Instruction
Lesson of the Day: How to stop the chicken wing, and the “Vijay water bottle drill”
In our all new “Lesson of the Day” video series with V1 Sports, we match a different GolfWRX member with a different V1 Sports instructor each day. It’s extremely important to both V1 Sports and GolfWRX to help golfers improve their games and shoot lower scores, and there’s no better way to do that than getting lessons. While we not only want to provide free lessons to select GolfWRX members, we want to encourage and inspire golfers to seek professional instruction. For instructions on how to submit your own video for a chance at getting a free lesson from a V1 Sports instructor as part of our Lesson of the Day series, CLICK HERE
In today’s lesson, PGA Master Professional John Hughes gives a video lesson to Kris Pope who’s struggling with topping the golf ball. Hughes teaches her how to stop the chicken wing, explains the “tee drill,” and he explains the Vijay Singh water bottle drill.
According the V1 Sports, Hughes has more than 29 years of experience. He’s the golf coach to beginners, intermediates, elite juniors and amateurs, corporate executives, celebrities, mini tour and major tour winners. One of only 368 individuals who have earned the designation of PGA Master Professional, Hughes has the skills, knowledge, experience, and passion to provide you an opportunity to experience the absolute best golf lesson you will ever have, as well as assist you in reaching your potential.
Check out the lesson below!
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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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dj
Nov 1, 2018 at 9:31 pm
PGA Master Professional?
sr3golf
Oct 31, 2018 at 9:16 pm
This is a joke right?? What a horrible lesson given to this young lady…. In my professional opinion, she needs to get her left shoulder higher at address and stay behind the ball at impact to launch the ball higher. She also probably needs a fairway wood with more loft as she doesn’t create enough speed to generate the correct launch angle. Telling her she needs to hit down to make the ball go up is nothing but prehistoric, moronic BS and will only cause her to bring her launch conditions down. The only correct thing he said was, that you want to hit the bottom of the ball…and IDK if he even mentioned that.
ESGOLF
Nov 1, 2018 at 10:07 am
My thoughts exactly!!!!! Look at her shoulder plane on the down swing. Instinctively we all know how to avoid what we don’t want to happen. In this case, hit the ground. Chances are she has hit a few shots really heavy and to avoid doing that again she pulls the handle up hard before impact, thus resulting in the chicken wing. You can see the point her body shifts from moving downward and she backs off the ball, her shoulders move left and she pulls the handle. Get the set-up right first!!! Also practice movement patterns slowly before adding speed. Why do we think we can do a movement at full speed, if we can’t do it at low speed first? Sr3golf hit the nail on the head!
Opinder
Oct 31, 2018 at 8:20 pm
I want eat chicken wings. Please? And hot sauce?