Airing It Out DJ

You Don’t Need A Club To Improve Your Swing

- Ron Kaspriske

DOES IT. YOU DO IT. WE ALL DO IT. Whether it’s in front of a mirror, after the elevator door closes, or just to get a giggle out of an amused toddler, making golf swings, sans club, is a long-established golf ritual. Although it might seem frivolous, you can actually improve your swing if you pay attention to what you’re doing. “It’s like shadowboxing. There’s no anticipation of hitting something, so you can focus on making the moves you want and the coordination of them,” says Golf Digest Teaching Professional Butch Harmon, who coaches Johnson. “It smoothes out the whole motion.” Allen Terrell, director of coaching at the Dustin Johnson Golf School and Johnson’s former college coach, says it has value at any level, and he has been watching Dustin do it for years. “It cleans up a lot of bad movement and helps teach a fluid, unrushed swing,” he says. For Johnson, that’s the key: “I want to swing with effortless power, not power with effort,” he says. Here Johnson demonstrates how air swings can help your game.