Gary Player’s best tips for amateurs? They feature weight and a dimple
Gary Player in July at the Senior Open.
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“What would be one best tip for an amateur golfer to improve their game?”
Gary Player is loosening up when he hears the question. He stops.
He loves this one.
He gives a pair of answers.
Vintage Player, right? He’s a legend. Nine major wins. One-hundred-and-sixty-five worldwide. He’s a talker, too. So let’s listen. The exchange was shared this week by the Golf Manual Instagram page, and it was originally shot by Matt Freyer.
Player’s first tip featured the downswing. And weight.
“To move his weight to the left when he plays golf,” Player said on the video. “As he starts his downswing, get his weight to his left side.”
The thought is, of course, a key piece of the swing. Let’s go further. To assist, let’s call on this article written by GOLF’s Nick Dimengo and guided by GOLF Teacher to Watch Rick Silva.
It’s interactive.
“Imagine if we were to lay an alignment stick right across our hips,” Silva said in a video. “Here’s what golfers who struggle with doing that actually do.
“Here we are at address, and, in a backswing, this [the alignment stick] rarely moves, causing us to drift off in our backswing with our upper body.
Bad ball-strikers make this mistake while shifting their weight. Here’s how to fix it
“This creates too big of a separation between our upper body and the middle of our pelvis. So on the downswing, we start to move our lower body, and the center of our pelvis actually goes backwards,” Silva continued.
As for the good golfer, Silva then demonstrated proper weight shift. It creates power and precision.
“The good player starts swiveling the [imaginary alignment stick] to the right, and then right at the top of our backswing, our upper body actually settles right between our feet.
“What happens here is, this propels our pelvis forward, allowing the [club] shaft to swivel,” he said. “That’s what helps us get our weight forward and hit great golf shots.”
On to Player’s second tip.
It features putting. And a dimple.
“And the other thing is, to see his putter,” Player said. “When he putts, to pick a dimple on the ball and to see your putter hit that dimple before you look up. They can’t do that. They’ll be peeping all the time.”
The thought here is also important, though when a player putts, there’s some preference involved. Some look at the cup. Some look at the ball. But should you do the latter, Player’s advice is focus-based.
Notably, Player offered a similar tip to GOLF’s Clare Rogers. To her, Player said to look at the ball’s logo upon impact.
To watch that video — which features additional putting advice — please click below.
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