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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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Don Toth
Dec 18, 2018 at 10:36 pm
I like the analysis here…there’s not enough of an emphasis put into staying in the shot with the torso.
If you clear well with the lower body and stay in the shot with your spine angle you can have this sort of look.
Well done and great selection of videos!
Golfer
Dec 18, 2018 at 3:59 pm
Check out the swing teachings of TN Hall of Fame golfer and former PGA tour player Bobby Greenwood.
BofH
Dec 17, 2018 at 8:58 am
to me this is about having passive arms and hands, using the pivot and turn to swing the club. the guy who has EE they show is pulling the club down and swinging with his hands and arms.
Scheiss
Dec 15, 2018 at 5:02 pm
Total and utter bollix wrapped in a whole load of mierda is all I heard in the first 2 minutes of this video.
Wow. You mean to say that the arms are attached to the body via the shoulder and the clubs are attached to that, in his hands, and something has to happen for us to be able to hit the ball? Amazing. I never knew we even had to swing the club or anything for the ball to move.
What an idiotic analysis
Mark
Dec 15, 2018 at 7:21 am
I think to achieve what he calls the ‘trail side strike’ is a function of a) being able to clear the hips, early, a long way to the left, and b) being able to maintain posture ie. being bent over from the hips. Both of these moves are almost unique to young female and male professionals and high level amateurs. I would contend 85% of the GolfWRX membership (including myself) are physically incapable of making these moves.
geohogan
Dec 16, 2018 at 1:50 pm
@mark, and you would be wrong.
‘Side on’, golf swing is easier to do than trying to hit with the hands or by straightening the right arm. The latter two, require timing that is impossible to repeat consistently, by any golfer.
Recognizing what is happening and teaching the method to achieve it are very different.
geo
Dec 14, 2018 at 5:59 pm
Is this a repackaging of the Most Powerful Move in Golf?
Skip
Dec 14, 2018 at 4:23 pm
Juat another guy saying everyone else is wrong, I’m right.
geo
Dec 14, 2018 at 6:18 pm
If EVERYONE else is telling you to get your arms in front of your body(sagittal plane)
and to square the clubface with your hands(muscles are in the forearms)
then YES, they are wrong.
Matt Strube
Dec 14, 2018 at 12:16 pm
Can you elaborate what you mean by high left arm and keeping your trail side underneath and behind?
Matt Strube
Dec 14, 2018 at 12:18 pm
And you mainly showed driver swings. Is this an iron thing as well?
geohogan
Dec 16, 2018 at 9:16 pm
Elevate your left scapula at address and leave it there through the swing. Presto… your left arm is elevated and you have increased the range of motion, sufficient for a full shoulder turn in BS and sufficient range of motion increase to allow wide open lower body while upper body is impacting the ball , “side on”.
ref. The Hogan Manual of Human Performance: GOLF, 1992
SG
Dec 14, 2018 at 11:48 am
This may be right, but I foresee a lot of shanks for those trying to add this to their swing…
Ken Kapcia
Dec 14, 2018 at 9:34 am
Martin is by far the strongest teacher not recognized in the world!! Probably political BS because he verbalizes things differently than what we are inundated with across all media’s. If you really want to get better at golf emerce yourself with as much information Martin echoes!
Ken Kapcia, PGA Professional
The dude
Dec 14, 2018 at 8:32 am
Maybe one of the best instructional explanations I’ve seen in a looong time …..
geohogan
Dec 20, 2018 at 5:14 pm
Explanation of what?
Just adds more confusion to existing abyss of BS confused with golf instruction.
To transmit maximum power transmission (mechanics), slack needs to be taken out.
So much for counter winding, left arm high etc etc. It all boils down to taking out slack from the transmission of power. Its no different that the rollerchain drive on a bicycle.
The tension and slack has to be correct to maximize power transmission.