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THE ELKINGTON FAMILY lived on the Australian bush bank
managers circuit, moving from Penrith to Narrabri to
Goulburn to Wagga Wagga and to Wollongong. Ross Elkington’s
employers lent the money for farmers to plant their crops
and to build their barns and homes; Rob and Steve went to
school, held odd jobs, and played games. Steve worked a
paper route, wielded a cleaver in a slaughterhouse, and,
inevitably, worked as a caddie, greens mower, and shop
assistant at a golf course. Before golf took thorough
possession of his son’s leisure time, Ross remembers that
little Steve was exceedingly adept with a soccer ball and a
cricket bat. He played mid-on or silly mid-on on the cricket
pitch; the baseball equivalent is third base, playing in for
a bunt.
At age seventeen, Steve won the Australasian Amateur;
at eighteen, he won the Doug Sanders World Junior. At this
point a curious Saturday- morning ritual developed. The
phone would ring at six a.m . and on the line would be an
American with a soft voice and an evangelist’s style. “Hi,
Elkie, Coach Williams,” the man would say. “You still
hittin’ it great? Real good, real good. You know, we’re
gonna have a great team next year, even though we lost
Freddie Couples. Yeah, he turned pro. But we can build a
real good team with you and Billy Ray Brown, real good, real
good. Yes, we’d love to have you. Okay, Elkie, we’ll talk to
you again soon.” (Dave Williams, the coach of a record
sixteen NCAA championship teams, had introduced himself at
the World Junior in Houston.) After months of this,
Elkington stopped the trans- global wake-up calls the only
way he could, by accepting a golf scholarship to the
University of Houston—to the dismay of the folks at the
University of Sydney (among others), who had offered him an
art scholarship.
Elkington employed an expert caddie in the '96 Masters in his older brother, Robert. A Titleist golf equipment salesman and the father of four, Robert Elkington is one of the best amateur golfers in Australia.
“When I went to America, it shocked a lot of people,”
Elkington recalls. “Some viewed me as a traitor.” The
nation’s press bemoaned his departure, with headlines like
golfer in exile. “For my mother, my leaving was like her
child had gone off to war,” says Elkington. “Not that I took
it too well myself. I was homesick constantly.” As everyone
in the family understood, Steve would not be flying home on
weekends to do his laundry; the seventeen-hour Houston—Los
Angeles—Sydney flight cost about $3,000—no trifle on a bush
bank manager’s salary. In fact, during his four years at the
University of Houston, he returned to Australia just twice.
This led to several Dickensian scenes. There were the
winter weekends when seemingly everyone had left the
campus—except for two solitary figures, Elkington hitting
practice balls on a field near Hofheinz Pavilion and a
lithe, muscular young man running miles on a nearby track.
Eventually, they introduced themselves: “Hi, Steve
Elkington.” “Hi, Clyde Drexler.” Drexler would later star
for Portland and Houston in the National Basketball
Association.
One night during Christmas vacation, the loneliest few
weeks for the expatriated Australian, Elkington returned
from dinner to his empty dormitory, the metallic click of
the closing door echoing behind him. He turned a corner and
suddenly beheld an almost seven-foot-tall black man coming
from the opposite direction. Both froze for a moment. “Hi,
I’m Steve Elkington.” “Hello, Hakeem Olajuwon.” Olajuwon,
Drexler’s basketball teammate from Nigeria, would also
develop into one of the best players in college and
professional basketball.
The fax machine became Elkington’s lifeline to home and
hearth and to Alex Mercer. “One part of my reply to his
swing questions or problems has always been the same,”
Mercer says.
“‘Trust your swing,’ I’ll write in the fax, and
underline it about six times.”
“When he went off to college was when he really got
good,” observes Elkington’s brother Rob. Steve had beaten
his older brother before, most memorably with a hole in one
with a three iron on the final hole of the Wagga Wagga
Country Club championship. But he’d never beaten Mercer. In
the summer of ’82, at Royal Sydney Golf Club, it finally
happened. And it was hard to tell if the student or the
teacher was happier about it.
ALEX MERCER told me once that I’d spend half my time as a
golfer learning the fundamentals of the game, and the other
half of my time forgetting them.
He meant that after you’ve ingrained the basics, you
need not continually relearn them. The basics should not
remain entirely buried in the subconscious mind, however. I
run through a little checklist before I hit a shot. It takes
only a second or two, because practice and repetition have
created a feeling of what is correct.
