How to Find Your Perfect Golf Swing [Hardcover]

Rick Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 1998

Praised by everyone from sports writers to professional golfers to weekend duffers, Rick Smith's golf clinics are so popular that there is a two-year waiting list to attend them. How To Find Your Perfect Golf Swing cuts out the waiting time.

In this clear, concise book, Rick Smith shows you how to customize your practice, play, and equipment in the way that works best for your body type, natural ability, and skill level. His unconventional methods for setting up and swinging, as well as his famous practice techniques, are fully explained and illustrated with drawings and four-color photographs. Enlightening case studies pinpoint the mistakes of average golfers and well-known PGA stars such as Jack Nicklaus, Lee Janzen, Billy Andrade, Rocco Mediate and include specific solutions to common swing and shot-making problems. Smith's profiles of the PGA players with the best address, the best takeaway, the best at-the-top-position, and other models of expertise, will spur golfers along the path of improvement and help them achieve new levels of excellence.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Smith, the guru behind two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen, offers a simple suggestion to get your swing on course: find your own. If it seems obvious, the sad truth is that it's obvious to all subsets of the human species other than golfers; golfers tend to want to ape the mechanics of whoever's on top of the leader board for the week. Smith preaches that you begin with an honest assessment of your own skills and ability. From there, his instructional tees up theory, drills, and exercises geared to getting you into what he calls the "ideal impact position"--the connection of club face to golf ball--so that regardless of whether you resemble the liquid Fred Couples or the spastic club hacker, you can at least strike the ball with confidence. Smith fills Swing with useful photos and understandable mechanics, and ends with an agreeable chapter on lessons he's learned through the years from others, including such pros as Janzen, Jack Nicklaus, David Duval, and Phil Mickelson; good teachers should always tip a tam to their own sources of inspiration. --Jeff Silverman

From Booklist

For every laser beam duffers launch, they can count on 10 times as many shanks, slices, hooks, and plain old to-hell-with-its. Such flailing does not breed contempt for golf, only an immortal search for a book as old as the sport, the instructional. This one explains the mechanics of the full swing; players excavating sand, stubbing chips, or three-putting every green must consult another pedagogue of the practice tee. Not a head doctor intoning spiritual "swing thoughts," Smith is a levelheaded observer of an average golfer's typical mistakes. Some errors stem from adages ("Keep left arm straight") that golfers have grooved into comfortable-feeling but flawed swings. Smith critiques these, then underscores the perseverance necessary to groove a proper technique. The balance of the book breaks the swing into its component parts, with the usual demonstration pictures of pros and the author himself. Smith's teaching talent permeates every paragraph with useful insights and practice drills, giving intermediate hackers hope of redemption. A solid lesson plan. Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (May 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767901231
• ISBN-13: 978-0767901239
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,283,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FOR THE PERSON WHO LIKES TO HIT GOLF BALLS, February 1, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Ridgely, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Find Your Perfect Golf Swing (Hardcover)

For the past five or six years I have read the leading golf magazines and numerous books about golf. This is the best instructional material I have read. The concept of the full swing was easy for me to understand and I appreciated the way Rick Smith dispelled many of the myths we've associated with the golf swing.

This book is for the person, like me, who likes to hit golf balls. I know I have improved my swing and lifted my confidence level as a result of reading this book.

I'm reading it now for the third time.

Thank's Rick

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not that complicated, July 20, 2001

By 

Steve Ho (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Find Your Perfect Golf Swing (Hardcover)

If you want complicated, try Gary Wiren or Homer Kelly. Smith focuses first on impact (a la Johnny Miller), the backswing, downswing and then the setup. The still photos were good - I would have liked to seen more. There's also a useful faults and fixes section. Smith isn't a method teacher and is mostly clear in his descriptions of the swing. I had to reread a couple of parts to understand what he was trying to say. Although alot of what he writes is covered in other texts, he does make alot of enlightening points I've never read about before. I'd recommend this book for someone who's already had a lesson or two or read Golf for Dummies and knocked the ball around a little. Ultimately, a lesson from a good teacher is always preferred.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very insightful instruction, July 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Find Your Perfect Golf Swing (Hardcover)

The book has done a good job of dispelling certain myths about the golf swing. I read every golf book that comes along and think that this book is similiar to the book GOLF IS A WOMAN'S GAME. Both books address myths about the golf swing. A suggestion.. if you liked this book try GOLF IS A WOMAN'S GAME both books are a one two punch