Henry Cotton - Show your back to the target

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Henry Cotton in the twilight of his life. He was recognized by the good players of the time as a master teacher and I have always found his thoughts on the golf swing concise and helpful to all players. One point he made in my company while we were watching the British Amateur Championship was that "amateurs (even the best) never arrive"! Study your own game and count how many times you actually reach the hole with a shot. You will be surprised how seldom it occurs. Solution; take more than enough club to get there, unfortunately we all have delusions about how far we hit it.

Another point he made was that most golfers agonized over the finer points of the swing losing sight of the main objective - finding the back of the ball with the middle of the clubface. He made the point that there was no one-way to achieve this goal as everybody is built differently and therefore has individual swings.

He thought, however, that there were some common denominators. The main one he emphasized for all players was to "show one’s back to the target". "The action of completing a full pivot is seen in the play of all good golfers" he wrote in Thanks for the Game. He went on to say that some achieve this with both feet planted firmly on the ground; "others need an easing of the left foot from the turf: and there are those who need to raise the left heel quite considerably. It all depends on the level of flexibility."

Jack Nicklaus also thought this concept was vital. He commented at one stage that Gary Player and Hale Irwin were the two players most difficult to beat down the stretch because no matter how much pressure was on they always "completed their backswings"!

So stop worrying about the small stuff (hand positions, swing planes, separation, angles etc) and "turn your back to the target". I suspect the other things may look after themselves and the ball will go further and straighter.