Instruction
The Enlightenment of Golf Instruction
There is an ancient adage that says, “May you live in interesting times.” In golf instruction, these are the most interesting times, “The Enlightenment” as I like to call it. The reference is of course to that great age of scientific discovery that followed the Dark Ages. Our golf enlightenment is here, right now, and those of us in this field are the benefactors of all the science that is available to us.
The scientific breakthroughs are the result of the myriad of new technologies at our disposal. No longer are we in the dark ages of conjecture, estimation and “seems like.” We have the ability to know precisely what happened on every swing and every shot. And the real truth is available to anyone curious enough to seek it.
Having been at my craft for some time, it is truly exciting to be a part of this enlightenment. For the first 400 years or so of golf instruction, teachers used nothing but their eyes and experience to estimate how the golf ball behaved and what caused it to do what it did. The “Ball Flight Laws,” as we called them, were our one and only guide. It worked fairly well, but I think down deep we all knew something was missing.
Then came the advent of video, the ability to observe motion with high-speed, stop-action cameras that provided far more detail than we had with the naked eye. We could better observe the swing by slowing it down and stopping it, and even comparing it to the greats of the game.
Above: A Golf Digest swing sequence of Rory McIlroy (left) and Tiger Woods.
With video, we could actually show the student what they were doing; they no longer simply heard us instructors, they could see in vivid detail what the video captured. Again, it worked well, but real truth seekers still knew something was missing.
What was missing, we now know, was this: The real golf swing is a 3D motion (the backswing is up, in and back; the downswing is down, out and forward). It has forces, torques and a planar quality that cannot be captured completely by 2D video. The flat screen depiction lacks the depth dimension that is so critical to understanding actual motion.
How could we get better? Along came the latest in our quest to gather, store and analyze data: 3D motion analysis systems and Doppler radar launch monitors that can track the golf club and golf ball along their entire journey. Eureka! The holy grail! At least for now.
I am not here to demean video teaching. I use it, my students love it and it has merit; particularly observing the body motion of the player. But to capture and quantify the extent and true range of motion, forces and torques, a 3D system is needed. I have a very trained eye for a golf swing, but I cannot see what the radar sees no matter how closely or carefully I look. And even if I could, it is nice to know how much of what I’m seeing is germane to a student’s problems.
I use Flightscope, which measures and/or calculates 24 variables of golf club and golf ball in swing or flight. Do you know how far you hit every club in your bag? Do you know your optimal launch conditions for every drive you hit? How about the TRUE path on which you’re swinging? These things are vital to understanding and improving your swing and are discovered by radar only.
I love learning as much as anything I do in life. It is exhilarating staying up past the point of fatigue just to gather a little more insight into a subject. I’ve been this way my whole life, and I feel that any committed teacher should be a dedicated, lifetime learner. Could I “get by” on things I knew years ago? Sure. Could I make a living teaching golf without the investment I’ve made in technology? Probably. But those who cease to learn should cease to teach.
It might be comfortable to stick my head in the sand and regurgitate popular adages about the golf swing, but that would never satisfy my insatiable appetite for learning the truth about what is going on right before my eyes. This quest is challenging and, at times, frustrating. It is never easy to abandon long-held beliefs when confronted with new insights. We see this dynamic in all walks of life. But when science proves something beyond all doubt, it is incumbent upon the teacher to pass these truths on to their students. If there is an art to this craft, it involves the humility of saying I don’t know it all, I have much to learn, but I do know where to find it. Once the truth has been discovered, the teacher continually works on new ways of presenting these findings to the student. There are an infinite variety of learning styles, and instructors are constantly working on ways of several ways to present the same information.
Here’s an example: 80 percent of the initial direction of a golf shot (the horizontal launch) is the result of the clubface at impact. I believed otherwise for many years. Radar proved my theory wrong, so I now teach what science knows to be true. If there is an art to golf instruction, it has to do with this humility.
This knowledge quest also keeps my work from getting stale and recharges my teaching battery every day. It is my job to know the subject in all of its complexity and teach it in all simplicity. Staying aware of the science of golf instruction allows me to do just that. Last week, I helped a guy conquer a serious case of the shanks. There is nothing quite so rewarding as the smile in a student’s eyes when they hit better shots. It keeps me grounded and reminds me how uncommonly lucky I am to do what I do.
If you like science as well as golf, please enjoy these enlightening and entertaining facts.
- The golf ball is in contact with the club face 0.0004 seconds. That is 800 times faster than one can blink an eye.
- The average touring professional has the golf ball on the face of the club about 3 seconds for a full season on tour.
- The toe of the golf club travels some 14-to-15 mph faster than the heel, and 7 mph faster than the sweet spot.
- The highest ball speed ever recorded is 226 mph. The average ball speed on the PGA Tour is a mere 168 mph.
- The fastest club head speed ever recorded is 151 mph . The PGA Tour average is 113 mph.
