Book Review: George Knudson's "The Natural Golf Swing"

[Augster]

This is going to get a little wordy, so I will draw my conclusion here at the top in case you don't want to read any further, and I don't blame you.

Get the book and devote your entire golf game to it. This book, along with Hogan's 5 Lessons, will change your entire life. Though you don't "need" to read 5 Lessons. Just this book will suffice.

Now my review.

I had never heard of George Knudson. I was out with a friend of mine (a 2 handicap) whose dad (a plus handicap) teaches informally, and taught him. He tells me finally, after my 7 years of playing with him, to read the Knudson book. That is ALL his dad teaches. And it's the way he plays golf. "75%. 100%. It's that easy." was what he said.

I picked up and read the book the next day. Like 5 Lessons, it is a QUICK read. 157 pages.

Knudson caddied early in his career and watched Hogan. Studied Hogan and other greats. Then finally everything clicked for him and he played some great golf. Then he took up teaching and wrote the book shortly before he died of cancer.

It goes like this.

First off, golf is a target-based game. Not a hitting game. Pick your target and make your swing through the ball. The ball gets in the way. Think only of the target. Unlike baseball or tennis, in golf the ball is stationary. Just like bowling or throwing a baseball. You never think of the ball, just your targets, because the ball is stationary in your hand. Golf gets confusing because we don't actually get to hold the ball, but do have to strike it in some way.

That said, he breaks the swing down into 3 phases. Setup phase, the Loading phase (backswing), and the Unloading Phase (downswing to finish).

In every phase of the swing, you need balance. Your arms just hang and hold onto the club. If you have a perfect setup each time, you use the laws of inertia, momentum, and balance to carry the club on the same arc each and every time. Your arms do nothing conscious. Your hands do nothing conscious.

All you do is let your arms hang. Then you load 75% of your weight to the right side. Then you just shift your weight to the left side, all in balance, to a balanced follow through. If all this is done in balance, the club has to follow the laws of physics and take the same arc each time. If your setup is correct, the club will strike the ball the same way each time. Very, very simple.

If you need more distance, you just shift your weight quicker. As long as you stay in balance.

I was first introduced to this idea of giving up control of the club in the book "Swing Machine Golf". I had never even heard of this idea, and I had taken at least 20 lessons. So I did that, and shot 72 the next day. But I just couldn't stay with it. Giving up control like that is tough to do.

Later in my career I read Hogan's 5 Lessons. There it is again. Hogan only mentions it a little in his book, but it's there. Let the arms come along for the "free ride" (page 93). So I went back to it, and played much better. Got my handicap down to a 3 by midsummer, but it crept up in the fall as I get more and more "ball-bound".

A LARGE part of the book all Knudson talks about is giving up control. His saying is, "You need to give up control to gain control." The laws of physics are there to be used. This is what the top players do. He takes Hogan's mentioning of the "free ride" to the next level.

Knudson's philosophy is genius. Pick a target. Make a good setup. Move 75% of your weight to your right foot, in balance. Then move 100% of your weight to your left foot, in balance. That's it. The ball gets in the way. The arms swing naturally and have to take the same arc each time if you stay in balance.

If you want to get better give this book a read. Or two readings. Or three. Then hit the range. More or less just to find your correct setup position. Then find your targets and fire.

Giving up control is the hardest part. Balance is the second hardest.

"You need to give up control to gain control."

[warbirdlover]

How can you ignore the ball when you're looking at it until contact?

(BE the ball... )

[Adam Pettman]

I can ignore the ball, its just the voices in my head that wont go away

[Augster]

Just getting back to this...

WBL, Knudson did an experiment. He took his setup, then had a friend blindfold him for every full swing. Shot 5-under 67. He did this only to reinforce to himself how important a good setup and dedication to the target is, and how insignificant the ball really is.

I've been doing on the Knudson plan since last Tuesday. In our Scrumble at the club this weekend, I shot 2-under 69. I had 5 birdies on the back to shoot 32, 4-under. I also had 4 3-putts.

The only caveat is that it was a scrumble. In the version in our men's club, we are divided into an A, B, C, and D player. We have 5 par 3's. You play your own ball on the par 3's. On the 13 driving holes, you need to use 1 d-player's, 2 C-player's, and 3 B-player's drives. Once you get to the drive, then you play your own ball into the hole.

So it wasn't a "real score". Though, on holes where we took my drive, 1, 4, 7, and 13 plus the Par 3's, it was. Being the A player, when we didn't take my drive because of the requirements, I was usually giving up a TON of yards.

For example, we still needed to get our B player another hole, so on 16, a 436 yard Par 4 into the wind, we ended up taking his drive just to take him off the hook. We had 215 into the green, uphill severly into the wind. I hit my 2-hybrid as hard as I could and got on the fringe. If we had taken my drive, I'd have had a 7-iron in.

This is neither here nor there.

All I am trying to illustrate is that Knudson's book seems to be working for me. I'm sure it'll work for anyone. Staying in balance is the toughest part for me so far.

[warbirdlover]

Sorry to make light of it but in a way I was asking a question. If you are to ignore the ball and just swing the club towards the target. How can you ignore the ball you are looking at? Or don't you look at it?

[Augster]

You just focus your mind on your target.

Then you take a perfect setup. Next is to swing in balance, 75%/100%.

If you've done all that, and just let your arms come along and do what they do, the "free ride", the ball just gets in the way.

