Instruction
Swing advice is not one size fits all
I have written a number of instructional articles over the years, and created quite a few “how-to” videos as well. I always enjoy sharing tips with my readers and students and I am grateful when a number of them respond that I have helped with their game.
But I am here to issue a word of caution: It is very difficult to learn the game of golf from a written word or even watching instructional videos. When doing so, you have to be very careful about how you internalize the information. When instructors write these tips, we are doing so very generically, to mass audiences who we have never seen swing the club. So it is incumbent upon the readers to know which tips apply to them and, conversely, which ones do not and can actually hurt their game. This is a fine line we walk and caution is the order of the day.
If you look in the World Golf Hall of Fame, you will see every kind of swing imaginable; flat, upright, long, short, quick, slow, etc. I can think of nothing that every single great player does or has done over the years. If a flying elbow is bad, Jack Nicklaus would not be the great champion he is. If a flat swing is bad, no one would have ever heard of Lee Trevino. If the club is to be swung slowly, Tom Watson would be still playing in Kansas City. This list could go on forever.
Every time I read or watch a suggestion for a position in which a player “should be,” I can find some great golfer who is not in that position. We see many of the greats roll their arms through impact, supinating the left hand; yet Paul Azinger finished “knuckles up.” Freddie takes it outside, Ray Floyd took it way inside. Even if we look at the modern players, those coming up in the Launch Monitor era with coaches, videos, Motion systems, etc., we still see a wide variety of methods employed; from Fowler’s flatness to DJ’s straight up style, there is no end to the differences! What do they have in common? They all square the club face at the right time.
If anyone saw Jim Furyk’s video and didn’t know it was Furyk, they would find fault and make any number of suggestions to correct it. Unless they looked very closely at the club at impact, a fan might think: “Why is he doing that?” But the trained eye thinks: “How did he do that?”
If we look at little closer at Furyk’s move, it’s a stroke of pure genius. I have had a lot of people say, “I hate that swing!” I’m always quick to point out that I would love to have that impact position consistently. The point is simple: It’s a series of moves — a sequence of motions that works. The strange movements in Furyk’s swing don’t matter. One move complements the other. It is a compatible variation!
When I see unique swings like Fuyrk’s I’m not looking at what he does wrong, only how did he match the disparate parts? I love that singularity and want to find out all I can about how he did it. When my students arrive on the lesson tee, they have an incompatible variation, and that’s why they are there. I have to make the parts match. But I need to see it live and in-person to do that completely. I am simply amazed when criticism is offered before the ball flight is known. My very first question to a student: “What is the ball doing?” That’s all that matters. When I am sent a video to analyze, I have to know something about shot patterns, or all I’m suggesting are classic positions. What good are those?
Learning from an article is fine if it is of the “If-this-then-that” nature. If you do this, then try doing that. That’s the way I teach, and I believe it’s the only way to develop a personal style that allows you the freedom to do what comes naturally. IF the swing is wide going back, it has to narrow coming down. If it goes outside going back, it has to loop back under coming down. And the reverse works as well. I personally think Sergio has one of the purest moves in the game. How he got there, only he and his father (his teacher) really know. And the look of it matters not one bit — all that matters is that the ball reacts as he wants it to. But again, if one were sent a video of his swing, comments like laid off, too much lag, hands too low and others might be the typical responses.
“Golf is what the ball does,” the great John Jacobs reminded us, and as an instructor, I let that be my first guide. Writing articles, as I do for this site, are very general suggestions. I remind students and readers that if you want to find your personal problem and get correction for it, see your instructor. He or she will work with what you have, and try to improve on it; at least I do. Look for the “if you do this” approach when sifting through the massive volume of material on the blogosphere about learning golf. And see your teacher to bounce your new findings off — It may keep you from going down a wrong path.
As always, feel free to send a swing video to my Facebook page and I will do my best to give you my feedback.
Click here for more discussion in the “Instruction and Academy” forum.
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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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Mike Leether
Jan 31, 2013 at 11:58 am
Amen to that!, a couple years back I developed a bit of a “loopy” swing with an instructor as a way of counter acting some bad swing flaws I previously had. It has some Furyk-esque qualities. I broke par for the first time six weeks later. In the years since I’ve tried to hit some balls with a more “conventional” swing and it just doesn’t work for me. People constantly tell me how “weird” i look, until I beat them….
Dennis Clark
Jan 30, 2013 at 9:54 pm
The reason I advocate live, 1 on 1 lessons is obvious I think. The instructor can manage your swing as he/she sees it unfold right in front of them “Your ball did this; that’s because you did that-feel the correlation.
Troy Vayanos
Jan 30, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Great advice as always Dennis,
You’re right, it is difficult to learn off written words no question. At the very least you need to see a video of a specific instruction being performed.
Nothing beats a live golf lesson from a qualified instructor explaining the elements of the golf swing.
Cheer
Martin
Jan 29, 2013 at 7:48 pm
We are really getting spoiled by your good articles Dennis! Big Thanks!
Your article got my thinking. I recently saw a video instruction by Jim Mclean where he tells us how good and reliable it is to hit a power fade with the driver, and informed us that Hogan, Lietzke and Nicklaus achieved great success with this shot and nowadays we can see how Tiger is working towards finding the power fade from the tee. BUT I have never met an instructor here in Sweden (and I think swedish teachers generally have good reputation) who has tried to teach me a fade as my basic swing. It also seems like most of the instruction in magazines or in books (for example the slot swing by Jim Mclean, Hardys the plane truth) encourages a in-square-in movement in the swing which ideally would result in a straight shot or maybe a slight draw. Why? If its easier to hit a fade, why dont the pros try to teach us this, maybe a lot of us recreational golfers would benefit from it? Or would it be to difficult for us to understand? When I am driving the ball bad from tee, I set up my body to the left, and the clubface at the target, and try to get the club out in front of me in the backswing and then from the top I basically just turn and the good result is a fade, and the less good result is a push that most of the time finds the right side of the fairway or maybe the light rough. I showed this shot to a coach ones and he just said he didnt like it, that it wasnt the way he wanted me to swing… Are the majority of the pros to obsessed with giving is a traditional swing with the right setup, right angles, correct plane etc.? Are they to obsessed with the perfect swing?
Dennis Clark
Jan 30, 2013 at 9:47 pm
well i think the draw has always been the coveted shot for amateurs. It usually goes futher because it is launched lower and runs out more; that is, comes in at a shallower landing angle. Fades can get high and short when the attack angle gets too steep.
Martin
Jan 31, 2013 at 6:48 am
ok, thank you Dennis. I see your point, and I like your arguments. You have to really know what you are doing to start fading with power and maybe it mixes up alignment, posture, backswing etc to much and makes the game even harder…and who wants that:)
Thanks a lot!
Matt Newby, PGA
Jan 29, 2013 at 5:48 pm
Dennis,
Very well said. Nowadays I find more of my students are over-informed rather than under-informed. While much of the information available is good information (of course not always) most people do not understand what should/should not apply to them specifically. I often use the analogy that a cast is very good for a broken leg, but if your leg isn’t broke a cast is probably only going to hurt your performance.