Instruction

A Great Drill to Learn the Proper Release

Published

7 years ago

Oct 17, 2017

In my 20+ years of teaching, I have found that the average golfer suffers primarily from two faults relating to the strike:

Failure to return the clubface back to square.
Failure to deliver the clubhead with a sufficiently downward attack angle.

The effects are a slice and hitting behind the ball, respectively. Neither is an issue with a proper release, which involves the swing of the clubhead around an axis at the hands and whatever bio-mechanics are associated with that. Ask five teaching pros what “the release” is all about, however, and you’re likely to get five different opinions. But the correct release can be verified visually, though not easily with the naked eye, by examining the action of the right arm, which must be straightening at impact.

Check out high-speed video on YouTube of any pro, on any swing, full or short, in which the trail arm has become bent to any degree in the backswing. You will then see the trail arm straightening into the strike. Since the release of the clubhead around the hands happens in-step with this straightening, if the trail arm stops straightening before impact, or has already fully straightened, the clubhead is released around the hands prematurely. This destroys any realistic chance of hitting down on the ball with the proper attack angle, and in the case of failing to completely straighten, prevents the left wrist from rolling back to its starting alignment to square the club face for impact.

A great drill to learn the proper release focuses on training the right arm by making short swings with the right arm only. Use a 56-degree wedge or similar. The action of the right arm often comes as a bit of a surprise to folks when learning this drill. You may be inclined initially to keep the right arm fairly straight as you swing it back. But this won’t work for very long when the left arm is attached. It will also cause the clubhead to bottom-out in-line with the right shoulder, surely behind any traditional ball position.

Position the ball inline with your center for this drill. In order to strike the ball with a descending attack angle, and thus to make any kind of “solid” contact at all from closely mown turf, the right arm must bend back and straighten into and through the strike point. This keeps the handle in the lead and thus the clubhead swinging downward into the strike.

The action of the right arm in the backswing is primarily a turning out (or external rotation) and a bending up of the forearm at the elbow. Ben Hogan identified the half side-arm, half under-hand baseball throw as the athletic movement most similar. This action alone will automatically cock the club back at the wrist. The right elbow is set in the lead to begin the forward swing. Keep the elbow leading by first turning the right shoulder around toward the ball, saving the reciprocal turning in (internal rotation) and bending down at the elbow for the strike. Remember, your main intention here is to straighten/push/thrust your right arm through the ball. If you start straightening the right arm too soon, you may not have anything left to straighten by the time you reach impact. But once you start straightening, for the love of God, don’t stop! The uncocking of the wrist and thus the release of the club is governed entirely by the straightening of the arm.

Admittedly, this is a difficult drill to execute. But when you do it, you will have mastered the most essential element of the correct swing, lacking among so many recreational golfers. When you return to using both arms, you will instantly appreciate the added stability. But more than that, use the left now to help you achieve what it is that you are trying to do with your right. Specifically, the lead arm should pull to help the trail arm push.

Check out the trail-arm action of Phil Mickelson, seen here covering a carry of less than 10 yards. It’s no coincidence that perhaps the greatest short-game player of all time features a prominent straightening of the trail arm for even the shortest swings.

The late great Seve Ballesteros clearly displays the pushing action of the right arm through the strike on this short chip from behind the 18th green at Augusta National. This stroke was holed-out to close the 1983 Masters Tournament.

The action of the right arm back is essentially a bend “up” at the elbow and a turn “out” (external rotation).

A strong mental and physical intention is often required to keep the trail arm straightening into the strike, without which proper contact from a descending clubhead delivery is virtually impossible. 240 frames per second video, seen here, confirms this most important biomechanical action of the golf swing.

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Instruction

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

Published

3 days 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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