Instruction
Tour players know how to “bury the dead”
Recently, a friend of mine went to a PGA Tour event and came back to the lesson tee to ask me about a drill a Tour player was doing. He had a front-row seat to watch one of the world’s best players practice, but he knew he missed something.
My friend was hanging around the short-game area when the tour player came up and dropped about 40 balls right in front of him. He began hitting shots to the same flag over and over again. It was not a particularly tough shot, but he kept hitting it until he hit all the balls and they were in a nice pile around the hole.
[quote_box_center]”Why would he do that?” my friend asked me. “It looked like a shot he should have no trouble playing.”[/quote_box_center]
I told him that the tour player was doing what is called “burying the dead.”
You are now thinking the same thing he was thinking. “What?”
Somewhere in the last tournament, the tour player had a shot just like the one he was practicing and he either played it poorly, incorrectly, or both. He was going to hit as many perfect shots as he needed to erase that bad shot from his memory. During my playing career, I did the same thing many times in practice to restore my confidence level in a shot.
What really good players have is a sense of what they need to address and work on after a round. The best-of-the-best reflect deeply on the good and bad from their rounds, assess what needs attention, and then they go about fixing that issue.
Sometimes it does not mean hitting lots of shots, but taking lots of practice swings. Or maybe it requires doing a drill numerous times to ingrain a feeling or change. Either way, it is just not hitting away at a pile of balls aimlessly. There is an attention to detail.
Golf is just too competitive at its top levels to practice without a purpose or plan. In the story above, the player’s plan was to cover the one bad shot with a bunch of good ones so that when he had that shot again, he could simply say with confidence, “I’ve got this shot,” without dwelling on the past.
The next time you’re done with a round, take a moment and reflect on what you need to work on in your game. Sometimes this means writing some notes on your scorecard or in a notebook after the round, while other times you might simply need a mental reminder. I like my players to make notes on paper so they can organize and prioritize what they need to practice. All my players get yardage book-size academy notebooks to keep in their bags just for this reason.
You can also ask your playing partners what shots they saw you struggle with on the course. You’re not looking for a lesson from them, just an clear picture of what areas of your game need some attention. Their unbiased assessment could provide a keen insight into a weakness they see regularly.
On the PGA and LPGA tours, the pros have their caddies as their neutral eyes and lean on them for honest evaluations of area that need to be addressed. A player’s coach should also be a good listener and ask questions that get lengthy game-play analysis from the player. This is a key and something I do with every player who is serious about their game from the top level through the junior level.
A coach has to listen first, then give the player the plan to “bury the dead.”
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Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
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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duckjr78
Mar 6, 2015 at 12:01 pm
This is a very underrated part of the game! So much more than “I have trouble with chip shots, I better go practice my chipping.” This encompasses practice, assessment, in-round awareness, attitude, and a host of other golf necessities. Great article Rob!
talljohn777
Mar 5, 2015 at 3:15 pm
Wonderful. Thank you for the focus.
Alex
Mar 5, 2015 at 2:42 pm
Great article Rob. I’ve definitely practiced shots that I screwed up during the round but not as much as you suggest. I’ll be more conscious about this in the future.
Ken
Mar 5, 2015 at 2:28 pm
Love this article. It makes good sense to create new memories with regard to a specific shot or situation. Thanks!
Chris
Mar 5, 2015 at 1:59 pm
Great article. I would love to see more articles on players practice routines. What are some ways they practice things, particularly short game areas to ensure their practice time is the most efficient and productive as possible?
Would love to see an article on this.
Rob Strano
Mar 5, 2015 at 1:31 pm
Ponjo, thanks for the comment and I have to admit you got me to laugh. Never thought of that comment, that is a really good one.
Ponjo
Mar 5, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Off to the cemetery right now Rob