Instruction

Revisiting Ernest Jones’ “Swing the Clubhead”

Published

9 years ago

Apr 28, 2015

Ernest Jones was a British golf professional who lost a leg in World War I. That didn’t stop him from continuing to play to the level of a scratch golfer, however, proving, as others have, that a golfer needs only one functioning leg, or arm even, to play at that high level. Important history we should keep in mind when considering the physical requirements for good golf.

Jones’ classic instruction book, “Swing The Clubhead,” begged golfers to do only ONE thing. Yeah, THAT. But a lot of people missed what ol’ Ernie was really on about. This article aims to shed light on what Ernest Jones described as a TRUE swinging action.

I will admit that the first time I read through the book as a younger instructor, , I missed the heart of the lesson. Up until that time, I had not even considered the possibility that the wrists could be passive and not actively bending back and forth. Similarly, I never understood what people meant by “keeping the hands out of it.”

“The hands are ON the club, they HAVE to be in it,” I reasoned.

Then one day it hit me. EUREKA! What if I hold the handle VERY lightly, like a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, wind-up my hands around my center as a means to move the club head, and ALLOW the wrists to behave as they like — passively, in response to the active action of swinging the hands. Would that even WORK? Like a charm, I would discover. With all clubs and swings, long and short. The benefits are numerous, but perhaps coolest of all is that the wrist action is 100 percent AUTOMATED, the wrists truly functioning as a free hinge. Ah, so THAT’S what he meant!

Jones’ only real teaching aid was a pocket knife attached to a handkerchief, a kind of weight on a string. To swing something means to cause it to rotate around something else, an axis. To cause the dangling pocket knife to swing, the swinger needs to only hold the handkerchief and move the hand back and forth through space. The flexible handkerchief ALLOWS the knife to swing and represents passive wrists for the golfer. No torque needs to be applied at the hinge, which is free, to create a hinging action between the knife and handkerchief. The same is true for your golf swing. What a relief! One less thing to worry about!

Jones’ primary practice drill involved swinging the handkerchief and knife simultaneously with a club, to test whether one was even swinging at all. Any conscious and ACTIVE bending of the wrists, which Jones called “levering,” instantly causes the club to fall out of step with the swinging knife.

One of several “whippy” swing aids on the market, like the Orange Whip Trainer, allows the user to FEEL an object swing from a freely functioning hinge — the shaft in this case. Like the knife and handkerchief, this teaches us that an ACTIVE wrist action is NOT a requirement to create the ACTUAL wrist action seen in great swings, but the polar opposite of what Ernest Jones saw as a REAL swing. To do as Jones intended, simply swing or rotate the hands around your body, and ALLOW the club head to swing around the hands.

“Swing the club head with your hands,” Jones said, NOT with an active bending, “flipping,” or “levering” of the wrists.

Now that you know HOW to swing the club head, let’s swing it efficiently. This involves acceleration of the swing of the hands. With passive wrists and light grip pressure, you can learn that sufficient acceleration of the hands in one direction causes the club to initially lag behind and hinge back in the REVERSE direction. A fundamental aspect of efficient swinging is to make contact BEFORE the club head catches up to its axis, the hands, promoting solid contact with a descending attack angle, especially for swings off the turf.

Executing something called the “lagging club head takeaway” establishes the passive-wrist hinging action to start the swing. As the hands are swung back, the club head lags behind momentarily before following the hands along.

Above: Bobby Jones exhibits the classic “lagging club head takeaway”

Another great practice drill is to slowly wind-up the hands fully and stop. Starting the forward swing from this stopped position, you should CAUSE and ALLOW the club to again hinge back in the REVERSE direction, just like with the “lagging club head takeaway.” Consider that the reason you don’t always see this in great swings is because, as the forward swing begins, the wrists may already be bent back to their fullest extent. Since the forward swing to impact lasts only a few tenths of a second, there’s not much left to do now except continue smoothly accelerating the hands through the impact zone. Oh, and keep your eye on the ball! Eventually the club head catches up to the hands, but the ball is already gone.

