When does GOLF become G.O.L.F?
What makes GOLF into G.O.L.F – a Game Of Limitless Frustration?
When you, as a golfer, have a muscle called the Latissimus Dorsi (LD – which sadly, you do).
The LD has also been nicknamed the ‘ass wiper’ muscle. If you stand upright and put your arm behind your back to touch your spine at it’s base, you’ll see what basic movements it is designed to manage.
It is a large sheet of muscle starting at the middle and lower spine, and then its fibers all climb diagonally up and bundle together, so as to insert into a tiny area in the front of the upper arm!
So, here’s the problem. If you start your backswing as a ‘wide arms triangle’ and then try to rotate your body, the origin and insertion of the Lats get spread apart, so that later rotation does not happen in synchronization with the arms movement, and the arms and body no longer move at the same pace.
Similarly, if your body starts with a rotation, the right arm tends to get pulled along with the rotation too, so that if you now try to raise your arms to prevent them from swinging too ‘flat’, once again the synchronization of body and arms is lost.
Bottom line, complete your body-rotation pre-swing, as the Minimalist Golf Swing requires, so that the origin and insertion of your right Latissimus Dorsi remain together. All that remains in-swing, because body-rotation is no longer required, is a simple abduction of the right arm, which the LD has enough flexibility to allow. Keep your Lats – especially the right one – well-stretched too!
