I just got back from a day at the range. It’s been raining hard here for the last few days, so the putting green was closed. The only thing to do then was to hit balls off the practice tees. Sometimes I just go through the motions on the tees because I like the practice green better. Tees, beets. Green, chocolate pudding. Since the option of the green was taken away today, I focused a lot better than usual on my full swing. Here’s what I took home with me.
Lighten up your grip pressure. You hear this all the time. Don’t squeeze the handle. Relax your hands. Yet you don’t. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense that a grip that light can hang onto and control the club during such a violent act (more on that in a bit) as the golf swing. Well, it can.
Try this. Pick up the club and hold it so it sticks straight out in front of you. Relax your grip to where the club starts to fall out of your hands. Now tighten up your grip pressure again just to the point where that does not happen. That is how much pressure you should have on the club when you hold it. Any more pressure in your hands will start locking up muscles throughout your body, preventing them from moving freely to build up the clubhead speed that you want.
Then there’s that slash at the ball you call your swing that makes the ball go everywhere but straight and long. There might be nothing wrong with your swing, it’s just that you’re overdoing it.
Here’s another thing to try. Swing at your normal speed, but feel like you’re swinging in slow motion. Imagine that you’re watching yourself swing, from inside your head, and you want to go slow enough so you can see everything. That will feel slow, but it won’t be slow. The result will be a swing with all the clubhead speed you need.
Lighten up your grip pressure, lighten up your swing. Especially with your driver, but that’s another post. Do those two things and see what a difference it makes. A good difference. And in the meantime,