Most golfers are in turmoil over what mechanical thing
to think about as they prepare to hit a shot. Head down,
left arm straight, and so on. It seems the modern pre-shot
prescription to break this mental gridlock goes something
like this: You get behind the ball, take a few deep breaths,
visualize a good shot, and walk in with a positive frame of
mind. But I’ve never in my life seen a great player use this
procedure, and it doesn’t seem to solve the basic question
of aim.
A great player prepares to hit this way: He finds his
target; selects his shot and picks a club to accomplish it;
gets the club out and gets his grip established; then walks
into address, always in motion. It’s a dance step.
And what is the accomplished player thinking about as
he prepares to hit? His on e and only focus is the target: a
side of the fairway, a specific part of the green, the
flagstick, the bridge on the fifth hole, or the hillock on
the fourteenth. Not deep breaths, not positive thinking; his
visual and mental concentration on the target blocks out all
else and begins the instant he chooses what to aim for.
Having mastered the grip and his aim, his mind is free to
think of golf’s real goal, the target—which frees his body
to make good golf swings.
In short, the more conscious you are of aiming, the
better you hit the ball. I know some pretty crafty golfers
who play a somewhat homely fade on every shot. They may not
have much versatility, but because they know how to aim,
they’re hard to beat.
Many handicap players expend too much effort
visualizing the shot. But unless you know and can put in
place the setup and swing that will make the desired result
happen, visualization is a fairy tale. My goal is to get you
organized into such a good platform that very little
psychologizing will be required. You’ll swing with great
freedom and a certain serenity every time.
This most vital part of the golf swing should not be a
great drain on your ability. Like the grip, the interrelated
fundamentals of aim, alignment, and posture are basic skills
that take only a small amount from your glass of talent.
Although they may seem static, aim, alignment, and
posture actually require a good bit of movement. I’m in
motion from the moment I take the club from my caddie until
I finish my follow-through. You can’t just stand there!
Let’s go through this step by step, and you’ll see how
aim, posture, and alignment connect like the skin on an
apple.
You need not duplicate my routine to the letter, but it
wouldn’t harm you if you did. My pre-shot procedure, like my
swing, was built to be devoid of quirks. There’s nothing in
it that’s not well thought out and built to last.
And please bear in mind that while the following may
seem like a lot of detail, I actually play quite quickly. I
recommend that you do, too. Generally speaking, every shot
should present a decision between only two clubs, a five
iron or a six, or a three iron and a four wood, for example.
So select a club, and don’t attempt to untangle your
emotions or sort out your problems as you prepare to hit.
Just pick a target, make a decision, and get on with it!
This is the time to make the target as small as possible.
I take my grip, left hand first, and put it up in front of
me. I look to make sure I’ve put my left hand on the club
correctly before I put my right hand on it. Don’t take this
step for granted. I’ve been playing golf almost all my life,
and I still give my grip a little visual check before each
swing.
I find my target while standing behind the ball, and I
think deeply about the target while I walk to the ball.
Conversation stops. After all, you’re on the golf course for
a reason, and that’s to play golf. Idle chats with opponents
or friends have their place, but I enjoy thinking golf.
The target should be as small and specific as possible;
without a precise aiming point, you can lose focus to a
mechanical thought or to a worry about the result. If you
don’t aim at anything, you’ll hit it every time.
Sport psychologist Bob Rotella once posed this
question: What part of a blank dartboard would you aim at?
If you painted a bull’s-eye in the center of the board,
there’s no doubt you’d aim for that. The moral is: Find
bull’s-eyes for every shot, and aim for them every time.
Familiarity definitely helps in aiming. You usually
play better at your home course, because familiar targets
create a bigger, more complete picture of the job at hand.
Eventually, you want to get so competent at selecting
targets and aiming at them that this crucial step is almost
automatic.
My feeling at this moment, my attitude, is of being
capable. Not confident, which implies a certain ebb and
flow; everyone’s confidence goes up and down. My sense of
being absolutely prepared, aware, and competent for the
matter at hand is the best feeling in the world.
Think, look, and feel the shot.
I put my right hand on. You should take your grip before you
place the club behind the ball. If you settle your grip
after you’ve taken your stance, you’ll lose your focus on
the target, and probably line up incorrectly.
While still standing behind the ball, I take a little
half-swing, my eyes on the target. I make sure I scuff the
ground when I do this; like a baseball or cricket player
pounding his bat before the ball arrives, or a basketball
player bouncing the ball a few times before shooting a free
throw, I’m orienting myself to Mother Earth.
I occasionally think of the club as a rifle at this
point, aimed dead at my target, and with my feet parallel to
the line to the target.
