Soft Arms Are Goal…Because? | The Benefits of the Gravity Swing

Before beginning this discussion of swing “secrets” (sounds great), one should remember that the Gravity Golf swing, when executed in its ideal form, is a complete mechanism, functioning perfectly, both from a physics and physiological perspective. Frequently, I encounter golfers who say to me, “I read your book, or watched you and your amazing son Danny on the videos, and I bought into 90% of everything you guys had to say.” My reply is, “well, if you bought into 90%, you didn’t buy into any of it.” In an ideal swing, there is a perfect partnership between gravity and the player, where every part of the body functions exactly as it should. If you take 10% of the parts out of a Ferrari, it becomes a Volkswagen (my quote).

The Recipe To The Gravity Swing

To understand the Gravity swing as a whole, one needs to be aware that there is a “recipe” to the symbiotic relationship between the heave (first move going back), the weight-shift, the counter-fall (which starts the downswing), the arm-drop, and the turn through. Gravity “aids” these elements in three places during the swing to enable it to function at peak efficiency. When you witness Freddie Couples or Louie Oosthuizen make a perfect swing, you’re seeing the recipe function in an ideal manner; everything moves in perfect sync, and nothing labors.

For purposes of this discussion, we will address one aspect of the Gravity swing – dead-falling arms. Anyone that follows the principles of Gravity Golf, should be aware of the huge advantage of having soft arms in the downswing. When the downswing begins with the arms in a state of pure dead-fall, the golfer benefits enormously in a number of ways. Initially, it should be understood however, that softness in the arms coming down, is a swing element that we enable only when a proper counter-fall releases the core-mass to turn through effortlessly and function as a power source for moving the arms and club.

If the core doesn’t freely turn to sling the arms, they (the arms) will involuntarily tighten to some degree in order to provide their own power. This occurs to some extent in practically every player, at all levels of the game. To witness perfectly dead-falling arms in the golf swing is (unfortunately) a very rare occurrence in our great game.

Letting The Arms Deadfall In Your Swing

Once the arms and club have been enabled to dead-fall into the downswing by everything up to that point functioning correctly, the following benefits occur.

1. Assuming that the arms and club have been heaved into a perfect plane going back, the club will stay on that plane coming down because the arms and hands are doing nothing to change it. Subsequently, the ball is struck perfectly in the center of the club-face.
2. Since the arms are not tightening coming down, all of the core-mass turns freely and the ball is struck with all the body’s available foot-pounds of energy. This enables maximum distance with minimal effort.
3. By not tightening the arms and hands during the downswing, the hands are left free to very sensitively manipulate the club-face for maximum control of the ball. The shots can be hit with any shape (draw, fade, or straight), and on any desired trajectory.
4. In all shots, but especially the short game, softness of the arms during the downswing, results in perfect distance control – the goal of a great game inside of a hundred yards.
5. Because the ball is struck so purely and lands so softly, there are tremendous advantages when playing into the wind. A player can, for example, hit pitch shots that are unaffected by the wind from 80 or 90 yards, with a seven or eight iron, that will stop on a dime when they land on the green. Hitting the ball high with a wedge into the wind, results in loss of distance control on these critical shots.

Appreciating The Feeling Of Soft Arms In The Gravity Swing

In reading over the information just written here, I am reminded that until players experience how it feels to hit a golf ball with totally dead-falling arms (a great rarity among almost all golfers), it is impossible for them to fully appreciate the sensations I am trying to describe. A perfectly functioning golf swing is a domino-like sequence of events that culminate in perfectly struck shots, over which you have the best possible control. Once you understand how it works, and know how to practice perfectly, you’ll begin to know golf as the game it is designed to be. We at Gravity Golf fully understand how this amazing recipe functions. Let us help you experience it as well.

An Article by David Lee

For a step by step guide to mastering your swing, Take The Gravity Golf Challenge!