The lateral move

One of the drabbest but most important elements in improving your golf game is learning to exchange your weight. Everyone knows the fundamentals. On the backswing, your weight—not all of it but most of it—moves to the right. Then on the downswing you transfer your weight back to the left side as you move into and through the ball. The point I want to bring out ties in with the fact that your body doesn't remain stationary on the same axis as you perform the backswing and then the downswing. You must be certain you move into the ball as you play the shot, and only through practice do you learn how to move sufficiently laterally from right to left.

All this, as I have said, is as dull as dishwater compared to the more charming aspects of the golf swing. It has to be learned, though, and to bring a little pleasure to it I follow a practice exercise that has a little fun as well as worth attached to it. With the sun at my back, I take two golf clubs and place one on the ground on each side of my shadow. During my swing I want my shadow to stay within the confines set up by these two clubs. At the top of the backswing, I can see how much room I have to fill in coming forward to have my shadow finish at the left stick.

Not moving forward is a common fault among women golfers and explains why they don't hit the ball as solidly and as well as they should. With the golf club guides women can do a lot, I think, to overcome the bad habit of getting stuck on the right side. It also helps to correct a bad tendency to lean forward as you hit into the shot.

JACKIE PUNG, Honolulu

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