Instruction

Where should my shoulders be at impact?

Published

11 years ago

Dec 18, 2012

There is a lot of conflicting advice about whether the shoulders should be open, square, or even closed at impact. The real answer, like most things in golf, is “it depends.”

The key to shoulder position at impact is matching your pivot with your arm swing. What I see on a daily basis is players doing things that by themselves might not be wrong, but they don’t fit with the rest of their pattern. Even worse is someone who tries to a make change to their golf swing by adding a piece that will do more harm than good. That’s because the piece they are trying to “fix” has to match the rest of their pattern.

So where should your shoulders be at impact? It depends on the rate at which your rear arm straightens, the location of your right elbow and the speed of your arm swing. Because people tend to understand things better when they see them we will go over some examples (all examples use a right-handed golfer).

Golfer 1

For a golfer whose left arm is deeper and more across the chest and right arm stays bent longer, the shoulders should be more open at impact. This will help the golfer’s swing move in the direction of the target.

For this golfer, the arms are moving slower, or closer to the same speed as the right shoulder. This is why their right arm stays bent longer. As the hands move closer to impact the right shoulder is also moving at a similar rate down, out and forward toward impact. This gets shoulders more open at impact.

If this golfer’s shoulders were more closed, their swing direction would be too far to the right of the target and he or she would struggle with pushes and hooks. Hunter Mahan in the video below is a good example of this sort of pattern. His right arms stays bent until well after impact, allowing/forcing him to use his body to get the club out to the ball in a way that results in a fairly neutral path.

Click here to see a YouTube video of Hunter Mahan’s swing (SwingVision — down the line)

Golfer 2

In contrast, a golfer whose right arm straightens faster needs his shoulders more square at impact. This golfer’s arms move faster in relation to the pivot than Golfer 1, which is why the right arm straightens faster. Golfer 2’s hands are moving toward impact at a faster rate than his right shoulder is moving down, out and forward. Because of this, Golfer 2’s shoulders will be more square/less open than the shoulders of Golfer 1. This type of golfer has the club working out toward the ball due to straightening of the right arm, and will work toward the target without having the body nearly as open to the target.

A great example of this is Ricky Fowler: Click here to see a YouTube video of Fowler’s swing (down the line)

The key to understanding this is that both Golfer 1 and Golfer 2 can have the same ball flight and resultant path. They just get there two different ways.

Mahan vs. Fowler at impact

Most good golfers fall somewhere between these two extremes. Poorer golfers mix and match these patterns. Most commonly, I see slicers who open their bodies too fast with a right arm that straightens too fast. This kicks the club out past the ball and causes a path that is out-to-in, which produces deflected slices and big pulls along with shots hit off the heel and shanks. You will also see some good players with a lot of “lag” who keep their right arm bent but don’t pivot enough through the ball, resulting in a path that is too in-to-out which can lead to toe shots.

When working on your impact dynamics, make sure you are adding parts that match the rest of what you’re doing. Mixing components here can lead to very poor results and frustration.

Click here for more discussion in the “Instruction and Academy” forum.

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Instruction

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

Published

2 days 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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