If you find that this short swing shows a prominent wrist action, you would be correct. But looks can be deceiving. All of the bending of the wrists you see here is provided by the acceleration of the hands with passive wrists. The same swing, with firmer grip pressure, would look less “wristy,” but executing the reverse hinge phenomenon you see here at the start-up and transition is a great exercise to prove passive wrists and efficient hand swing acceleration.

The Swing-Eze teaching aid functions nicely as a “weight on a string.” Its free hinge permits a prominent “lagging” action.

Impact is made well BEFORE the club head catches up to the hands.

The ball has left the face while the club head is still lagging behind the hands.

The club head finally catches the hands well after impact.

“Stay ahead” of the club head with your hands this way and you may well be on the road to your personal performance potential. And remember, you can swing all your clubs this way, full and short! Ultimately, you may choose a grip pressure that is firm enough to prevent the “reverse” hinging, but either way, feel FREE, literally, to continue swinging the club head by swinging the hands around your body with passive wrists.

Ernest Jones would have been proud!

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Todd Dugan

As an independent contractor based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Todd Dugan provides video swing analysis as a player gift to groups hosting golf tournaments and also is available for private instruction. * PGA Certified Instructor * Teaching professionally since 1993 CONTACT: [email protected] vimeo.com/channels/todddugangolf

13 Comments

Rob Saxe

Jun 1, 2019 at 9:46 pm

I’ve worked with many instructors from THE TGM guru to former tour players to pga teaching and coaching summits. Now that I’m getting older the only thing that matters after everything I’ve read from sir Walter Simpson to Ernest Jones to Jack Nicklaus to Sean Foley to athletic motion golf on YT, is allowing the clubhead to swing me and control my wrists and footwork. That’s all I pay attention to. The rest of bs. Great post here. Thank you. Oh and I love the imperceptible clubhead lag in takeaway. It sets the tone for the backswing.

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BT

Sep 23, 2015 at 12:01 am

I’ve been playing 25 years and have been a 5 hc for the last decade. Straight but short off the tee with a good short game. Average drive about 225 or so. Always had a smooth easy swing. I’ve never been able to increase my swing speed much without destroying my accuracy. In fact I really haven’t tried much. Just accepted that I’m a short hitter and still managed to shoot in the 70s most of the time. I’ve read some Ernest Jones stuff before and thought it was compatible with what I do but never fully understood it until I read this article. I’ve now seen that part of my problem creating club head speed all these years was my lack of a truly free release of the club that this article promotes. I had a sound swing but not much speed. No lag to speak of. After I started working on the free swinging motion described here, I had to strengthen my grip slightly so that it’s more neutral now, rather than weak as I’d played for years before. Once I began to trust the free swinging motion this creates, my distance has increased dramatically. I am now driving it 30-50 yards longer than before with less effort. It’s completely changed my game. Clearly I was leaving a lot of distance on the table since I was short before but this has been a revelation. I’ve lost just a little accuracy but the distance gains more than offset that. Used to hit 10-12 fairways a round and now I’m hitting 8-10. None of the par 5s on my home course were ever remotely reachable for me before but now I’ve been around all of them in two at least once including a 520 yd hole today. I’m a club and a half longer with every iron as well. I can’t begin to explain how great it’s been. Anyone who’s worked hard at their game for years and achieved a relatively low handicap can tell you that you don’t just wake up one day and pick up 40 yards off the tee. But I have and it’s entirely due to what I learned from this article. I realize this isn’t the best way to swing for everyone but it certainly works for me and no one should discount it just because it’s not what suits them.

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- Todd
  
  Jul 13, 2016 at 4:17 pm
  
  Awesome, BT! When the wrists are allowed to function as “free agents”, a Jack Nicklaus described in his book, “Golf My Way”, the wrists un-cock with greater speed, as you’ve discovered! Ironically, intending to speed-up with the wrists themselves, reduces speed!
  
