Player:

The nine-time major champion discusses weight transfer

Gary Player
Thu, 31 May 2012
Player:

Gary Player was on hand to give Golf Live visitors an insight into the importance of weight transfer at London Golf Club last week. The South African legend was in typically good form, so without further ado...

The biggest fault I see in amateurs is that they fall back.

Transferring your weight is the most important thing you can do in this game. If you want to play well, go and see a dance teacher. He’ll teach you to waltz.

Come here, sweetheart [Gary pulls a lady from the crowd to dance]. ‘One-two-three... one-two-three... one-two-three... one-two-three.’

That’s what I want you to do when you play golf. Say to yourself, ‘One-two-three, one-two-three.’ Some of the best players in the world like Arnold Palmer think that way.

When I first met Arnie, he was a young pro and the wind was blowing. He bent down and threw the grass up in the air and didn’t even look where it went. I said ‘Arnie, why did do you that?’ He said ‘Well, all the good players do it.’

When you go home tonight, I want you to work on the rotation of your body by swinging with that one-two-three rhythm. That’s where you get the power. There’s no power in your hands.

If you think you have power in your hands, just try and walk to that hole over there on your hands. You can walk all day on your legs, so that’s telling you it’s a thousand times stronger than your hands.

Your power base is right there in the six-pack [Gary pats his stomach area]. I might be 76 years young but I do a thousand sit-ups four to five times a week to keep my body in shape. That gives you the rotation.

Right, let’s hit a 9-iron. When you play in the morning like this and there’s dew on the ground, never take a practice stroke on the turf. The dew on the clubface will make the ball squirt. Take a practice stroke in the air. 

Watch the lower half of my body when I hit this ball and watch where my weight finishes. All my weight is on my left side. Watch my right toe. You finish on the toe to make the dough. If you’re flat, you end on the mat.

I gave Elvis Presley his first lesson in 1961. He stands there and has the worst looking grip I’ve ever seen in my life. It was like a cow giving birth to a roll of barbed wire.

He said, ‘Gary, what’s important?’ I said ‘Elvis, you’ve got to wind up with the hips and unwind with the hips’. He said, ‘Baby, you’re talking to the right man.’

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