So yeah, you don't really even need to look at the ball. You "do" need to keep your head there in order to keep your spine angle, i.e. not standing up, nor crouching through the shot.

It makes everything quite simple.

[Bama Duffer]

Wasn't Natural Golf loosely based on Moe Norman's swing? And didn't Kelly (of Big Break fame) use some form of natural golf swing?

I've glanced at some articles on-line about it and it seems like almost everything is different from the "standard" swing, from set up to club adjustment.

Aug, is that what you mean by a perfect set-up? A perfect "Natural Golf" set-up?

[Bravo]

About four years ago, I got my best lessons from an assistant at our place...and while he never used the words, "you've got to give up control to gain control" - this is essentially what he taught me.

It was the weirdest set of lessons I've ever had and led me to the best golf of my life.

Being a Type A, this was really hard for me to do....

And like you, it was SO hard to continue with it. All of my instincts are telling me to get the club 'under control'...

Well the guy was from Ohio and settled down here in Alabama. Met a local girl and got engaged. Told me it was time for "a regular job with no working on weekends'.

So he quit golf and got a job as an industrial salesman. I saw him a year ago and he loves his job, his new wife and the fact that he has quit being a golf pro. (Plays a ton though)...

I am going to get the book though because my gut tells me this is the method he was teaching.

He told me he spent three years working in Naples, FL learning to teach this method...

(and BamaGolfer, this has nothing to do with Natural Golf which is an entirely different animal)

[JEFF4i]

I may be an outsider on this, but I just don't like the philosophy of Natural Golf.

It's good for some, but the entire idea of it just doesn't make sense to me. I know parts of Natural Golf also say you don't really need to practice as much as it may seem. Me? I'm a grinder. My short game is good partially because of natural feel, but mostly because I spend hours around the chipping green doing everything imagineable. As much as he may not be a huge fan of Vijay, I do agree with him, and Tiger, that practice makes perfect, not solely talent.

I don't know, some parts make sense, and work for some, but not for me. Oh, and the whole get the book and devote your life to it was preemptive, it'll hurt some, if not most, people's game.

[Augster]

Knudson's book has nothing to do with "Natural Golf" popularized by Moe Norman. He called his book "The Natural Golf Swing" because you don't "do" ANYTHING.

You take a setup as he instructs by picking a target and focusing on it. Then you shift your weight 75% onto your back leg, then shift your weight to your forward leg 100%. In balance letting EVERYTHING come along for the "Free ride".

Everything will happen "naturally" if you let it is the gist of Knudson's teachings.

[JEFF4i]

Hmmm, I might pick it up out of curiousity, but things are workin pretty decent for me now. If anything I'd pick and choose.

[Bama Duffer]

Oops, my bad. I saw "Natural Golf" and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Carry on.

[Augster]

I can not state enough how much this book and the Wishbone Grip has transformed my game this summer.

If anything can show it, it is my USGA handicap. It is the lowest ever now. (brag post below )

8/3/07 1.9
7/20/07 3.1
7/6/07 4.3
6/22/07 4.9
6/8/07 6.6
5/25/07 7.2
5/11/07 6.0
4/27/07 5.6

My previous lowest ever was that 3.1 on 7/20/07 and I just smashed that. In the last month I shot under par for the first time, a 3 under par 68. I also played my best tournaments finishing 5th in a local major at 6 over for 45 holes, and finished 3rd at my club championship at 3 over for 36 holes. And that was a terrible 3 over also. I just choked, and choked, and still shot a 73-72 weekend.

I'm really not as good as my handicap would indicate. Or maybe I am. I suppose if you shoot enough "terrible 74's" or "awful 73's" eventually you just are better. Even if it feels like I am leaving 3 or 4 shots out there a round.

You can see by my trend that I ballooned from a 5.6 to a 7.2 in my first month of doing the Knudson swing. That 5.6 was more or less left over from 2006, as our season doesn't start until April 15th. Since that first month, it has just gotten lower and lower.

You get used to shooting 76, and all of a sudden, it's no big deal anymore. Then you get used to shooting 74, and it's no big deal anymore. Then I shot a great 68 and now it's no big deal when I'm around even on the 16th hole.

Knudson's swing isn't about mechanics at all, really. It is a shift in thinking. Everything is simpler, and that makes the game much easier.

All I'm trying to say, I guess, is that I'm not really anything special. I don't have any kind of genetic golf gift. If I can do it, so can anyone that is reading this. Knudson's swing requires you to rethink golf. His teachings show you a better way. And amazingly, they work. My scores are proof.

If you want to go low this year, get the book and give it a go. It's never too late to start anew.

[Eracer]

Tempo. Release. Balance. Trust.

[Bama Duffer]

Okay, I'm almost through the book now. Haven't hit a ball since starting it, but I'm excited.

The reason is that I've had basically two swings over my 47 years. In college, I used only my upper body and concentrated on keeping my legs motionless.

Later, I took an extension class in golf and the Natural Golf swing was what the instructor taught. I didn't know it until now. I played that way for years, but got away from it for two reasons. I found I was very inconsistent. I could shoot an 88 one day and my next round might be 104. Of course, I only played about 4 rounds a year in those days, so maybe that had something to do with my inconsistency.

The other reason is that I couldn't find instruction manuals or magazine articles that would help me determine what I might be doing wrong. Knudson makes several suggestions about the set up that were exactly what I was looking for.

But it is a smooth swing when it works properly. I remember my good shots as long, high and with a little draw. I'll definitely give it a shot again.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll let you know if it works for me.