Instruction

Mitchell: The value of a team in golf instruction

Published

9 years ago

Apr 10, 2015

I love being around smart people, especially the experts within their own professions or passions. I feel truly blessed that I have a wonderful team around me that helps me grow, and help my students improve quickly.

A recent example of this team work took place at my practice facility, when I asked a biomechanist, Roy Khoury, who specializes in golf performance, for his input with one of my student’s golf technique. Roy is a TPI Certified Level 3 Golf Fitness Instructor, and runs the Fit Fix Studio in Newport Beach, Calif.

I had hit a plateau with my student’s learning curve, and was not satisfied with our progress. For the purposes of this story, we’ll call her Isabel (not her real name).

Every lesson, Isabel left with better results and shot making, but always returned the following lesson with some form of relapse. I am a firm believer that there are many ways to solve a problem in the game of golf. Unfortunately, every solution I provided for Isabel behaved like a temporary fix versus a permanent solution.

This was not a question of Isabel not paying attention or not putting in the work in between practice sessions — she was very motivated. Therefore, I wanted to explore the possibility of whether Isabel had physical limitations (possibly from a recent accident, or a lack of strength and/or flexibility), or whether she simply needed to trigger different movement patterns to achieve better technique.

I am always thankful for my initial training with David Leadbetter. Fixing the cause, versus the effects, was stressed time and again to achieve the fastest, most effective changes to a student’s technique. With the help of another expert, Isabel will continue to move forward with her technique and her golf game, because a primary cause was correctly evaluated.

Let’s share the details of this specific example to highlight how Roy helped Isabel achieve better technique and results. The technical need for Isabel was a different winding and unwinding of her body motion. Her lower body led her backswing, while her upper body led her downswing (reverse pivot). This technique produced inconsistent ball contact, erratic ball flights and a loss of distance.

An example of a golfer with a “reverse pivot.”

In the photo above, Roy is simulating Isabel’s technique. Note how the trail knee and hip are outside the yellow, which represent’s Roy’s Address position. Note also how Roy’s target shoulder is closer to the target compared with his target hip. These are classic reverse pivot traits.

Roy conducted a series of physical screens that tested Isabel’s strengths, limitations and movement pattern. Each “test” was administered with the intent of identifying the needs of Isabel’s body, with the goal of helping her improve her technique and ball hitting skills.

After a series of exercises were conducted, two screens provided the most glaring results. First was the overhead squat, where Isabel’s knees collapsed laterally during the squatting motion.

The second screen with detrimental results was the single leg balance test. Isabel had a challenging time staying in balance on her trail leg for a sustained period of time. Plus, when Isabel was able to maintain her balance, her motion was very unstable and wobbly.

Both tests showed a lack of ability to stabilize the trail hip, which is a necessary skill to encourage a better pivot with the lower body during the backswing. The better pivot should help change the wind and unwinding sequence of Isabel’s instinctive motion.

The driving range fix was to give Isabel an exercise to help her body create more stability by training with an opposing lateral force. We wrapped a large therapy resistance band around Isabel’s trail leg during her swinging motion. The task for Isabel was to resist against our pulling motion of her trail leg, away from the target.

This extra force encouraged Isabel’s lower body to be self-correcting, or reflex-correcting. A reflexive fix frequently produces a quicker and more efficient fix compared to verbal cues. By changing that sequence, Isabel was more capable of having her upper body lead the backswing and lower body lead the down swing.

Isabel made significant improvements with this exercise. She also recognized that she would likely regress (like she had historically) if she did not change her instinctive movement patterns.

Roy designed an exercise program to help Isabel change those movement patterns, so she will have a better chance of changing her technique permanently. Isabel understands that by changing her technique, she will have a better chance of achieving her golfing goals more quickly.

Having additional experts around me has helped me grow as a teacher and my students have achieved faster, more permanent results. If you’ve encountered a plateau with your technique, I encourage you to ask your teaching professional to introduce you to a golf fitness specialist. Together, they may introduce the next component to help you progress with your golf game.

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Instruction

Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?

Published

7 hours ago

Apr 24, 2024

Shawn Clement

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

Published

4 weeks ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

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.

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

Published

2 months ago

Mar 4, 2024

Shawn Clement

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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