Instruction
Does flexibility lead to a better short game?
I have seen many beginning, average and professional golfers use a technique that can cause mishits when they are chipping or putting. The professionals usually spend a lot of time training their short game because they know that it is the only way to save par (or perhaps birdie) when they miss the green. However, that is not the case for many regular golfers.
Consider that the statistics say that 43 percent of every shot attempted during a round of golf is a putt. With that in mind, I can say that high-handicap golfers miss the green almost every hole they play. They have to use their short game to place the ball onto the green. Average golfers (handicap 10 to 15) usually hit four-to-six greens in regulation per round. The conclusion is that many shots are dependent on their short game and the accuracy of the chip shot.
I mentioned earlier that the professional always spends a lot of time practicing the short game. If you also practice the short game a lot and have the skill to produce the correct ball flight, roll, length and aim, then I think your technique can also include unnecessary flaws without any mishits.
I remember an interesting lecture from a PGA teaching summit. The PGA of Sweden had invited some of the best players in the world at that time to mini golf to present their views on training. These guys always practiced putting during their training sessions. So the obvious question that we PGA instructors had to ask concerned what guidelines they had on their putting technique. The only and uncomplicated answer from was that the head should be over the ball or just inside it. Sometimes the head could also move toward the target in the follow through.
The lesson ended with a putt competition between the golfers and some selected PGA professionals from the crowd. I can say that the pros were the winners by wide margin.
I think it’s not surprising that the pros didn’t have so many guidelines in their putting technique. If average golfers could spend that much time on a single part of the golf game, then the importance of the technique decreases. In real life, regular golfers cannot gather that much time to spend on practicing putting or chipping. So if average golfers have a technique with a lot of unnecessary flaws that cause mishits, the amount of time the player needs to practice for maintaining a high level of performance will be impossible to reach.
Putt and Chip Technique
Golfers who have good mobility (thoracic and cervical spine) in the upper body should use the rotation of the thoracic spine as much as possible. The technique should include the big muscles in the upper body and limited movement in the lower body. The center of the upper body motion will have its origin just above your breastbone (sternum). The rotation of the thoracic spine will master the arms, wrists, hands and club head through the chip and putt stroke.
If you can master these guidelines it will be easier to maintain your short game.
I can say that the majority of all golfers usually use the opposite motion, with no rotation of the thoracic spine. They use leg, hand and wrist movements during the shot. This almost always produces higher possibility for off-center hits when used for putt or chip shots. In the long run, those golfers will lose their feel and confidence when the ball will act so differently from time to time because of the mishits.
The main problem I notice in technique when watching average golfers chip and putt is the overuse of the arms and legs in the chip and putt motion. Why golfers do this can reside in some fundamental technique misunderstanding (using the pitch shot instead of the chip-shot technique) or perhaps physical limitations, such as:
- Lack of mobility in the thorax.
- Decreased stability in the core.
- Problem stabilizing their lower body and freely mobilizing the upper body.
Do you want to test your ability use your torso rotation, cervical rotation and also see if you can freely rotate your thorax without moving your lower body? Watch these videos below and let they guide you through the test.
Torso Rotation Test: http://www.mytpi.com/articles/screening/the_torso_rotation_test
Cervical Rotation Test: http://www.mytpi.com/articles/screening/the_cervical_rotation_test
The Titleist Performance Institute has done its torso rotation tests on more than 19,000 amateur golfers and also 68 PGA Tour players. Results are distributed for this particular test as seen below:
- 63 percent have good mobility
- 22 percent have problem with torso rotation in both directions.
- 10 percent have problem with torso rotation to their left.
- 5 percent have problem with torso rotation to their right.
- 47 oercent of all the amateurs had problem with keeping their lower body still when rotating their thorax in both directions.
Compared to PGA Tour players:
- 75 percent have good mobility
- 19 percent have problem with torso rotation in both directions.
- 3 percent have problem with torso rotation to their left.
- 3 percent have problem with torso rotation to their right.
- 17.6 percent of all tested PGA Tour players had problem with keeping their lower body still when rotating their thorax in both directions.
According to these statistics, there are a lot of amateurs that have problems keeping their lower body still when rotating their thorax. How many can actually improve with some physical training such as core exercises? I believe it’s a lot of them. Know what you’re actually training so that you can measure your progress with these kinds of tests.
If you have some questions on these tests or more information on the chip and putt technique, email me: [email protected]
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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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GolferX
Dec 24, 2013 at 4:30 am
Physical flexibility is very important to a golfer’s game, both the long and short of it. I would like to suggest that emotional flexibility is also very important. I have heard many of my playing partners over the years, say they’re probably going to miss the putt or they get upset when they “flub” a chip or pitch. You have to stay positive but you also have to be able to shake a bad shot off. If you can’t do that, you won’t learn from your mistakes and that negates growth in golf or life, for that matter. Darwin’s theory of evolution should read: the most adaptable, survive.
1
Dec 18, 2013 at 1:14 am
It’s hard when you can’t bend over and stay bent over for more than a couple seconds