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Jeff

Jun 8, 2015 at 3:48 pm

Unfortunately, I regret to report that the information in this article is worth exactly what I paid for it. Total crap. I am convinced that golf instructors know it’s bad business to make people better golfers and no longer need lessons. Its maddening and cruel, in my opinion.

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Jeff

May 31, 2015 at 8:11 pm

I have read STC so many times that I have lost count. I have also purchased an expensive DVD which claims to teach pure Ernest Jones. Never did it occur to me that passive wrists was the missing link to my success. Yes I know they are mentioned, but I always honed in on other details. There have been days where I have the feel and I can’t miss, where golf actually feels easy for 5 or 6 straight holes. HOWEVER, much more often, I have struggled to implement STC and typically go back to experimenting and doing what gets me by. If there weren’t thunderstorms outside, I would be at the range trying this right now. Rest assured I will soon, and I will post the results.

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James G

May 4, 2015 at 11:33 am

The lagging clubhead move was also used by Julius Boros and his swing was very much like what Earnest Jones advocated. Boros’ swing is still as relevant today to study as when he was playing on the Tour.
As an aside, this is the theory behind the Whippy Tempomaster training aid as well. The man who developed it said he had been swinging a ball on a string and came up with the Whippy as a better alternative to that.

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dcorun

May 1, 2015 at 12:49 pm

I’ve used this swing for some years after reading an article about Ernest Jones and thought how simple this swing idea was and why it wasn’t popular with more golfers. This is a very simple swing as explained. Light grip pressure, pick a target, turn the shoulders and swing through the ball not at it. Let everything happen naturally not mechanically like a lot of today’s teachers try to teach. I found a book by Manuel de la Torre a Top 100 and highly regarded instructor/teacher called ‘Understanding The Golf Swing’ and it is a great book which teaches this swing. It is easy to understand and has illustrations always help a lot. If you can get it do so since it goes into greater detail than Todd can in this short space. Manuel and his father who taught him were disciples of Ernest Jones and Manuel’s father met and worked with Earnest. Todd is also right that this swing is for all shots.

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BA

Apr 29, 2015 at 9:00 pm

Todd, have you followed the work of Manuel De Le Torre? He is a direct disciple of Ernest Jones.

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- Todd
  
  Apr 29, 2015 at 11:39 pm
  
  BA, yes, I have studied Manuel’s book, “Understanding The Golf Swing”. None other than Moe Norman adopted Manuel’s method later in life!
  
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LK

Apr 29, 2015 at 10:17 am

I’m not sure about the orange whip or the swing eze but back in the day I learned to swing this way using a Whippy Tempomaster. Over the course of a couple years I dropped about 25 strokes (100ish to mid 70s) and gained 30 yards with every club. I’m proof that Mr. Jones theory is legit.

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Skip

Apr 28, 2015 at 2:13 pm

Wow, nice to see you understand it now. Probably would have come in handy way back when, when you were teaching people how to play.

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- Todd
  
  Apr 28, 2015 at 9:48 pm
  
  Skip, you’re right. It would have. After years of study and experience, I feel better-equipped to teach effectively today than when I started teaching 20 years ago. But the thing that keeps me most interested in the golf swing is knowing there is always more to learn.
  
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Greg V

Apr 28, 2015 at 10:17 am

Percy Boomer took it one step further by teaching how to hit the ball using pivot, while keeping the upper body (everything above the belt line) relaxed and reflexive to the pivot of the legs and hips. Percy could play a bit; he won the French Open, beating Henry Cotton and the other good English/European pros of the day.

If you think about Earnest Jones playing single digit golf while pivoting on one leg, that is a pretty good trick!

On the other hand, Jim Flick used to sit on a stool and hit the ball pretty darn well with only a little trunk rotation and an arm swing. I guess the principle is the same – keep the hand action reflexive and a result of a pivot. The means are just different.

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Instruction

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

Published

3 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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