Instruction
Golf 101: How can I get better?
It may seem like a very general question, but in all honesty, there is a recipe that all great players follow. In my travels, I have heard three nuggets that glue all the world’s best together. It’s not a recipe of hit balls, work on the short game, or even video work with a great coach. It’s all done without swinging a club or input from another human being.
Wanna hear them?
Here they are.
1. Know who you are and who you are not…
Good golf tends to get muddied up in one box—hit it long, hit it straight, make every putt, and card a ton of birdies. Unfortunately, there isn’t a player on tour or in top amateur golf that thinks this…not even Bryson.
The goal is to get honest with yourself, pure and simple. Accept the things that you may never have, i.e. distance, magical touch, etc., and slowly work on them with the idea that they will only enhance your real strengths, not become the benchmark of your game.
For example, Charles Howell III is perceived as a great ball striker, but the stats would say differently. The things he has always done well are wedge it, pound it, and at times make a ton of putts. That’s the core of his game. Now can he grind with his coach to dial in his ball striking? Sure. The goal isn’t to become Ben Hogan though, it’s to raise that weakness to a manageable point where the things he does well can shine even more. Make sense?
So get out your journals, start tracking your game via Arccos or any game tracking app, and the data will speed up the process. Get to the core of who you are as a player. Protect what you do well and get the sore spots manageable.
2. Have a plan…
How many times have you stepped on the first tee, put a peg in the ground, and just blindly smacked one. Sometimes, you get lucky and hit a good one, and sometimes you spray it. But what was the plan?
Yes, it’s the first hole, and you want to get the round started, but any great endeavor does require a road map. Golf is chess, not checkers. Even practice for most becomes mindless. So, to actually get better, every effort you make, whether it be a round or range session, think about where you want to finish and start planning how you will get there.
For example: When Tiger plays the Masters, his whole week is centered around his plan. The plan is not to win essentially, it’s to stick to his plan so he can win. Range sessions mimic shots he needs to hit on the course, tee shots and approaches are thought out to mitigate any risk and at times, increase the odds of a low number. At no point during that week is TW just winging it…so why would you? If you want to get better think about what you are doing. Make every action mean something.
3. Pick a shot…
Claude Harmon III told me this one. No matter what, you have to have a stock shot that you know you can repeat. Whether its thin straight, fade, draw, three quarters, whatever. You have to have a baseline shot to work off of to play well.
When I went to see him, he asked what my shot was. I told him a draw. We get to the range and the ball is fading. I start trying to get the draw back and he asked, “What are you doing?” He said, your shot today is the fade, you are fighting yourself already, and you haven’t even teed off yet. How many times have you been to the range and your ball flight shifts? And how many times did you spend an hour trying to get “it” back? The point is the “it” is what you wake up with. Open your minds, folks!
GOOD GOLF IS PLAYED IN A MILLION DIFFERENT WAYS. IF YOU WANT TO GET BETTER AND STAY BETTER….THINK, THINK, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING…(Caps are because I’m yelling).
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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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