- Bubba Watson led the PGA Tour last year with an average ball speed of 185 mph.
- Every mile per hour you can increase your swing speed will net you about 2-to-3 yards of extra distance
- Elite level ball strikers hit every club (driver to wedge) the same height. For PGA Tour players, the average is 30 yards (90 feet).
- At impact, the force of the golf club on the ball is more than 1600 pounds.
- A golf ball struck 1 inch toward the toe OPENS the face some 5 degrees.
- A golf ball struck 1 inch toward the heel CLOSES the face some 5 degrees.
- The average drive by a PGA Tour player is in the air 6.5 seconds. The average RE-MAX Long driver contestant hits a drive with a hang time of 8.5 seconds!
- The average driver attack angle on PGA Tour is 1.3 degrees DOWN. The average attack angle in Long Drive Competitions is 5 degrees UP! One 2010 contestant recorded an angle of attack that was 13 degree up (+13).
- A ball struck as little as ONE DIMPLE toward the toe or heel of the club can open or close the face enough to affect the shot.
- On a driver with 10 degrees of loft, the bottom of the face will have about 7 degrees of loft; the top of the face will have about 13 degrees of loft!
There are many of these “fun facts” on various sites on the web; people such Dave Tutleman, Sasho Mackenzie, Steven Nesbit and others conduct vital research on an ongoing basis. I am a teacher, not a scientist, and as such, have benefited from the “R&D” of the many golf engineers and scientists who take the time to study this area and provide us all with great research. As instructors, it is our job to take it to the golfer, and the golfer’s job to take it to the course.
As always, feel free to send a swing video to my Facebook page and I will do my best to give you my feedback.
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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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Jason Sutton
Jan 10, 2014 at 11:38 pm
Well written and thought out Dennis. This is the attitude that I feel like our profession is heading. Thanks for sharing
Jason
duckjr78
Jan 2, 2014 at 12:43 pm
A fantastic article. I agree with everything you have written. I especially believe that we should all be willing to admit that what we once held as dogma, is often incorrect. Kudos to you.
Marty Strumpf
Dec 31, 2013 at 8:53 am
Great article. As a PGA Teaching Professional with almost 30 years of experience I have to agree with you that we should NEVER stop learning. The new technology provides us with valuable information that we can interpret for our students to help coach them to future success. The true art of teaching is having the ability to communicate effectively. It makes each lesson unique and to me it is part of the fun of our jobs! There is nothing like the look on someone’s face when they “get it”
Dennis Clark
Jan 1, 2014 at 12:51 pm
Thx glad you enjoyed it.
KC
Dec 30, 2013 at 10:04 pm
Solid writing, solid science.
Best thought: “Those who cease to learn should cease to teach”.
No one method
Dec 30, 2013 at 8:48 pm
I really like this artical! Just reading pure facts was so refreshing when golf media is so full of “i have a method that is best (and even backed by science)” instructors.
No more Edel sales please. More facts like this write up please.
Dennis Clark
Dec 30, 2013 at 8:59 pm
That’s the beauty of teaching with technology. We craft a swing around the numbers we see, not around a “theory”. Thx glad you enjoyed it
paul
Dec 30, 2013 at 8:28 pm
I love golf number facts. I am not an instructor at all but have learned enough to help people that have the same problems as me. So i know what you mean about helping someone and feeling rewarded. Most of what i picked up came from your great articles. Thanks for brining me from a 36 to a 15ish in two years. And my friends thank you as well.
Dennis Clark
Dec 30, 2013 at 8:34 pm
You’re welcome, glad I could help! Stay tuned, more good stuff to come
Sean
Dec 30, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Dennis, I believe the adage, “may you live in interesting times” is actually a Chinese curse.
Dennis Clark
Dec 30, 2013 at 6:53 pm
OH noooo 🙂 I cursed all my readers!
Dennis Clark
Dec 30, 2013 at 6:56 pm
I don’t believe any Chinese source was ever found for that BTW. Blame it on Confucius!
Sean
Dec 31, 2013 at 12:01 am
Regardless, I enjoyed your article. 🙂
Dennis Clark
Jan 1, 2014 at 12:50 pm
Thx Sean
mifty
Dec 30, 2013 at 5:37 pm
Nice article. Although, newer Wishon drivers use roll/bulge to keep the loft the same on any part of the face (except the very bottom).
Dennis Clark
Dec 30, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Really! can you even imagine anyone calling it work! Here’s another little nugget: In a round of golf we are in the act of swinging the club maybe 3 minutes (about 2 seconds per shot). So comparatively top touring pros don’t work a lot!! Just their whole life getting there!
John Iaciofano
Dec 30, 2013 at 4:11 pm
I always enjoy your articles, Dennis. Fascinating, helpful stuff.
Ian
Dec 30, 2013 at 11:35 am
“The average touring professional has the golf ball on the face of the club about 3 seconds for a full season on tour.”
Those pros! Get a bloody real job!!!