Instruction

5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Golf Swing

Published

7 years ago

May 24, 2017

As a golf coach, I see hundreds of different swings every year. No two are the same, and it is my job to help my players make the most of their talent and technique to shoot the lowest scores possible. There’s no question that technique has a very important role in shooting lower scores, but it’s usually not the starting point of the work I do with my golfers. More often than not, I start by helping golfers get the most out of the swing they already have before we start fine tuning things.

Here are five ways you can start getting the most out of your golf swing right now. See how far these tips can take you before you decide to rebuild a golf swing that may already be good enough to help you achieve your golf goals this summer.

1. Pick One Ball Flight

You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve worked with high-handicap golfers who tell me that they’re struggling to hit draws, fades and knockdowns. As great as I think it is that golfers want to have total control of their ball flight, it’s my belief that a golfer must first gain command of their natural ball flight before they attempt to work the ball on the course.

Say you’re a 12-handicapper who struggles to hit a draw. That’s OK! You can score very well hitting a fade on every singe shot, no matter the situation, pin placement, wind or distance. You’ll be surprised how much easier the game becomes. Own it, know it, hit it!

2. Have a Game Plan and Stick To It

Before your round, plan out how you are going to play the course. Visualize different scenarios in your head and how you will react to them. Don’t always just plan the good shots, either; know what you’ll do if you hit it in a trouble spot that you tend to find on the course.

I like to have my players write their game plan before a tournament in essay form. Writing out what they’ll do in sentences helps them be more specific in exactly what they’ll do, which makes them better prepared on the course.

3. Know Your Tendencies in Different Situation

Let’s say you’re on the 18th hole hitting your second shot from 145 yards. There is a bunker on the left and water short and right. The last three rounds you hit your second shot in the water because you came up and out of your shot early. Now the match is on the line and you need to hit a good shot.

In this situation, it’s a good idea to be aware of your tendencies. If you’re between clubs, you’ll want to take the longer one to make sure you clear the water no matter what you do, right? Remember, you can make a par or birdie from just about any where besides the water. Once you decide on your club and shot, however, don’t let the past enter your mind. Your only goal is to execute the task at hand.

4. Get Target-Oriented

Far to often when I am on course with a student and I ask them what are you thinking about, they’ll tell me something like, “I’m going to close my stance and adjust my grip so I can hit a draw into this pin.” You don’t want that to be you.

Once you are on the course, let your technical thoughts go. You will be surprised how well your body will react when you let yourself play target-oriented golf. I like to use a basketball analogy to explain. When you catch a pass and go up for a shot are you thinking any of these things?

Turn and face the hoop
Bend your knees
Elbows in
Jump
Extend your arm
Release the ball
Follow through

If you’re good at basketball, probably not, right? You look at the hoop and rely on your hours of training to make the shot. I have even experimented with putting a shot clock on my players to force them to simply try and react to the target they have chosen. Pick a target, hit your target. It can be that simple.

5. Be Brutally Honest with Yourself… and Play Within Yourself

This may very well be the most important tip on this list. We all have that “friend” who tells anyone who will listen that he is a scratch golfer, but for some reason every time he plays with you he cant seem to break 80. That golfer is not being honest with himself, and he will never reach his potential because of it.

From time to time, all golfers should take an honest assessment of their strengths and weaknesses. This is when you make the time to break down all the parts of your game, piece by piece. Look at everything from your full swing to your short game to your putting to how you react after a bad shot, and write down what you like and don’t like about each part of your game. If you do, you’ll be surprised how much more positive and accepting of yourself you’ll become on the course. You’ll also be able to better communicate what you need help with to an instructor like me when you’re ready to take your game to the next level.

Put these 5 tips to work if you want to get the most out of your swing right now!

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Instruction

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

Published

1 day 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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