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Beat the wind with the “no hands knockdown”

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Until the arrival of Doppler Radar launch monitors such as Flightscope, there was never really an effective way to check out the ball striking claims tips we got from other players.

Golf is still the rare sport where the best players in the world help each other with techniques they are trying to learn. Recently, I watched Rod Pampling try to teach Ryan Palmer how to hit a driver off the deck on No. 18 at The Memorial. After a few swings, Palmer was hitting low screamers out into the tight, sloping fairway.

During my playing career, I got to play a round with 1976 U.S. Open champion Jerry Pate. The weather that day was not ideal. The wind was blowing 30 mph and it was cold — not the best conditions for flying a golf ball. We were good and cold by the time we got to hole No. 15, which was not normally a tough par-3. But on this day, what was nothing more than a standard 8 iron on a normal day required something more low and boring. Both of us grabbed 5 irons and had at it.

Jerry hit a low bullet to the middle of the green. The wind only slowed the ball down enough for it to land on the green; it didn’t knock it down in a dangerous way.

My swing at the nickel took off hot and low. Then it began to stall and lost momentum to fight onward. Just about the time I expected it to land safely, it splashed down a woeful 10 yards short of dry land.

It was here that JP offered me this information. He told me that Lee Trevino once told him that if you wanted to keep the ball from ballooning in the wind, you need to keep your hands out of it on the backswing.

[quote_box_center]”Keep them really still and do not hinge the club a lot,” he said. [/quote_box_center]

Remember, this was a time when pro golfers still played golf balls that spun way too much, so there was a often a need to be able to keep the spin off the shot.

Once I got the time, I practiced the shot and sure enough the ball stayed down without any urge to rise. It is especially effective when you’re in the trees and need to keep the ball under the limbs for a long distance before the ball enters clear airspace. Everyone can relate to that time you moved the ball back in your stance, leaned the handle way forward and tried to knock it down low only to see the ball shoot straight up and into the overhanging limbs. This little tip kept the ball from doing that.

Recently, I was using Flightscope and decided to put the technique to the test and see what the numbers had to tell me about the ball and club interaction

I hit three different shots with a 7 iron.

  1. Standard full swing (ball position under the logo on the left of my shirt)
  2. Normal knockdown (ball position under my right eye)
  3. “No hands knockdown” (ball position under my right eye)

Here is what the data screen looked like (click to enlarge):

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 10.28.04 AM

Here are the launch screens for each shot: Shot 1 on the left, Shot 2 in the middle and Shot 3 on the right. You can see the ball flight got lower with each shot.

Screen Shot 2014-12-11 at 10.27.47 AM

A bit of transparency may offer some clarity about the numbers. The grass on the range where I work is not tightly mown. It is a nice customer length where the ball sits up, which differs from the tight conditions that you see on Tour where you can really have control over the golf ball. As I look at the data, there are some values that I know are potentially exaggerated by the conditions. Nevertheless, what can we deduce other than trajectory for each shot I hit? What changed from shot to shot, especially from Shot 2 to Shot 3 that would have kept the ball lower?

It’s obvious that the distance dropped significantly from Shot 1-3 with the difference being a whole 20 yards of carry. The hinging of the wrists is a definite power source, so I am not shocked by the distance gap. Also, the height dropped 30 feet, which was obvious to the naked eye. Shot 3 was quite lower than Shot 1, even on grass that was like using a tee.

For the four remaining categories, I want to really focus in on dynamic loft, spin, spin loft and angle of attack (AoA). We have confirmed what Lee told Jerry and what Jerry told me is true. Take the hand action out in the backswing and you will hit it lower. But what do these three numbers confirm about that?

First, when you take out hand action, you take out some of the opening and closing action of the clubface. When the hands “normally” set, the clubface will continue to open. Yes, you can impose your own will on it and do it wrong, but if done “naturally” the face will continue to open thereby adding loft. So the less your hands set, the more the clubface stays shut and the lower the ball launches. That is represented in the dynamic loft number at impact.

There is a downward trend in dynamic loft from the full swing value of 36.5 degrees.

  1. The “normal knockdown” has a dynamic loft of 31.8 degrees.
  2. The “no hands knockdown” has a dynamic loft of 24.5 degrees.

You can also see the same thing in the vertical launch values with a big jump between Shot 2 and Shot 3. So quieting my hands brought the dynamic loft down by more than 7 degrees at impact. That is a lot and will keep the ball down!

Notice the spin values increasing, however, and remember what I said about the turf conditions. I give the credit for the increased spin to lies that were a little cleaner, because all three shots were hit right on the middle of the face.

The AoA of the shots also remained very static — there were only a minor few changes in the value between the three shots. One thing I see when I first try to teach a low shot to a player is they think they need to “tomahawk” down on the ball as hard as they can and bury the club halfway up to the neck into the ground to keep the ball down. Once I get them to understand that keeping the shot down is about dynamic loft and how the hands control the club, they stop chopping at it to keep it down and begin to lean the shaft to have a shallower AoA so the ball stays nice and low.

My last point is about spin loft, which is the difference between AoA and the dynamic loft at impact. These values follow the trend of everything else we have looked at. From the full swing shot to the last shot, the numbers decreased. In turn, that produced a lower ball flight that penetrated the wind more and stayed low.

