Tweet
Ok. Time to possibly stir things up a little, or possibly time to find out that I have been "reading/listening wrong" over the last 3 years.
The more I find out about my swing and this game, the more I am coming to realise that a lot of golf instruction is misleading. Even from some of the "best".
Why is it that seemingly able bodied men and women with an athletic nature and natural hand-eye coordination turn to stiff wrecks when swinging a golf club to a ball? My answer? Because we have been fed "tips" which do not add up to logical flowing movement and keep us hunting for other "tips" to correct the "tips" we already have. I'm sure you all know the question.......... "How can I do THAT if I'm doing THAT???!!!" It all leads to a horribly murdered rhythm and no swing through the ball at all.
I have stumbled upon two such instances which I wish to share with the forum, and welcome any feedback. Now, the main reason I feel it my duty to post this is because I am now hitting the ball better and more consistently than ever before, am able to hit it high, low, draw and fade at will (I was an incurable high, weak slicer) and all because I "listened" to my body and dared to try it different. I have spent 3 years trying to "improve" my golf swing via conventional methods and, quite franklly, experienced moments of improvement and months of going backwards. The same for many I suspect. Up until 2 weeks ago I couldn't hit the ball any better than when I was 15. I'm now 26. But I hit the ball a lot better before I embarked on the quest for improvement 3 years ago.
Here goes:
1. The grip.
I wish to quote none other than Mr D Leadbetter from his multi-million selling book "Faults and Fixes"................ "and keep it (the left thumb for right handers) short on the shaft. In terms of creating leverage in your swing, a shorter thumb - as opposed to one that is fully extended - is much more effective".
What twaddle. Go and get a golf club. Now, with the club held off the ground, grip it with the shaft running from at/just above the last joint of your little finger down to the first joint of your index finger as is taught by Leadbetter and many others. Now hold the club out infront of you with only your left hand so that the back of your hand is facing the ceiling (club horizontal infront of you). Remember, keep that thumb "short". Now, if those of you reading this instruction of the grip placement and short left thumb are "understanding" it the same as me, my guess is that the club does not get to a 90 degree angle to your arm, regardless of how much you try to cock your wrist. You can even pull on the shaft with your other hand to help it if you like. You won't get to 90 degrees or beyond without the grip moving in your hand/fingers. That's part one. Remember that.
Now think of all the professional golfers you've seen who are big hitters with apparently little effort who actually get the angle between club and arm PAST 90 degrees in the downswing. Clubhead lag.
My experience tells me that almost all professionals manage it. and we're all trying to achieve it. But with this poor instruction? Never possible. We just tried to physically cock our wrist and couldn't even reach 90 degrees, so what's going to happen in the downswing to suddenly make that happen? Nothing. We won't get maximum leverage with this left hand grip. We'd need to remove a few wrist bones to do it.
Now try the left hand grip but placing the club firstly along ALL of the joints between your palm and your finger i.e. right along the base of your fingers. Now wrap the fingers round the club and bring the grip up with your fingers to settle on the underside of the heel of your hand. Now we get to the intersting bit. Place your thumb along the right side of the shaft and make it LONG. If you've done it right you'll not get the club in your plam but still in the fingers (interestingly enough, you should feel the club still run across the base if the little finger to the first joint of the index finger, just not as pronounced) and it'll be a tight fit without squeezing it.
Now at this stage you might be thinking that the rest of your hand feels very much "on top" of the grip, unless you already have a slightly strong grip. This is the feeling I'm looking for. You may also be thinking that you can see all four knuckles on your left hand. True, but now ground the club at address. The nature of this grip means that if you've been leaning the shaft forward at address (delofting the club) you'll see not one knuckle on your left hand.........bad. Bring your left hand into the middle of your stance forming the triangle between your shoulders and hands on the grip (you can put your right hand on it now if you haven't already done so. Just match up the v's). Now you can only see 2 knuckles and the clubface is square. Perfect
This serves two functions. a) it squares up your shoulders. I didn't even know I had open shoulders at address until I did this (slicing fix that not one pro has ever picked up on), and b) it returns the club to its natural loft at address. All good. Now for that magic illusive bit that's got all of us performing all sorts of dodgy moves in our swing. The lag.
