Golf Swing Compensations...the Golf Swing's Biggest Killer!!!

This brings up the subject of “compensations.” An awareness of compensations will help you understand the relationship between various swing movements.

What is a “compensation”?

A “compensation” is a movement for the purpose of overcoming another flawed motion. In other words, if one part of your swing contains a flaw, in time your body will develop an accommodating motion that allows you to strike the ball with some success. This is the
concept of “matching up mistakes.”

This may sound like a good thing, and you may achieve temporary positive results. However this is a dangerous concept. When a compensation helps you hit the ball more accurately, you tend to try to repeat the move. Thus, you focus on improving the compensating move instead of correcting the fundamental problem. The compensation becomes another movement requiring voluntary
control. The more moving parts in the swing, the more difficult it is to repeat with consistency.

For now, you only need to be aware of the concepts of compensation and matching up mistakes. As your knowledge of the swing increases, you will more fully understand and be able to eliminate the compensations.

Understand that if you already have compensating factors in your swing, then you need to repair both the improper motion and the compensating motion.