#1 FIX YOUR GRIP
4 steps to forming the perfect grip
STEP 1 TILT FROM YOUR HIPS Form your grip once you’ve placed the club behind the ball, not while the club is in the air. Tilt forwards from your hips to lower your hands to the grip. This gives the added benefit of great posture!
STEP 2 HOLD IN THE FINGERS NOT THE PALM As you apply your left hand, make sure the grip lays diagonally across the base of your fingers, not in the meaty part of the palm. Hold it too high in the palm and you restrict your natural wrist action.
STEP 3 THUMB RESTS JUST RIGHT OF CENTRE When you wrap your hand around the club, make sure your thumb rests just right of centre on the grip. Many amateurs place it directly on top. This causes problems!
STEP 4 LIFELINE COVERS LEFT THUMB Applying your right hand, again make sure the club rests in the fingers. Slot the lifeline on your right hand on top of the left thumb, covering it from view completely.
THE KILLER FLAW TO AVOID
One of the most important keys to a great grip is the position of the left thumb. The correct position – level with your left index finger – allows the club to run diagonally across the palm. If your left thumb extends too far down the grip, you create too much angle between your thumb and forearm. You then have to either arch your wrists at address or lower your hands to present the clubface to the ball correctly.
FIX YOUR AIM Always aim the clubface first, then your body
One of the most common causes of a slice is simply poor body alignment. Many golfers position their feet before they place the club behind the ball. Think about it like this. If you were firing a rifle, you’d swing the barrel round to where you want it to aim and your body would follow suit. The same procedure is true in golf. If you aim the blade and the shaft correctly, your good grip will encourage the rest of your body to fall into line. Here’s how to get it right.
WHY SHOULD MY CHEST FACE THE TARGET WHEN I AIM THE CLUB?
When you keep your chest facing the target as you walk into the shot, you have to use both eyes in the alignment process. If you err and aim the club with your left hand, you will inevitably begin to view your target with just your left eye. This simple error causes poor alignment and weak shots.
LEARN FROM TIGER
Tiger has always possessed exemplary fundamentals and they are all evident here. The first thing to notice is how relaxed he looks. There are no excessive body angles. Since he is hitting the longest club in the bag, Woods’ posture is just gently tilted from the hips so his arms hang almost vertically below his shoulders. If you could view this set-up from the face-on angle you’d also see the ball position underneath his left armpit, his left arm and shaft forming a spoke and his right shoulder set slightly below the left.
#3 FIX YOUR SHOULDER TURN Coil against a flexed right knee
A key cause of slicing is failing to complete your backswing. For most golfers this is caused by nothing more than anxiety and tension. However, a full shoulder turn is the ideal antidote to a snatched and hurried takeaway. How important is a good shoulder turn? Well, if you get it right it ensures that 15 other parts of your swing slot neatly into place.
WHY YOU NEED A SOFT RIGHT ELBOW AT ADDRESS
Because the right hand is placed further down the grip than the left, it is obvious that your shoulders should not be parallel to the ground. In fact, the whole of your right side should be a little lower than the left to help your shoulders coil through 90 degrees. At the top of your swing, some 60 percent of your weight should be on your right foot.
While your left arm should form a fairly straight line at address, your right elbow should be relatively soft and fold down towards your right hip. This simple adjustment permits your swing to rotate slightly to the inside and enables your wrists and forearms to function freely.
One of the most common faults that can be viewed at driving ranges up and down the country every single day is a piston-like straight right arm and high, arched wrists. From this very wooden address position, you’re obliged to lift the club outside the line, ensuring a downswing that cuts across the ball through impact.
DRILL: THE RECTANGULAR TAKEAWAY
This exercise teaches you the importance of good connection in the backswing. Take your normal grip and then slide your right hand down the shaft until you form a perfect rectangle with your arms and chest. Now practise turning to the top of your backswing while maintaining the shape. You can only achieve this if your arms and body move together. If you lose the connection and swing only with your arms, your perfect rectangle turns into a parallelogram!
LEARN FROM TIGER
Top of the backswing positions don’t get much better than this. Tiger has coiled his left shoulder underneath his throat through a full 90 degrees while his right knee has remained beautifully flexed to harness the motion. And if you drew an extended line from the butt of the club through his sternum, you’d find it intersected perfectly with the golf ball – a sign that Woods has swung in his ideal biometrical plane. Power and accuracy are the result.
#4 FIX YOUR
RELEASE You’ve gotta send it to bend it!
Necessity is the mother of invention. In the same way that Cristiano Ronaldo might curve the ball around a defensive wall in order to hit his target, you can ‘draw’ the ball to play around various obstacles, counteract the effects of the wind or reach a tricky pin position. With your right hip and shoulder below the left, you can complete your shoulder turn. All that is required now is to drive the ball forwards, allowing your hands and forearms to impart draw spin to the ball. Remember that draw spin is a creative act. Failure to release the club will cause the ball to stay right or, worse still, for the shoulders to dominate the downswing causing the ball to be pulled left.
PRACTICE DRILL: FEET TOGETHER SWINGS
This exercise will help you blend wrist hinge into a full shoulder turn while staying in perfect balance. You can perform it with an iron or a wood, but it works great with a driver! Stand with your feet together and the ball central in your stance. Choke down a little on the grip to give yourself some extra control.
Now make some swings. You’ll find that you have to actively hinge and rehinge your wrists back and through in order to hit the ball without falling over or losing your balance.
Once you’re familiar with the feeling, introduce that wrist action into your real swing – and watch that ball fly! PRACTICE DRILL: THE WIPER
Hold a golf club vertically out in front of you with your arms parallel to the ground at sternum height. Keeping your hands in exactly the same position throughout, rotate the club 90 degrees to the right, then smoothly back across to the other side. This promotes forearm strength and clubhead speed – two invaluable assets for creating that desirable draw spin.
LEARN FROM TIGER
One of the hallmarks of Tiger Woods’ swing over the years has been his uninhibited release through impact. If you take just one thing away from this image it’s how Woods’ right forearm is actively releasing over his left as he sends the ball powerfully on its way.
Another key highlight? Check out how low Tiger’s right shoulder is as he fires his upper body through the ball. On the contrary, most amateur golfers have their left shoulder much too high at impact, which usually leads to weak left-to-right shots.