I am sure you have seen a lot of videos on solid ball contact and the shanks. This one is different for sure, and it includes elements that are essential and have, by and large, been neglected in the past.
See how a couple of easy analogies, combined with a key setup component, will get you singing a much happier tune on the golf course.
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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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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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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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Skip
Sep 16, 2017 at 12:17 pm
this guy is such a hack.
Old Gaffer
Sep 16, 2017 at 12:33 pm
Shawn is a great instructor and a blessing for this forum.
Old Gaffer
Sep 14, 2017 at 2:52 pm
You certainly like to use ‘imagery’, like the football, for teaching. You include effective verbal and great demonstration modes too.
My understanding is that ‘shanking’ is also due to inadequate ‘supination’ of the lead forearm and hand through final release and impact.
I suppose there are other causes but when the club heel leads into the ball to me that means the closure rate is delayed, or, the ball is in the wrong position for solid impact.
Your thoughts and thanks for your informative videos.
Dan Jones, PGA
Sep 15, 2017 at 2:10 pm
Old Gaffer – Inadequate supination actually just sets the golfer up for a slice because it does not change the relationship between the hosel and the ball. In order to shank, the hosel must be forced forward into the path of the ball somehow, or the ball forced into the path of the hosel. Supination, or lack of supination, cannot be the cause of a shank, except for rare instances of extreme supination of the forward arm (or pronation of the trailing arm, so I actually prefer to call it forearm rotation). If forearm rotation is extreme and shuts the face down, then in rare instances the angle may be enough to vector the ball off the club face and into the hosel.
Instead we have to look at the cause of the hosel moving outward as it goes through impact, because these are the forces that actually cause a shank. In videos of my students during the process of a shank, I typically see one of two things. The swing center changes slightly outward, or the arms extend farther out than they were at set-up. Usually the cause is the former, and it is because the student doesn’t have good balance from heel to toe, and they put too much weight on their toes during the swing, thereby changing the swing center and putting the hosel into a path where it can impact the ball. Believe it or not, I have seen some of the most experienced teachers in the world not understand the physics of a shank. I don’t know why that is, but it is true. I won’t mention any names, but one of the top 5 in the world blames it on an over the top swing – outside in swing in one of his videos. Nothing could be further from the truth, and in fact an extreme inside out swing is much more likely to cause a shank because it puts the club face into an extreme closed position that once again can deflect and vector a ball into the hosel. Bottom line is this, somehow the hosel must move into the path of the ball during impact, forearm rotation, or lack of, does not do this.
Hope that helps.
BB
Sep 16, 2017 at 8:41 pm
Great analysis of the ‘shank’ and the solution.
Old Gaffer
Sep 16, 2017 at 8:43 pm
Dan Jones, PGA:– It did help somewhat and I have learned more about the mechanics of the shank from your reply. Btw, when anybody uses the word “vector” or “physics”, I suspect I’m communicating with another engineer!
– As I understand it from you, a shank can be (1) the face staying open and the hosel directly hitting the ball, and, more likely, (2) the face closing and then the ball is struck by the hosel or the ball is vectored off the club face into the hosel…. which sounds really ugly!
– I suspected lack of lead arm supination plus losing my swing center towards my toes. I’m tall and my clubs are extended 1” and 2º upright so my Center of Pressure can wander. My ball shank direction was outwards, and occasionally inwards when I overcompensated for perceived lack of supination.
– In my opinion, shank golfers are coming out of their hip rotation too quickly and go erect by extending their hip joints open. This changes the swing center and balance, and the arm will naturally extend up and out due to momentum conservation changes in reaction to the altered swing center.
– I see this on others, and I have solved my shank problem long ago by controlling my CofP for balance, and also the position of club butt in final release going into impact, for parametric acceleration.
– I believe shanking golfers resolve their problem by hitting on the toe, to avoid hosel impact. Perhaps that’s why club companies add mass to their SGI club designs in an attempt to design out common swing faults. The best solution is not at the club head; it’s with proper technical instruction backed up by swing instrument data.
– I appreciate your detailed response based on your teaching experience. Thanks again.
Old Gaffer
Sep 16, 2017 at 11:45 pm
t did help a lot and I have learned more about the mechanics of the shank from your reply. Btw, when anybody uses the word “vector” or “physics”, I suspect I’m communicating with another engineer!
– As I understand it from you, a shank can be (1) the face staying open and the hosel directly hitting the ball, and, more likely, (2) the face closing and then the ball is struck by the hosel or the ball is vectored off the club face into the hosel…. which sounds really ugly!
– I suspected lack of lead arm supination plus losing my swing center towards my toes. I’m tall and my clubs are extended 1” and 2º upright so my Center of Pressure can wander. My ball shank direction was outwards, and occasionally inwards when I overcompensated for perceived lack of supination.
– In my opinion, shank golfers are coming out of their hip rotation too quickly and go erect by extending their hip joints open. This changes the swing center and balance, and the arm will naturally extend up and out due to momentum conservation changes in reaction to the altered swing center.
– I see this on others, and I have solved my shank problem long ago by controlling my CofP for balance, and also the position of club butt in final release going into impact, for parametric acceleration.
– I believe shanking golfers resolve their problem by hitting on the toe, to avoid hosel impact. Perhaps that’s why club companies add mass to their SGI club designs in an attempt to design out common swing faults. The best solution is not at the club head; it’s with proper technical instruction backed up by swing instrument data.
– I appreciate your detailed response based on your teaching experience. Thanks again.