Instruction
Are you getting the most out of your rangefinder?
With the holidays recently over, golfers excitedly tore the wrapping paper off their brand-new rangefinders. Before heading to the course though, it’s important to remember that there is more to your rangefinder than just point and shoot. Having an exact distance to the target for each shot is a tremendous advantage, but too many golfers get caught up playing the exact distance to the pin. Maximum utility comes from interpreting and applying the data from your laser.
Consider using some of these techniques in play and practice this year to get the most out of your rangefinder.
Practice Strategies
Every golfer has a favorite yardage for each club, but too few have a designated range for their approach clubs. When practicing, be sure to switch to different targets to determine a 10-to-15-yard range for each of your clubs, especially the clubs you hit into the green most often.
Particularly important are your short irons and wedges: knowing a maximum distance for these clubs is critical to choosing what pins you should fire at. Equally important is identifying concrete numbers for three-quarter and half swing wedges.
Check out GolfWRX’s list of 2013’s best rangefinders.
Play Strategies
From the tee, make note of a nearby marker (bench, ball washer, etc.) to measure backward from your drive. This is an easy way to determine a realistic assessment of your driver’s range. Likewise, make note of how far long or short your approach ended from the flagstick to help create a reliable distance range for your irons as well.
An obvious but underused tactic: Take a measurement from a marked sprinkler head or 150-yard marker to determine where the pin is placed on the green (a reading of 156 from the 150 marker means that the flag is about 6 yards past the center).
For middle and back pin positions, it is sometimes best to “club down” from your reading. Most greens slope from back to front and are approximately 30 yards deep. Consider the following scenario: 155 yards is an ideal 8 iron distance for me, but I can comfortably manipulate shots from 150-to-160 yards with the same club. So when I get a reading of 153 at the back of the green I consciously acknowledge that the green is about 130 to 160 yards away, meaning that the biggest green light is the 145-to-155 zone. In this scenario, my 9 iron is the safest play because it will not go past the flag and I will absolutely not short-side myself over the green. Surely we would all choose a 30-foot uphill putt over a 30-foot downhill chip, right?
It may help most to liken your rangefinder interpretation to green reading. Only after identifying slopes and breaks do you determine your aimpoint. Similarly, you need to recognize the flag position and the slopes around the green before deciding what number to actually play for. When you combine smart decision making with your finely tuned club distance ranges, you’ll start to see scores start to drop!
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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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Rob
Oct 16, 2018 at 9:25 am
Also, be careful with them in winter coniditions! I was playing at the weekend in average conditions and constantly got dodgy readings, some are obviously wrong but others are only slightly out – just something to be aware of.. Understanding how range finders work!
Dave
Jan 9, 2014 at 11:00 pm
Measuring back to the tee is a good idea. Helps to with understand if/what any incremental distance gained from using a tee compared to of the deck (into a pin).
Chris
Jan 9, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Mat, I understand what you’re saying. However majority of players who use them are of a decent standard and tend to take far fewer shots than someone with a high handicap.
You’re more likely to get caught behind someone taking 100+ shots round a course, looking for balls in rough, trees and bushes than behind a decent player taking 70-85 shots while using a rangefinder?
I find them a lot quicker to use than a gps style unit. Just point and click. Job done.
Mat
Jan 9, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Here’s Rule #1 for getting the most out of your rangefinder.
Whatever you do, DO NOT HOLD UP PLAY. Otherwise, someone may make you consume your rangefinder.
Good luck.
TGG-Chris
Sep 14, 2016 at 11:07 am
Another way to maximize your rangefinder is to take notes on carry distance vs roll. I’ve seen a lot of people use the carry + roll distance when picking a club, only to come up short in a hazard.
It’s important to understand the lie of your carry target (e.g. are you coming in on the short stuff or are you using the rough to take some steam off a long iron approach shot?). Your carry might be consistent but you’ll get a lot more roll on a hard, downhill lie vs the long stuff or uphill.