golf swing, hands lead the clubhead

A Vital Golf Technique

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From time to time you see golf videos on YouTube where a famous player is asked what’s the most important thing to think about in the golf swing? Well, I can give you the most important thing—it’s whatever I happen to be working on at the moment. And there have been a lot of them. Johnny Miller says he has a book full of WOOD techniques. Stands for worked only one day.

Now I’m gonna give you one that I think is not important, but vital. If you want to become a good golfer you have to be doing it.

You have to learn how to have the tip of the handle of the golf club get to the ball before the clubhead does.

Let me say that in another way: the handle of the club always moves forward through the ball.

I’ve talked about this before, and here’s a video I made years ago that demonstrates it and says it a third way.

The opposite would be if the handle moved backwards as the clubhead goes through the ball, as the video shows, so the tip of the handle gets to the ball after the clubhead does. If you’re doing that, becoming a good ball striker is not possible. You will always struggle.

But if you can learn to control the handle of the clubhead, you’re on the way to becoming a good golfer.

And this applies to every shot: for your full swing, for pitches, for chips, even putting.

Work on this technique. Redo your golf strokes so the end of the club you’re holding leads the end of the club that hits the ball.

I promise you once you have figured this out and once you can do that every time, and this is something you can learn to do every time, your ball striking will improve beyond your wildest dreams.

golf swing

Personal Golf

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There are three ways to play golf.

1. Do what you think you have to do to hit the golf ball.

2. Learn what the right way really is and do that when you swing.

3. Learn what the right way really is and mold it into a swing that feels like yourself.

Number 3 is best.

grip

The Other Grip Pressure

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We’re told that we are supposed to have a light grip pressure. And that is true. That means we’re not supposed to be squeezing the handle. But there’s another kind of grip pressure that we want to have.

If your hands are holding the club too lightly, it’s quite possible that they can rotate during the swing without shifting their position on the handle, taking the club face with them.

This is one reason why you either get a closed club face impact or an open club face and there’s no explaining it.

If that seems to be happening to you then try this.

After you’ve assumed your grip, rotate your forearms inward, toward each other, without your hands changing their position on the handle. If you do this correctly, you will find that the thumb on your leading hand presses against the pocket made by your trailing thumb and palm.

In Tom Kite’s golf book, How to Play Consistent Golf, he presents a drill where you put a blade of grass in between your leading thumb and the pocket of your trailing hand and swinging so that blade of grass doesn’t fall out.

The way you do this is to press your hands toward each other as I described. Then, the hands can’t rotate to either open or close the clubface. The clubface stays square* exactly the way you have it aligned at address.

The other grip pressure is pressing your hands together by rotating them toward each other even though your pressure of your hands holding the handle stays the same.

I hope this description is clear.

* If not, there is another problem that you need to investigate.

health

Playing 18 Holes? Pig Out!

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Have you ever noticed that the pros eat and drink during their round? You have to keep your energy up.

18 holes for me means a handful of trail mix (with raisins and M&Ms) every third hole, and a breakfast burrito at the turn.

I don’t know if this saved me any strokes or not, but I do know I was never tired going into the last few holes.

hitting fat

Another Way Not to Hit the Ball Fat

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Last week I posted about a way to not hit the ball fat, assuming you don’t flip. But what if you do flip? (Raise your hand if you don’t flip at least occasionally. Hmm… I don’t see any body’s hand in the air.)

You start your forward swing with a turn of the hips. Do not let that start your hands moving forward (even though it does). Feel that your hands stay where they are at the top of the backswing just for a split second (even though they don’t) before they start forward.

That will delay them by just enough that it will be hard for them to catch up to the arm swing before you strike the ball. And that will give you the ball first, ground second strike that you want.

There’s no guarantee this will work. You can still be carried away with your right hand and hit too soon. But this feeling will at least give you the chance to get it right.

Lest you think this is building lag, it’s not. I hate that word. It’s building delay, and that’s all you need.

hitting fat

One Way to Not Hit the Ball Fat

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Let’s say your swing is OK, you’re not flipping, and you still hit the ground behind the ball. I do this and it drives me crazy.

