Instruction
Game of the Week: Tee Ball
Being able to control the speed on your putts is essential. As a matter of a fact, it is at the top of the list when it comes to a hierarchy of putting skills. That said, you need to practice your speed control regularly. We often say to our students, “It’s like brushing your teeth; you need to do it every day.”
As fall begins to drift into winter, see if you can find a putt-able surface in your home and practice such a game from whatever distance you can manage. In the meantime, jump outside and practice this Game of the Week.
Game of the Week: Tee Ball
- Gear needed: One ball, putter and about seven tees
- Time needed: 10 minutes
Rules
Place about seven tees in a straight line on a green in increments of 2 feet. They don’t need to be near a hole — actually it’s preferable if they’re not.
Pick a line that’s parallel to the line of the tees — the green should preferably break toward the tees, and putt from a distance of around 20 feet to the second tee. Your putt should hit the tee or come to rest, distance wise, between the first and third tees. After succeeding, proceed to the third tee. As you intend to roll the ball into that tee, should it not hit the tee, it should stop between the tee before it and the tee after it.
Continue on until you’ve completed the task with the second to last tee in the group. You can always move closer if you’re struggling and farther away if it’s too easy
Benefits
Here’s what this game helps you with.
- Using one ball will make you go through your routine, focus more effectively and consequently become a more disciplined putter.
- Having to retrieve the ball makes you want to do it right the first time. This is often true on the golf course as well. People hurry through their routine and in doing so hit the ball more often.
- In real estate, it’s “location, location, location.” In putting, it’s “speed control, speed control, speed control!”
Remember, practice needs to be as difficult as or more challenging than what you experience on the course!
Previous Games of the Week
- Three Lies
- A.C.E.
- Eighteen
- Spiral
- Clock
- 100
- Go Low
- Chipping Median
- 18 holes of up-and-down… with a twist
- Drawback
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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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Anna Simon
Nov 4, 2015 at 5:25 pm
Hi Trent,
I am currently working with a company that is building a new product that helps golfers improve and analyze their golf swing, taking a multi-sensor approach to the swing analyzers products on the market. The product’s Kickstarter will be launching later this month. Would you like us to get in touch with you to test the product? If so, please send me your email to [email protected].
Many Thanks,
Anna Simon
Trent Wearner
Nov 4, 2015 at 11:49 am
Robert and Thomas – yes, aiming for the tee and having it come to rest just after it but not beyond the one behind it is a perfect guideline! We put the games together so that people can alter the rules for their ability level. If you’re a proficient putter it’s important to not be short. If you’re not so great at distance control perhaps coming up a foot or so short is okay. Nudge the rules for your ability level and those rules may change as you move farther and farther away from the tees. For instance, on a 50 or 60ft putt being a foot or two short is very acceptable on even the highest levels but not so much on a putt of a shorter distance.
Thomas
Nov 2, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Agree with robert… good drill though
Robert
Nov 1, 2015 at 1:22 am
Shouldn’t your goal be to putt at the tee you are aiming at or the one after it? Why would being shorter than the tee you are aiming at be good? 100% of putts that are short don’t go in.