As we did earlier, hold the club out infront of you, back of the hand facing the ceiling, club horizontal. Keep that thumb LONG. Now cock your wrist. With this grip you can now get the club past 90 Degrees without the aid of pulling the shaft with your right hand. Now simulate the forces at work in the golf swing by pulling on the shaft with your right hand. I can get the angle well past 90 degrees, and the long thumb right of centre is helping it, not restricting it. The amount of angle produced only stops when your thumb cant go any further back. Add to that absolutely no movement of the grip in your palm and you save money too because it will mean the disappearence of that annoying hole that appears on your glove at the heel of your hand...................all caused by poor instruction on the golf grip.
If you decide to take this to the range, you'll find that the need for thinking about cocking the wrists in the backswing is removed. Just keep them soft. Physics does the rest. I saw my lag improve immediately and I'm now starting to lead the clubhead into the ball, rather than releasing early. I'm hopefully getting a video camera for Christmas so I'll post it one here if this is at all unclear!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. Hit Down on the Ball
What? Look CLOSELY at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqsf4bEBF-Q
It's difficult to see unless you can slow it down further, but you will notice that at impact, Tigers hands have reached the bottom of their arc before the clubhead impacts the ball, and are even coming slightly up toward the follow-through. Yet the clubhead is travelling on a slightly decending path to get the ball-turf strike.
Much like the 18-wheel truck turning the corner, the cab has has gone past but the trailer goes past the same point in the road, only later.
My point is that because of the added length of the golf club and the fact that the hands are leading the clubhead, the hands will be at, or even just past the lowest point in the swing whilst the clubhead is still traveling downward. For me "hit down on the ball" does not conjure up this image. It conjures the familiar upper body lunge that we all see at our local ranges with huge divots flying everywhere and the ball popping up higher not lower. It's a horrid mess.
As a result of the better leverage form the above described grip, I am slowly losing my upper body lunge, keeping my height through the swing and almost feeling as though I'm hitting slightly up, but now we all know that the clubhead is still moving down if we have the correct lag. I'm hitting lower, longer and stronger than ever and it's controllable.
In all honesty, it's up to you whether you want to try this for yourselves, or just laugh at me because I've spent an hour putting this together and haven't made any sense to you!!!
But as God is my witness, these are the things that have transformed my swing in the past fortnight from a choppy weak slice, to a penetrative workable trajectory.
Be well.
The more I find out about my swing and this game, the more I am coming to realise that a lot of golf instruction is misleading. Even from some of the "best".
Why is it that seemingly able bodied men and women with an athletic nature and natural hand-eye coordination turn to stiff wrecks when swinging a golf club to a ball? My answer? Because we have been fed "tips" which do not add up to logical flowing movement and keep us hunting for other "tips" to correct the "tips" we already have. I'm sure you all know the question.......... "How can I do THAT if I'm doing THAT???!!!" It all leads to a horribly murdered rhythm and no swing through the ball at all.
I have stumbled upon two such instances which I wish to share with the forum, and welcome any feedback. Now, the main reason I feel it my duty to post this is because I am now hitting the ball better and more consistently than ever before, am able to hit it high, low, draw and fade at will (I was an incurable high, weak slicer) and all because I "listened" to my body and dared to try it different. I have spent 3 years trying to "improve" my golf swing via conventional methods and, quite franklly, experienced moments of improvement and months of going backwards. The same for many I suspect. Up until 2 weeks ago I couldn't hit the ball any better than when I was 15. I'm now 26. But I hit the ball a lot better before I embarked on the quest for improvement 3 years ago.
Here goes:
1. The grip.
I wish to quote none other than Mr D Leadbetter from his multi-million selling book "Faults and Fixes"................ "and keep it (the left thumb for right handers) short on the shaft. In terms of creating leverage in your swing, a shorter thumb - as opposed to one that is fully extended - is much more effective".
What twaddle. Go and get a golf club. Now, with the club held off the ground, grip it with the shaft running from at/just above the last joint of your little finger down to the first joint of your index finger as is taught by Leadbetter and many others. Now hold the club out infront of you with only your left hand so that the back of your hand is facing the ceiling (club horizontal infront of you). Remember, keep that thumb "short". Now, if those of you reading this instruction of the grip placement and short left thumb are "understanding" it the same as me, my guess is that the club does not get to a 90 degree angle to your arm, regardless of how much you try to cock your wrist. You can even pull on the shaft with your other hand to help it if you like. You won't get to 90 degrees or beyond without the grip moving in your hand/fingers. That's part one. Remember that.