Here’s how I solve the problem.

When you swing, you are probably looking at the back of the ball, because that is what you want to hit. But you should be looking instead at where you want the club to make contact with the ground, and that is a spot on the ground maybe a half-inch in front of the ball.

Just change where you look during the swing from the back of the ball to the ground in front of the ball, and you should see a big difference.

grip, rhythm and tempo

Rhythm and Grip – Two Musts For Your Golf Swing

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Many of us spend lots of time with our in-swing technique, and some time with our setup. But there are two things that can get overlooked that are vital for playing good golf.

When Greg Norman was in position to win his first Open Championship, which he did, on the eve of the final round he asked Jack Nicklaus what he should be thinking about. Nicklaus told him to monitor his grip pressure. Under stress, grip pressure tends to get tighter, to the detriment of a free-flowing swing.

So that’s the first thing. Consciously monitor your grip pressure every time you pick up a club.

Next is rhythm. I have been beating the drum on rhythm ever since this blog began fifteen years ago. No matter how good your technique is, it will not pay off unless you have proper rhythm when you swing.

By rhythm, I do not mean the 3:1 rhythm that you read about all the time. That’s way too technical and striving for it can even make things worse. I mean a loose, graceful, dancelike rhythm. Sunday afternoon walk in the park rhythm.

This will do two things. It will pull your swing together as one movement rather than a succession of linked movements that all have to work. It will generate more power. The looser you are, the more power you will create, and vice versa.

There you have it. Lots of swing tips I have written about might work for you or might not, and I say that. You have to try them and see for yourself. But I guarantee that these two things, light grip pressure and an easy rhythm, will make every golfer better.

driver

There’s No Reason to Hit Your Driver Harder

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I’m sure you know all this, but it’s easy to forget. If you swing your driver at the same speed as you do your 7-iron, you’ll get all the distance your driver was designed to give you.

By speed, I mean the time it takes you to get from takeaway back to impact. That is right around one second, maybe more, maybe less.

Because the driver’s shaft is longer than your 7-iron, the clubhead has farther to go in the same time, so it will go faster by design.

By not swinging faster just because it is a driver you’re swinging, you will tend to hit the ball on the center of the clubface more often, which is the real source of distance.

If you don’t ask more of your driver to do than you do of any your other clubs, it is really the easiest club to hit.

playing the game, practice

A way to take your game from the range to the course

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One of the biggest problems in golf is taking your game from the range to the course. Here’s why I think this is such a problem.

When you’re on the range, you have a bucket of balls and you hit them one after the other. Maybe you take a few practice swings in between, or maybe do a drill, and then you hit the ball to see how it went, and then you hit another one and you don’t really mind if the shot you hit is not your best because that’s what the range is all about. You’re here to learn, you’re here to correct mistakes, and mistakes are OK at the range.

But they’re not OK on the golf course. And the difference between the course and the range is that on the course you get to hit one shot, then you move on. And it might be three or four minutes since you hit your last shot. You don’t get to hit one maybe every 30 seconds and get into a groove like you do at the range, with lots of practice swings in between, and so forth.

That puts a bit of pressure on you when you play, and I understand that because I feel it myself. I only have one chance to get this right and then I have to live with the consequences.

So here’s how you minimize that problem over time. At the range, when you’re finished with most of your bucket, and you’ve accomplished what you sent to accomplish, leave about five balls.

Hit one. And sit down for about three minutes. And get up and hit another one, just like you were on the course. Align your shot, maybe take one practice swing, and then hit the ball. And then sit down again for another three or four minutes. Repeat.

Don’t limit yourself to full swings. Maybe hit a 75-yard pitch. Hit your driver one time. Mix it up, because that’s what you do when you play.

Now, you’re simulating the way you have to hit the balls on the golf course, one shot at a time, with a significant amount of time between shots. This kind of practicing gets you used to that, so on the course you’ll be a lot more at ease when it’s your turn to hit. It will just be business as usual.

I think if you make this procedure a regular part to your trips to the range, you’ll start feeling free to put your best swing on the ball more often than not when you play.

Little Differences That Make a Big Difference in How Well You Play