Once again, I come to you with yet another way for you to accomplish this vital fundamental in spite of your impulsive desires not to. Hopefully this will be the easiest method of all because you don’t have to do anything. You just have to not do two things, which unfortunately, are very tempting to do.

At the top of the backswing, there is an angle between the left forearm (right forearm for lefties) and the clubshaft. The first thing not to do is release that angle at the moment you reverse the direction of your swing. By retaining it for just a split second at the very start, you will lock in that angle so that the momentum of your swing releases it naturally and at the right time. Easy!

As you come into the ball, however, there is still a chance for you to screw it up if you absolutely have to by adding a little bit of hit or steerage with your right hand (left hand for you lefties) just before contact, which throws the clubhead ahead of your hands, the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. The second thing not to do, then, is that.

Believe me this is as simple as I can make it. I can’t foresee a The Hands Lead the Clubhead – VII post. But you never know.

Because I regard the hands leading the clubhead through impact as the #1 technical fundamental, I am constantly looking for ways to make it easier to do. This is my latest attempt. It involves trust.

Very simply put, when I begin my forward swing, I maintain the angle in my wrists so it feels that while my hands are moving forward, the clubhead is staying behind and I trust that it will get there by itself at the right time.

Don’t worry about that angle. It will undo itself just fine and at the right time if you stay out of its way.

That’s it. Move the hands and trust. Take myself, what I’m doing, out of the equation.

I have discovered that when I try to make my hands lead the clubhead in some way, it might work for a while, but then I start thinking about how I am doing it and it all falls apart.

Swing the hands forward and trust. Remove the pressure that arises by trying to make something happen and turn it into trusting that it will happen.

I hope this all makes sense.

I write a lot about how to get the handle to lead the clubhead, but here at last is a video on how to install that critical move into your swing.

It takes about three months of continual effort.

And it’s worth it.

This is a new way of calling everyone’s attention to my favorite subject—the handle leads the clubhead into the ball. I can’t wait to see what the search engines do with that title.

Notice I’m saying “handle” instead of “hands” like I used to. If you think of what the club is doing rather than what you are doing, you are much likelier to get it right.

If you do get it right, and at the right tempo*, you will find the center of the clubface much more often and hit better shots much more often.

Over the years I have given you several methods for doing this. They all work, one is not better than the other. Here, now, is a collection, with links, so you can see them all at once and make your choice.

Try one and if it doesn’t work for you, keep looking. But once you find the one that clicks, keep at it. Don’t go off and try something else. If it works, it works. Spend the rest of your time perfecting it.

Here they are, seven ways to get the handle ahead of the clubhead at impact.

1. Hold the angle – this is my earliest method.

2. The handle moves in harmony with the clubhead – focusing on the club, not on you.

3. The left arm never stops moving – sometimes it does.

4. Throw the club away – or at least swing like you would.

5. The end of the handle moves left – Imagine in the forward swing that the butt end of the club is moving straight across your body toward the target, and let that motion take your swing where it needs to go.

6. Swing the club with one hand – This is a drill really, making a half swing with a sand wedge, with one hand then the other. Unless you are incredibly strong and deliberately want to make the clubhead lead, the weight and momentum of the club will cause the handle to naturally go first. Apply the lesson of the drill to your two-handed swing.

7. Swing the club forward with your arms – Anatomically speaking, the arm is the upper limb between the shoulder and the elbow. That is what is meant here. Think of that meaning of the arms swinging the club forward, a concept championed by Manuel de la Torre.

Gary Player once said something along the lines of, Show me what you think is a fundamental of golf and I’ll show you a championship golfer who doesn’t do it. Maybe so.

Except this one. They all do this one.

* The fastest speed you can swing and consistently hit solid shots off the center of the clubface.

[February 2022: Sections A6 and H28 in the Living Golf Book no longer exist. Please see The Handle Moves In Harmony With the Clubhead (Video tip)

I’ve written often about the hands passing the ball before the clubhead at impact. I feel this is the most important technical matter of the golf swing, and have suggested several ways you can make it happen.

I constantly look for ways to make it easier to do, and more certain. Here is my next iteration. It involves the movement of the end of the handle, that and nothing more.

This new concept takes the onus off the hands to make sure of the leading, and assigns the responsibility to the club itself. The difference in effect is like night and day.

This was going to be a longer post, but everything I wanted to say is now in Bob’s Living Golf Book, sections A6 and H28.

