Instruction

Learning golf from the best instructors on Twitter

Published

8 years ago

Aug 12, 2016

I hate to admit this, but when I first started teaching golf in 1992, golf swing video analysis was in its infancy, and there was no internet, email or smartphones. And of course, there was no easy way to learn about about the golf swing. Sure, we could go this place called a library where we could check out a book on golf instruction, but only if it was not already lent out to someone else. It was a far more difficult time to gather information, and teachers didn’t make it much easier on themselves, as many considered their golf instruction knowledge proprietary.

Nowadays, golf swing information is everywhere, and you don’t need to be a teaching professional to learn about the science of the golf swing — you just need to have Internet access. Personally, I like to use Twitter, and I follow people who know much more than I do about certain aspects of teaching golf. That way, I learn something every time I log on, and I often save the best photos or tidbits so I can recall them when necessary.

What I would like to show you today is show you some of the best things I have pulled off Twitter over the last few months from people such as @felixclubworks, @pinkenterprise1, @trackmanmaestro, @oraclerio, @kirkoguri, @golfgurutv, @andrewricegolf, and @chuckevans. I recommend you follow each of them to expand your golfing knowledge.

So, here are my favorite tips and information I’ve found on Twitter from the last few months. Enjoy my collection… and don’t forget to post your favorite golf Twitter accounts in the comments section below so we can all learn together.

What a great listing of how different ball speeds need radically different launch and spin conditions in order for you to maximize your distance output. This makes a solid case for getting your driver fit to you swing mechanics. If you don’t, you could be losing serious distance and roll-out.

This is one of my very favorite photos. It shows how off-center toe and heel hits, combined with gear-effect, can cause the ball to move the opposite direction than it should based on you face to path relationship. When you have a negative face-to-path, the ball should go left and vice versa. However, heel hits cause the ball to want to move more rightward and toe hits are more hook biased. So sometimes your swing is OK, but your off-center hits are causing your problems.

These ball-flight laws have been proven by the latest science. It’s now indisputable that the ball begins mostly in the direction of the face at impact, and curves away from the path with a center hit. Yes, the ball flight matrix above looks complex, but it becomes easier to understand when keep these two things in mind:

The red arrow is the path.
The black arrow is the face at impact.

Assuming you’re striking your shots in the center of the club face, you should now know why your ball curves the way it does.

Nothing more needs to be said about this slide; Jamie is a STUD! I have been lucky enough to have known him for many years, and he amazes me every time he hits the ball. In fact, at Vidanta this fall, he put on a show for us. He hit a drive off his knees, and his swing speed was still 113 mph — more than the average Tour professional standing on two feet!

Here is great insight from a slideshow presentation that shows you how to spin the ball back on the green. It says you need a certain spin rate and a certain landing angle, or the golf ball won’t spin back. This can actually be practiced if you know a teacher with a Trackman. My advice would be to get the mechanics and feel of these numbers down, and from there you can practice it on your own by remembering the feeling!

For you gear heads out there, here is Kirk showing us that for every degree of loft change you will see a certain amount of distance and spin change with all other things being equal.

Jordan Spieth is seriously the best putter I have ever seen over the course of an entire the season, and simply brilliant from 20-25 feet. If you want to be a better player, make putting your strength!

Editor’s Note: Don’t forget to follow Tom Stickney (@tomstickneygolf) and GolfWRX (@golfwrx) on Twitter.

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Instruction

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

Published

1 day 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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