Now think of all the professional golfers you've seen who are big hitters with apparently little effort who actually get the angle between club and arm PAST 90 degrees in the downswing. Clubhead lag.
My experience tells me that almost all professionals manage it. and we're all trying to achieve it. But with this poor instruction? Never possible. We just tried to physically cock our wrist and couldn't even reach 90 degrees, so what's going to happen in the downswing to suddenly make that happen? Nothing. We won't get maximum leverage with this left hand grip. We'd need to remove a few wrist bones to do it.
Now try the left hand grip but placing the club firstly along ALL of the joints between your palm and your finger i.e. right along the base of your fingers. Now wrap the fingers round the club and bring the grip up with your fingers to settle on the underside of the heel of your hand. Now we get to the intersting bit. Place your thumb along the right side of the shaft and make it LONG. If you've done it right you'll not get the club in your plam but still in the fingers (interestingly enough, you should feel the club still run across the base if the little finger to the first joint of the index finger, just not as pronounced) and it'll be a tight fit without squeezing it.
Now at this stage you might be thinking that the rest of your hand feels very much "on top" of the grip, unless you already have a slightly strong grip. This is the feeling I'm looking for. You may also be thinking that you can see all four knuckles on your left hand. True, but now ground the club at address. The nature of this grip means that if you've been leaning the shaft forward at address (delofting the club) you'll see not one knuckle on your left hand.........bad. Bring your left hand into the middle of your stance forming the triangle between your shoulders and hands on the grip (you can put your right hand on it now if you haven't already done so. Just match up the v's). Now you can only see 2 knuckles and the clubface is square. Perfect
This serves two functions. a) it squares up your shoulders. I didn't even know I had open shoulders at address until I did this (slicing fix that not one pro has ever picked up on), and b) it returns the club to its natural loft at address. All good. Now for that magic illusive bit that's got all of us performing all sorts of dodgy moves in our swing. The lag.
As we did earlier, hold the club out infront of you, back of the hand facing the ceiling, club horizontal. Keep that thumb LONG. Now cock your wrist. With this grip you can now get the club past 90 Degrees without the aid of pulling the shaft with your right hand. Now simulate the forces at work in the golf swing by pulling on the shaft with your right hand. I can get the angle well past 90 degrees, and the long thumb right of centre is helping it, not restricting it. The amount of angle produced only stops when your thumb cant go any further back. Add to that absolutely no movement of the grip in your palm and you save money too because it will mean the disappearence of that annoying hole that appears on your glove at the heel of your hand...................all caused by poor instruction on the golf grip.
If you decide to take this to the range, you'll find that the need for thinking about cocking the wrists in the backswing is removed. Just keep them soft. Physics does the rest. I saw my lag improve immediately and I'm now starting to lead the clubhead into the ball, rather than releasing early. I'm hopefully getting a video camera for Christmas so I'll post it one here if this is at all unclear!!!!!!!!!!!!
2. Hit Down on the Ball
What? Look CLOSELY at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqsf4bEBF-Q
It's difficult to see unless you can slow it down further, but you will notice that at impact, Tigers hands have reached the bottom of their arc before the clubhead impacts the ball, and are even coming slightly up toward the follow-through. Yet the clubhead is travelling on a slightly decending path to get the ball-turf strike.
Much like the 18-wheel truck turning the corner, the cab has has gone past but the trailer goes past the same point in the road, only later.
My point is that because of the added length of the golf club and the fact that the hands are leading the clubhead, the hands will be at, or even just past the lowest point in the swing whilst the clubhead is still traveling downward. For me "hit down on the ball" does not conjure up this image. It conjures the familiar upper body lunge that we all see at our local ranges with huge divots flying everywhere and the ball popping up higher not lower. It's a horrid mess.
As a result of the better leverage form the above described grip, I am slowly losing my upper body lunge, keeping my height through the swing and almost feeling as though I'm hitting slightly up, but now we all know that the clubhead is still moving down if we have the correct lag. I'm hitting lower, longer and stronger than ever and it's controllable.
In all honesty, it's up to you whether you want to try this for yourselves, or just laugh at me because I've spent an hour putting this together and haven't made any sense to you!!!
But as God is my witness, these are the things that have transformed my swing in the past fortnight from a choppy weak slice, to a penetrative workable trajectory.Be well.
Comment