Download the book and read those sections. Please.

Then team it up with a stationary suspension point, make sure your tempo is not too fast for you, and you will have a golf swing that performs beyond your wildest dreams.

[August 2019. Move along to The Hands Lead the Clubhead – IV.]

Over the years, I have talked at length about how to perform perhaps the most important swing fundamental there is–having your hands get back to the ball on the forward swing before the clubhead does. This move is absolutely critical for good and consistent ball-striking.

I put up a video a few years ago that shows you what that means and gave you a drill for your learn how have the hands lead the clubhead.

Last year I said it a different way: the handle and the clubhead both move in the same direction. Of course, there is a video that shows you what I mean.

But now I have a third way to explain it to you. I don’t mean for it to replace the other two, but to add to the ways you might come to understand what to do so one of them might just click.

The latest way involves the left arm (right arm for lefties). Let’s call it the leading arm so everyone is happy.

This is then new way of looking at it: the leading arm never stops moving. If it leads the forward swing down from the top and through the ball without stopping its swinging motion, you’ll have it.

Now that might sound odd. When does you leading arm ever stop moving? When you try to hit with your trailing hand, that’s when.

Try it. Swing down and just before you get to the ball, let that trailing hand take over and hit the ball (the error we’re trying to correct). You will notice that the leading arm slows way down or even comes to a dead stop and starts up again.

If your leading arm keeps moving, it is very difficult to hit with that trailing hand. I mean, you can do it if you really try, but just don’t try.

The easiest way to learn this move is by swinging your heaviest wedge, which would be your sand wedge or your lob wedge, with your leading arm only. Back and forth, just like a pendulum. Over and over.

The weight of that heavy clubhead will create a swinging force such that the swinging arm keeps swinging through the ball and you will learn what it feels like for it to keep swinging.

(The weather in western Oregon is lousy right now, so I’m not going to run outside and make a video. I think you can figure out what to by yourself.)

Try this drill. Try the other two. See which one works best for you and when you find it, drill yourself from now to next Sunday. Really. When you have the club leaning forward a bit at impact consistently, you will know what good ball-striking feels like. It feels pretty cool.

I have two more ways for you to learn this, but…later.

You’re never going to hear the end of this from me. It’s the most important swing fundamental there is. Your hands have to lead the clubhead.

A few weeks ago, I changed it to, the handle moves in harmony with the clubhead. Too wordy.

How about the handle leads the clubhead?

Whatever you call it, you see it demonstrated here by our new U.S. Open champion, Brooks Koepka. His hands got to the ball before the clubhead did. Not by much, only about two inches. But that’s all it needs to be.

If you’re not used to swinging through this position, it feels like your hands are two feet ahead of the clubhead, but they’re not. They’re ahead by just a little bit. But it’s the most important little bit in golf.

[August 2019. Let’s get to the point. See The Hands Lead the Clubhead – IV.]

Have I ever said that before? (Only a million times, I hear you cry.)

I got a lesson a few days ago in what happens if you DON’T do this.

I went out to play nine and ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while, so we went off as a twosome.

He has a pretty good-looking swing, but let me tell you. Almost everything he hit was a chunk. Off the tee he was OK, because it’s hard to chunk the ball when it’s two inches off the ground.

But on the ground, forget it. Irons, chunk. Pitches, chunk city. It would take him three shots to get onto the green from 100 yards because they were all chunks.

So I decided to watch. Know what I saw? His hands quit right before impact and the clubhead led the way. EVERY time.

I wanted so much to say to him, just do (this) and you’ll be fine. But you don’t say those things.

I’m saying it to you, though, because I saw a classic example of what the clubhead leading the hands does for you, and it ain’t a pretty sight.

It doesn’t matter who you are. GET THIS RIGHT. Learn to have your hands lead the clubhead. You can read about it in Six Fundamentals (it’s Fundamental Five).

Or you can do the towel drill from a post I wrote almost three years ago. But LEARN IT.

There is no way you will ever hit the ball well, consistently well, otherwise.

In an earlier video, I showed you a drill to teach yourself how to have your hands leading the clubhead as it comes into the ball.

Now I’m going to show you how to install that technique into your shot-making, one club at a time — the right way to install any major swing change.

If you’re not getting a ball first-ground second contact this technique should produce, you are likely playing the ball too far forward.    Gradually move the ball back in your stance until you get it right.