The most important things I’ve learned from biomechanist Mark Bull
Having been lucky enough to have worked alongside renowned biomechanist Mark Bull with my golfers for more than 10 years, I thought it was fitting to share some of the things I have learned from him during our time together.
Using 3D
One of the first things that I took from my time working with Mark is that sometimes you need more than video and the naked eye to understand what is going on during the golf swing. Using his 3D software, it soon became clear that movements that looked pleasing to the eye weren’t always functional. Often times joints would be slightly out of position, but they still looked orthodox on video. Thanks to Mark, I now look at things in much more depth.
Body Drills
It’s fair to say that Mark and the late Ramsey McMaster got me using body drills with my golfers. Theses drills are designed to switch on certain muscles and also help players with feel during their swing. Some of them look funny, but there’s no question that they’re brilliant and have helped my golfers improve their natural swings much, much more quickly.
Patterns
Through my work with Mark, it has become quite clear how parts of the body are linked together in the golf swing. I had already discovered movement patterns in the swing, but Mark showed me a different level of expertise. He showed me how some of the deep muscles in the body could create a chain reaction in the golf swing change for the better very quickly. It’s also very important to understand how bad movement patterns can cause injury.
Do All Great Players Have The Same Moves?
Mark has showed me time after time how the best players can move in completely different ways. He’s tested hundreds of top golfers and has documented the extreme differences. He would never tell a golfer, “This is the only way to move,” and neither would I.
No Swing is Ever the Same
Mark’s research shows that golfers never make the same swing twice. There are subtle differences, such as more or less movement in one segment or more. The better the golfer, however, the smaller the difference between swings.
Players Own Their Own Feels
I’ve been guilty of imposing how I felt players should feel movements in their swings, but Mark always encourages players to describe their feels. That’s going to be more powerful to them. Everybody feels things in different ways, and it’s our job as coaches to help them discover their feels.
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The key for me and any golf coach who strives to be the best is to surround yourself with good people who strive to be better. Never stop learning and never stop sharing. Especially in the world of golf instruction, we’re much better when we’re working together.
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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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Dill Pickelson
Mar 30, 2017 at 12:00 am
i don’t understand the downvotes. proper right arm/wrist movement is more important than anything in consistently hitting a golf ball. Alistair could let the guy talk more but i think this is a great topic. less right wrist extension reduces across the line, inside path and zeroes out the #s (i.e. no hook)…..
S Hitter
Mar 28, 2017 at 2:26 am
“The key for me and any golf coach who strives to be the best is to surround yourself with good people who strive to be better. Never stop learning and never stop sharing. ”
So you’re saying you’ve been surrounding yourself with really bad people for a really long time and some of them you know just aren’t going to be good at this game no matter how hard you or they try, so you just ran away from them, and you just came to this realization. You’re only hoping to learn this stuff as fast as you can before you get too old and, hope that we all share it with you for free. No, we’re not going to share it with you for free, because you’re totally and utterly clueless. You’re just asking for help for free from everybody else and you have nothing to offer. You’re one of those bad people we don’t want to surround ourselves with. alright? rotfl
S Hitter
Mar 28, 2017 at 2:22 am
“No Swing is Ever the Same”
So how can it be THE MOST important thing? There must be a bazillion important things in those many people’s variety of swings and moves.
Kevin
Mar 27, 2017 at 2:26 pm
Told me nothing! Explain poor practice, but also good practice. Dull guys, sorry????
Randy
Mar 27, 2017 at 11:21 am
Jim’s right. (Blunt, but right.) The biggest problem: Mark’s inaudible.
Jim
Mar 27, 2017 at 10:58 am
Couple of smart guys but a painful to watch and try to listen to video. Get a friggin video crew for crissakes (if you have one, fire them)