It is very cool to be able to test out shots like this on Flightscope, especially when it’s something another Tour player has shared to help you learn a new shot. After all, the game is about playing shots and the more shots you have the more fun you can have playing the game.

So what did we learn here?

  1. Keeping the hands quiet will help to keep the ball down.
  2. Less hand action going back with the ball positioned back-of-center in your stance gives you less loft at impact and lowers dynamic loft, spin loft and vertical launch.
  3. Keeping shots down for a long time over a long distance is a vertical launch value promoted by firm hands in the backswing.
  4. All of this brings down your overall height and produces a low, penetrating shot.
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If you are an avid Golf Channel viewer you are familiar with Rob Strano the Director of Instruction for the Strano Golf Academy at Kelly Plantation Golf Club in Destin, FL. He has appeared in popular segments on Morning Drive and School of Golf and is known in studio as the “Pop Culture” coach for his fun and entertaining Golf Channel segments using things like movie scenes*, song lyrics* and familiar catch phrases to teach players. His Golf Channel Academy series "Where in the World is Rob?" showed him giving great tips from such historic landmarks as the Eiffel Tower, on a Gondola in Venice, Tuscany Winery, the Roman Colissum and several other European locations. Rob played professionally for 15 years, competing on the PGA, Nike/Buy.com/Nationwide and NGA/Hooters Tours. Shortly after embarking on a teaching career, he became a Lead Instructor with the golf schools at Pine Needles Resort in Pinehurst, NC, opening the Strano Golf Academy in 2003. A native of St. Louis, MO, Rob is a four time honorable mention U.S. Kids Golf Top 50 Youth Golf Instructor and has enjoyed great success with junior golfers, as more than 40 of his students have gone on to compete on the collegiate level at such established programs as Florida State, Florida and Southern Mississippi. During the 2017 season Coach Strano had a player win the DII National Championship and the prestigious Nicklaus Award. He has also taught a Super Bowl and Heisman Trophy winning quarterback, a two-time NCAA men’s basketball national championship coach, and several PGA Tour and LPGA Tour players. His PGA Tour players have led such statistical categories as Driving Accuracy, Total Driving and 3-Putt Avoidance, just to name a few. In 2003 Rob developed a nationwide outreach program for Deaf children teaching them how to play golf in sign language. As the Director of the United States Deaf Golf Camps, Rob travels the country conducting instruction clinics for the Deaf at various PGA and LPGA Tour events. Rob is also a Level 2 certified AimPoint Express Level 2 green reading instructor and a member of the FlightScope Advisory Board, and is the developer of the Fuzion Dyn-A-line putting training aid. * Golf Channel segments have included: Caddyshack Top Gun Final Countdown Gangnam Style The Carlton Playing Quarters Pump You Up

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Dpavs

    Jan 16, 2015 at 1:23 pm

    I’m not sure of the benefit of all this… sure the trajectory is lower but if you look the accuracy is progressively worse and the spin progressively higher.

    • SRSLY

      Jan 16, 2015 at 4:56 pm

      And the trajectory is hardly lower per shot. I had already posted this point in the comments and it was deleted. Definitely disappointed in WRX.

  2. frank the tank

    Jan 16, 2015 at 8:20 am

    Isn’t this essentially the same as a 3\4 swing back in the stance? Lower launch angle and less spin due to less hinge equaling less power?

    Your “low” shots in the example don’t seem to go much lower and have way more spin. Could you explain how this will cut through the wind?

  3. Tanner

    Jan 16, 2015 at 7:28 am

    Thanks, Rob. Would this be a good swing for a higher capper whose arms collapse in the backswing?

  4. I am Tigger

    Jan 16, 2015 at 3:07 am

    It’s harder to do it with a lot of the modern shafts that have been designed to jump the ball up in the air quickly THEN flatter at the height, like a lot of the lighter weight shafts with soft tips or shafts that bend a lot in the middle. You’d have to go at least a couple of clubs up, may be even 3 clubs, just to try and keep it low enough these days. The balls also take off so much quicker off the face now, even without spin, they just jump away so quickly that you really have to almost just sweep the ball flat and not engage any kind of downward hit on these new balls.

  5. Rob Strano

    Jan 15, 2015 at 2:19 pm

    Thanks for your question Ronald…
    What you want to do in the backswing is feel like the hands hold the same position they do at address as it relates to the club shaft. Think of making a letter “I” in the backswing. In your normal swing when the left arm is parallel to the ground the shaft is vertical at a 90* angle to your left arm forming the letter “L”. Keep that from happening by keeping the hands calm. Now I am not saying get tense and grip it tight and do it. I am communicating controlling the amount of hinge action. There will always be a certain amount of hinge that happens, we are just trying to limit that amount to half of normal or better. Think about the beginners you see at the course that when you watch them have no hand action and hit the ball really low. That is what the cause of this move is but with a really good player you hit bullets through the heaviest winds. And trust me, that day described above wasn’t even a good day for kite flying, let alone hitting a golf ball, and JP just whistled it right through a heavy wind.
    Hope this helps you understand the move to try to make.

    • Philip

      Jan 15, 2015 at 2:52 pm

      Thanks, that is what I was thinking how it would be done.

  6. Ronald Montesano

    Jan 15, 2015 at 1:55 pm

    You’re giving us numbers, coach, but what we need is the technique!! I suspect that golfers can figure out the no-hands on the downswing, but what does the backswing look/feel like? Thanks for your time today.

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Instruction

Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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