Nick Bradley - The 7 Laws of the Golf Swing: Visualizing the Perfect Swing to Maximize Your Game

The 7 Laws of the Golf Swing is a comprehensive guide to building a powerful and consistent golf swing. Written by leading tour coach Nick Bradley, this book distills the golf swing into seven key areas or laws. Each is explained in detail and supplemented by a range of practice exercises to accelerate the learning process and develop a greater awareness of the feelings and sensations associated with a correct swing motion.

Exposing many of the myths surrounding the golf swing, Nick Bradley also ventures outside the traditional boundaries of the swing itself to explain how concepts such as biomechanics and psychology can combine to create a solid all-around game.

Editor: Margaret L. Kaplan

Designer: Danielle Young

Production Manager: True Sims

Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-1-4197-0944-9

Text and illustrations copyright 2013 Nick Bradley

Published in 2013 by Abrams, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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LAW 1: THE GRIP
Naturally formed is neutrally performed

LAW 2: THE GEOMETRY OF THE SET-UP
Building stability from the ground upwards

LAW 3: GROUNDFORCE DYNAMICS
Creating a legendary leg action

LAW 4: SYNCHRONICITY
The swings dimension of time

LAW 5: SWING PLANE
The most direct route from address to impact

LAW 6: FIRING INTO THE BALL
Releasing all you have

LAW 7: DANCE WITH THE TARGET
Switch off the mind and turn on the body

I somehow cannot believe that it was over five years ago that Nick asked me to write the Foreword for The 7 Laws of the Golf Swing. I am glad to report that it has been massively popular, won awards and become one of the bestselling golf books this century! At the PGA and European Tour events Nick attended with me, there was rarely a time when I didnt see a golf fan shaking his hand to thank him for the birth of the 7 laws and tell him how it has benefited or saved their game.

I believe Nick managed to achieve that sometimes unobtainable combination in a book whereby you deliver a feeling and a strong image or concept in one hit. I know, having worked with Nick for three years, how valuable these images and concepts are for creating a framework that you can always revisit. Nicks concepts and images are based around common sense; they are formulated from the sound techniques of past champions that have worked so well in the past.

In any golf book there must be some text, but I have always felt that any wording should not distract from a strong image or feeling. (Now watch Nick bring out a book with just text!). Nick reduces the amount of description by bullet-pointing his way around the book and not delivering any more description or understanding than is genuinely needed. When you have a lesson with Nick, you experience less talk and more doing and thus more understanding through your body.

In November 2007, I had the chance to capture the European Tour Order of Merit title; to do this, I essentially had to win the Volvo Masters, the final and closing event on the tour. That week, Nick and I worked through some of the images and concepts from The 7 Laws that have served me well in the past. I particularly remember the 7-iron I hit into the 17th hole (one of the most treacherous green complexes in golf) to set up an essential birdie. Armed with some very simplistic feels, I went on to win the tournament and secure the order of merit. Sentences and reams of information are simply not whats needed in those pressured circumstances.

I know this new-look 7 Laws will find its way into the hands of many golfers, beginners and pros alike. View it as your true north, a book to develop your swing from and to reference for when things are inconsistent. With Nicks concepts, I achieved one of my golfing dreams, and I have no doubt that The 7 Laws will improve your game too.

Since its launch in 2003, I have been extremely proud and happy of the performance, comments and awards that The 7 Laws of the Golf Swing has gained. I have received and continue to receive emails from all corners of the golfing world. Golfers ranging from PGA Tour players to doctors have told me of the turnaround in their golf swings thats come from the structure that the book gave them. This book is primarily based around fundamentals that will always be present and remain as the ground level from which everything is builtat least until the physiology of the human body changes from its present biomechanical state. You may also find that The 7 Laws contains many Eureka! moments for you, since the rule of common sense runs strong through the text and the images. But as my mentor Colin Turner always says to me, What is common sense is rarely common practice!

I have discovered that people use books in different ways. Some will take snippets of information and grow themselves and their golf swings from sentences of insight. Others want the whole book thrown at them, and will study, dissect and install aspects of technique at their own learning speed. Many have commented on the imagery, relaying how they really have taken the killer verbal instruction away from their golfing experience. This is key. Let me tell you why.

Our imagination and visual representation of the golf swing is our biggest asset to improvement. I believe that the first step to creating massive change in a golfers technique is to give the concept of change in a clear visual way; with a clear concept the brain can slowly move towards its goal. Unfortunately, we have seen several golfers through the years lose their pictures. The most graphic example is that of the Spanish genius Seve Ballesteros. No golfer could have been more visual and sensory than Seve, but the spoken English verbal instruction he became exposed to slowly and surely erased his pictures to a blank page. Seve only came alive again when he hit the ball amongst the trees, forcing him to conjure up a visual get-out-of-jail shot! So I urge you to gain your concepts through my pictures and develop your understanding through my text.

I was thrilled when Justin Rose wrote the foreword to the first edition of The 7 Laws, and this edition contains a new foreword by Justin, written from the perspective of a pupil of mine. I started coaching Justin during May 2006 soon after I moved to the USA, when he was 116th in the world rankings. What I saw at that time was a world-class golfer moving further away from the truths of the golf swing. In 2009 he was ranked as the sixth-best player in the world and was the European Tour Order of Merit Champion. It was a big turnaround to take in even for my imagination.