While a swing thought at this stage is entirely
appropriate, don’t clutter your mind by getting into these
big, full practice swings. The effort to make a perfect
practice swing simply isn’t worth it; even if you make a
perfect practice swing, what have you got? And how many
times have you hit a bad shot simply because you couldn’t
get the right feel in your rehearsal?
Furthermore, Ben Hogan once told me that practice
swings are a waste of time and energy. I haven’t taken
another one since!
I approach the ball obliquely, my eyes still burning into
the target, with my right shoulder quite obviously dropped
several inches lower than my left. The tilted walk to the
ball has two purposes: First, since the right hand is below
the left on the grip, the right shoulder has to be lower.
Second, this posture pre-sets the impact position, in which
the left shoulder is up.
This procedure is so simple and so important, yet so
seldom followed by most golfers. If you wish to improve, you
must make it a part of your routine.
I consider this posture to be important enough that I
sometimes find myself unconsciously practicing it while
standing at home, or in the locker room, or while waiting
for a plane. I must look as though I have a stitch in my
side.
Three things happen simultaneously when I get to the
ball: I swivel my head from the target back to the ball;
I sole my club behind the ball square to the line I’ve
chosen; and I step up a little too close to the ball with my
right foot.
The right foot placement is experimental at this point; in a
few seconds I’ll set my left foot, then adjust the right so
that I have the ball position and distance from the ball I
want. You always want to come in a little too close, then
back off, because we all know once you stand too far away
you never move back in; it just doesn’t seem to be human
nature. But the main point is that you must commit your club
to the line before you commit your feet.
I’ve never had any success at aiming at a piece of
grass or whatever just in front of the ball. I prefer to
look out at the actual target.
Notice that my eyes are still involved with the target; the club has not yet been soled.
I set the left foot, then adjust my right foot. When I met
Ken Venturi for the first time, he told me I must be a good
golfer because I walk like a duck! And in fact I’ve always
felt that the golfer’s feet should be like a duck’s, splayed
out at ten minutes to two o’clock. Left foot at the ten,
right foot at the two. Ten minutes to two allows your hips
their full range of motion.
Try turning your feet in, and you’ll find that the freedom
of movement in the hip joints is reduced.
As you might expect, I vary the width of my stance all
the time. My feet are at their greatest distance apart, with
the inside of my insteps directly under my shoulders, when I
hit a driver. I take a smaller stance with the shorter
clubs.
I have never believed there is one ball position in
golf. In fact, given all the game’s variables, I don’t know
if any two are ever exactly the same! Rarely are two lies or
two situations identical; you get to hit a particular shot
in golf only once. Ball placement calls for an ability to
adapt and is an opportunity to be creative, which is the
greatest part of our game.
For example, a seven iron shot over water might make
you want to put the ball back in your stance a little, to
ensure clean contact. The ball may fly lower, but it will
probably be dry. In the opposite case, when you want a high
shot out of rough or to clear a tree, you’ll play the ball
way forward, even opposite the left toe.
Most of the time, my stance is slightly open. That is,
my left foot is open to the target line, but my knees and
shoulders are square to it. An open stance gives the hips a
little head start on the downswing and provides a feeling of
being “pre-torqued,” like a cocked fist or a pistol with the
hammer back.
Jack Burke always says, “Your arms should hang like an
elephant’s trunk” —meaning relaxed, and straight down. I
stand fairly close to the ball; I work in a small space. My
arms hang naturally. And while my left arm is firm (and the
right quite soft), I’m not trying to extend my arms before
or during my swing.
The average golfer, on the other hand, stands too far
from the ball, his arms outstretched. You can see this
vividly with the driver. How often do you see players who
are out to hit a hard one creep back farther and farther
from the ball and extend their arms until the elbows lock?
Perhaps it’s a natural instinct, but it doesn’t work,
because it’s moving away from the main power source.
Three things create power in the golf swing: the
wrists, the arms, and the body. The body is the most
powerful. The closer your arms are to the body, the closer
they are to the power source of the golf swing. The key to
long shots is not in the hands, arms, or legs, but in the
trunk of the body. We’ll talk more about this in subsequent
chapters, but an awareness of this principle is vital in the
setup. You must stay close to your power source.
Here’s a way to monitor your distance from the ball:
Take your address, then simply drop the club. Stay in your
stance, and look behind you; if about half the grip extends
beyond your heels, you are close enough to the ball. If much
less than half the grip protrudes, you’re too far away.
Now I’m ready to adjust my body.
Good posture over the ball is as important as anything
we do. It feels great to slouch on a couch, but eventually
it will be bad for your back. I feel the same way about my
setup. A relaxed position is tempting, but bad for golf.
