for more power and control.
