Instruction

When it’s not you; it’s your golf clubs

Published

8 years ago

Jun 9, 2016

I’ve been a golf instructor for a long time, but I still get frustrated when I work with golfers who are serious about improving their game, yet refuse to make equipment changes. Regardless of what you may have heard, all golfers need to start and continue playing the game with a set of clubs that fits them properly. They might even need to change to different clubs as their games evolve. For junior golfers, this is especially important, as their bodies often change rapidly.

The price of golf equipment can be a concern for golfers, and I am sensitive to that. I am not suggesting that golfers need to spend $10,000 on new clubs, but it doesn’t cost much to get the basics of loft and lie angle correct. And even changing shafts to get the proper flex, weight and length and can be done for as little as a few hundred dollars. You might not get the latest technology at that price point, but a proper fit is much more important.

Recently, I had a player who came in for a lesson — he was a good player, around a 10-12 handicap — complaining about his propensity to come from outside to inside on his downswing despite increased practice time. So I asked him to warm-up and hit a few shots while I watched his set-up routine, alignments, and overall motion on video and Trackman. Within three swings, it was apparent that his issues had little to do with his mechanics. The problem was his clubs; they were too short and too flat, which was causing him to shift his swing direction too much from out to in.

Please excuse the poor-quality photo

This player was very tall, yet he was using clubs that were standard length and had standard lie angles, and that placed him in an out-of-balance address position. He contorted his setup to make the clubs work for him, bending over to reach the handle of the club, while putting his weight too much on his toes and throwing off his center of gravity (CG).

If you remember, he also was complaining about a tendency to come over-the-top. Whenever a golfer’s CG is too much on the toes at address, he or she will tend to pick the club up too much on the takeaway, and/or will come over the top with an outside-to-inside swing path at impact. These two things happen because your body has mechanisms to keep you upright and balanced, thus stopping you from falling down. So whenever the balance centers in your ears and your eyes sense you’re moving too much weight into your toes during your backswing, your body will naturally keep you from toppling over. Therefore, you will tend to move your arms farther AWAY from your body, either at address or from the top, in order to shift your CG back toward the center of your feet.

All this happened naturally without thought for my student. Because his clubs were too short and too flat for his height, he shifted his weight to his toes at address. Then his body decided to “throw the club from the top” so he would become better balanced to finish the swing.

The photo below shows my student with a properly fit golf club (longer and more upright), and you can instantly see the difference. His center of gravity shifted to the laces of his shoes, which created better balance at address and allowed him to perform much better.

Now back to his lesson.

As stated, he took a few swings and I saw his poor club fitting, so I stopped the lesson. I didn’t say anything, and reached for a club that was longer and more upright, one that put him in the position above. From there, I told him to do me a favor and hit 15 balls with this club making sure he set up in the manner the club asked him to do so by its design. As expected, the first few shots were terrible, but over the next 8-10 shots, his pattern became more repetitive and the over-the-top motion began to fix itself.

Obviously, I was recording the swings on Trackman. When he first started hitting balls, his swing direction was -5 to -8 (from out to in). Afterward, his swing direction improved to about -3, a significant improvement.

So what does this tell us? Obviously, the body is brilliant, and wants to help you play better golf. A proper club fitting can allow the body to move the club naturally, and using equipment that is poorly fit can be detrimental to your mechanics and subsequent ball flight. Therefore, if you do nothing else as a golfer, please get a basic club fitting before you make any purchases. You will thank yourself later.

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Tom Stickney II

Tom F. Stickney II, is a specialist in Biomechanics for Golf, Physiology, and 3d Motion Analysis. He has a degree in Exercise and Fitness and has been a Director of Instruction for almost 30 years at resorts and clubs such as- The Four Seasons Punta Mita, BIGHORN Golf Club, The Club at Cordillera, The Promontory Club, and the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. His past and present instructional awards include the following: Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher, Golf Digest Top 50 International Instructor, Golf Tips Top 25 Instructor, Best in State (Florida, Colorado, and California,) Top 20 Teachers Under 40, Best Young Teachers and many more. Tom is a Trackman University Master/Partner, a distinction held by less than 25 people in the world. Tom is TPI Certified- Level 1, Golf Level 2, Level 2- Power, and Level 2- Fitness and believes that you cannot reach your maximum potential as a player with out some focus on your physiology. You can reach him at [email protected] and he welcomes any questions you may have.

8 Comments

Jack

Jul 5, 2016 at 12:20 am

a new camera, clearly.

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Primo

Jun 12, 2016 at 12:00 am

Absolutely. Basic fittings are free as are basic adjustments through most retailers. I’m one degree down, pretty standard everywhere else and slightly different with newer sets because they’re a little longer, etc. But, that one degree made a difference. Bought Mizuno MX 900s years ago, They came fitted, and haven’t really had the need to replace. The urge, sure, new clubs are faster, longer, etc, but my 8 is today’s 9, sometimes wedge basically. I know where mine go, that’s good enough. I have a few different drivers. Not interested in adjustable. But, my Callaway IQ works nicely, hits the short grass, as does my old TM Burner 460D, even the R5D gets dusted off every now and again.

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Bob dole

Jun 9, 2016 at 8:56 pm

Hahaha! Look at all the likes from a website geared toward club junkies! Shooting fish in a barrel

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Butch T

Jun 9, 2016 at 3:36 pm

Good stuff! Thank you.

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Andy

Jun 9, 2016 at 9:07 am

Interesting info. What swing falts would you expect to see with the opposite? I.e. someone shorter playing with clubs that are too long/upright?

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- Steve
  
  Jun 9, 2016 at 10:36 am
  
  Shots will go left as you would be hitting the ground instead of the flatter middle sole. The heel hitting will cause the tow of the club to rotate and close the face. I happen to use longer than what I measure out to use, but with my swing, I strike the middle of the sole. As far as a “swing fault”, you may not have any, even with longer clubs, but you might have issues at impact. You can either shorten them, or have your lie adjusted to fit you even with the longer shaft.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - Rob
    
    Jun 10, 2016 at 7:03 am
    
    The problem isn’t that the heel hits and rotates the face. The problem IS that when the club is too flat and comes into the ball with the toe off the ground the face points left. The result will usually cause a lot of hooks.
    
    Reply Report comment
    - Jack
      
      Jul 5, 2016 at 12:31 am
      
      Actually some people get into trouble (as I did before) when they try to flatten the lie of the club at impact by straightening the wrists. This actually can cause the clubface to be shut and launch angle too flat. I used to adjust to that by doing inside out club path which resulted in a big big draw. When I stopped doing that the contact became much more consistent and ball flight better controlled.
      
      The toe should be off the ground like Smizzle said. Same for driver etc.
      
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Instruction

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

Published

1 week 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

1 month 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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