With my feet now set, I bend from the waist to reach
the ball and stick my butt out.
I straighten my elbows, then relax them again once or
twice. Most observers assume I’m just loosening up, or
getting my shirtsleeves out of the way. But what I’m really
doing is getting the feeling of attachment of my upper arms
to the top of my chest. I’m connecting my arms to the main
power source as positively as I can. I want this connection
between my arms and my chest because I don’t want the arms
to work independently; I want them to do what the chest is
doing.
Then I tighten the muscles in my abdomen and rear end.
I haven’t shared this point with many people—call it
Elkington’s Secret—but it’s vital to my setup and to my
attitude about how to hit a ball. By contracting these large
muscle groups, there’s a live tension in my body that gives
me the sensation of being wrapped in, tight. The feeling you
want is the one you get when you invite a small child to
give you a punch in the stomach and you tighten up.
I look at the target a final time and check my aim. The
target should appear slightly to the right of where my
mind’s eye had been picturing it, definitely not to the
left. Why? Because I want to make an aggressive, athletic
swing; I want the feeling of swinging out toward my target.
The golf swing is under-and-up, and the follow-through is
high, toward the target, not under the left shoulder.
Finally, just before I hit the ball, I waggle. Ideally,
this little preparatory movement of the club should be on
the same path as the backswing. The point of the waggle
isn’t rehearsal, however; it’s staying in motion. I also
move some of the weight in my right foot slightly (and
imperceptibly) forward, toward the ball. Then the weight
comes right back to the center of the foot. That’s basically
my forward press, the last thing that happens before I start
my backswing. Alex Mercer says I waggle “with intent,” that
I give every impression of being ready to make a strong
swing at my target.
The details of the waggle will vary from player to
player. But you need to have some kind of movement.
A stick-figure image of how you should look before you hit
the ball would be erect and angular. The head is up; give me
enough room between your shoulder and your chest for your
left shoulder to fit in! The shoulder should turn under the
chin at the top of the backswing; Hogan’s shirts would fray
and rip at that point from repeated contact (chin-shoulder
contact can be a useful swing thought and can provide a
physical reminder of where your backswing should go).
The knees are bent slightly.
The arms hang straight down, with the elbows in front
of the chest, not beside it.
There is a slight bend forward at the waist.
Weight is neither toward the toes or the heels, nor
more on the right foot or the left, but central, balanced.
The left shoulder is higher than the right.
The spine is straight, the chest is out, and the butt
juts out. If you stand in this position for a while, you
will feel some fatigue through the back, hams, and thighs.
Some people might feel awkward in this setup, just as
they may feel uncomfortable at first when they grip the club
correctly. This feeling won’t last. The improvement in your
shots will provide a relaxing balm.
There is only one way to make this improvement permanent:
practice. Practice your grip, posture, aim, and alignment
until you’ve memorized them and made them a natural part of
your routine; then you can “forget” them, and get on with
the pleasurable business of hitting strong golf shots,
straight at your target.
FOR THE ADVANCED PLAYER
To me, one of the basic appeals of golf is its
naturalness, its lack of regimentation, which gives endless
chances for creativity. Unlike baseball, tennis, or
football, our field is not level, there are no grids and
usually no boundary lines. You’re just one person in the
middle of 300 acres.
But our vast and endlessly varied playing field leads
inevitably to difficulty with aiming. I practice with aim
lines and occasionally a competent observer, and get myself
dead square. But a month later, I end up too open, with the
club too far forward (I never get too closed). The point is,
even the best players in the world are constantly adapting.
As the late Jimmy Demaret told me a few months before
he died, this difficulty often has a silver lining. Demaret
played from a narrow, open stance, and eventually he’d get
too narrow and open and start slicing. Then he’d
overcorrect, close his setup too much, and start hooking.
But in the transition periods between those extremes, he’d
play his best golf.
Monitor what your tendencies are, so you can recognize
the transition periods. Probably you already know your
faults: So many players will say “I’ve done the same three
things wrong my whole life.”
The intervals when you’re trying to fix something can
even happen during your round. Recognize that balls going
too far left or too far right are usually the result of an
out-of-kilter setup. Be willing to adapt. Then learn how and
what to adjust, the way I’ve learned, the way every good
player has learned: through practice.
Elkington's bag man, Gypsy Joe Grillo, helps his boss line one up. A friend since he joined the tour in 1987, Grillo has caddied Elkington to half of his wins on the Tour. "Gypsy has an up personality and is a virtuoso caddie. He's as good at his job as I am at mine," says Elkington. "With all the time we spend together, he knows me better than anyone— except my wife."