Question:
You said you have been told three different things, but you have only mentioned two. What is the third type and which of the grips were suggested by this pro.
Another gave me a sort of "baseball style" grip, without interlocking. It works for some people, I guess, but I have some real difficulty with this grip. Doesn’t feel right. Also, are you sure that "… I’ve been told that right-y should point at right shoulder and left-y should point at left shoulder"? Usually, pros mention that as a check to make sure you are *not* doing that.
This was odd to me, too, but THIS particular pro told me that they should be pointing at different shoulders, unless I misunderstood what he was telling me, which is possible. As I said, I’ll double-check this and find out more. Finally, he had us reverse a club, holding it down by the hosel, and swinging it with just to left arm, using the body to create power. That is interesting. I have seen lots of instructors tell students to do this, but with both arms. That is not to say this is in any way wrong, just an interesting variation.
I think the idea, because the class was so new, was to get more focus going on the fact that the left arm was more important at this stage of the lessons, and to really accentuate rolling the arm through the downswing. I’ve seen it with both arms, too, so it was a novel approach for me. With a light grip and relaxed arms, a good swing for me also feels like the club is lagging and not being swung hard.
Ah! Good to hear I’m not the only one. 
-b
Response:
From there we got into basic grip. This was annoying to me, because three different pros have now told me three different ways to grip the club. I’ve been told that both "y’s" formed by thumb and forefinger should point to my right shoulder, and I’ve been told that right-y should point at right shoulder and left-y should point at left shoulder.
You said you have been told three different things, but you have only mentioned two. What is the third type and which of the grips were suggested by this pro. Also, are you sure that "… I’ve been told that right-y should point at right shoulder and left-y should point at left shoulder"? Usually, pros mention that as a check to make sure you are *not* doing that. Finally, he had us reverse a club, holding it down by the hosel, and swinging it with just to left arm, using the body to create power.
That is interesting. I have seen lots of instructors tell students to do this, but with both arms. That is not to say this is in any way wrong, just an interesting variation. I go back to the drill for a moment, and decide that I’m trying to "power" the club through the swing instead of…dragging…(might not be the right word, but that’s sort of how it feels) the club through the swing with my left arm – it then hits me that the proper rolling motion, to me, feels like a dragging sensation.
With a light grip and relaxed arms, a good swing for me also feels like the club is lagging and not being swung hard.
Response:
Trust your pro, and give him a chance to do what he’s got planned, as you’ve paid for just that. You wouldn’t start cooking, and take a few lines from lots of different recipes and toss them together — you’ll end up with a mess. Stick with the plan, and hope the pro knows what he’s doing, and is right for you — but you’ll never know if you second guess and fiddle with it on your own. If you want to do more than your homework, practice putting, do stretching exercises, break in your golf shoes…
Good ideas. Thanks. I need new shoes anyway.
Response:
Try this. Move your grip around on purpose. See what it does to your ball flight. strengthen your grip to reduce slicing by turning both hands gradually to the right.
This does not work for all…a major component in ridding my slice was to weaken my grip. Best advice always: see a pro….then take a lesson — bill-o
Response:
Try this. Move your grip around on purpose. See what it does to your ball flight. strengthen your grip to reduce slicing by turning both hands gradually to the right. http://www.aboutgolf.com/advice/karen/page.php3?site=6&page=placingclub Play with your grip, and think about it. Here’s my current theory: During the crucial time at impact, we mere mortals can’t really control and fine tune how our wrists and hands will be at impact. We have some control, but why not give up "manufacturing" a shot, and let the ergonomics of our body determine what happens. Why fight the natural structure of our wrists, hands, arms, etc… Create a strong grip. Your wrists should be cocked somewhat, with the left wrist supinated. Now – you should be a strong grip, the with club face squared to the ball. Now, relax your wrists. The club face should fall into a closed position. Guess what your club face is probably going to to when it’s at that crucial impact moment. I don’t know the answer to this yet – or if it’s correct or not. But I think that supinating and pronating your grip "preloads" your tendancy to hook or slice. Or, ahem, fade or draw… Grin.
Response:
Discuss.
Here’s my tip: Stick your fingers in your ears and ignore all advice you’ll hear, here and elsewhere. Don’t read the swing advice in the magazines, don’t read golf swing books, don’t listen to your buddies, don’t watch XYZ on the tube telling you how to fix your swing. Trust your pro, and give him a chance to do what he’s got planned, as you’ve paid for just that. You wouldn’t start cooking, and take a few lines from lots of different recipes and toss them together — you’ll end up with a mess. Stick with the plan, and hope the pro knows what he’s doing, and is right for you — but you’ll never know if you second guess and fiddle with it on your own. If you want to do more than your homework, practice putting, do stretching exercises, break in your golf shoes… Thomas Prufer
Response:
Bill, Check out the book by Hogan. Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons : Ben Hogans Five Lessons He goes into grip in detail. He’ll confuse you, and a lot of it you’ll think you understand, but you really don’t. Bottom line? Just try to get your grip to look a bit like his grip. That will at least get you down the right path on grip. Keep in mind that the instructor might be correcting something that he’s seeing right now, and may have a "plan" for you. Or, he may not even understand the grip fully and may be causing you future harm. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – A couple quick disclaimers here before I get going with these posts. I’ll try to describe things as accurately as I can, but my own strange peccadilloes with regard to my swing and understanding of the mechanics may cloud things a bit – I’ll do the best I can. Any mistakes about what the pro was saying are my own. I’m working from the perspective that he has my best interests at heart, and even though some things may sound counter-intuitive, we can discuss those as we go through these posts. Good discussion often helps clarify stuff. Also – at times, I may explain something the pro said in fewer words than he used – I’m not transcribing the lessons here, but I’ll hit the salient points best I can. So…. Class of 6. There’s me, who has had some "lessons" from a friend and one session with a pro, three guys who have never swung a club before, and a father-son combination. Son hasn’t played (he’s 15) and father has been, at best, an every-six-months-business-golfer. Our pro is a guy named Steve, and it’s nine thousand degrees outside and my shirt doesn’t breathe very well. Steve is big on energy, and discussing how the body can efficiently transfer energy down through the club to the ball. The main item he wanted to hammer into all of us was that it doesn’t take a hell of a lot of work to hit the ball hard, and that energy transfer is affected by a number of things. Where this applied to me is my tendency to "chop" down on the ball (sort of a Ginsu-swing) and hit it really thin, or worm-burn it down the range. Keep in mind I have yet to play an actual 9 or 18 holes on my own. From there we got into basic grip. This was annoying to me, because three different pros have now told me three different ways to grip the club. I’ve been told that both "y’s" formed by thumb and forefinger should point to my right shoulder, and I’ve been told that right-y should point at right shoulder and left-y should point at left shoulder. I cheated a bit and went with what was comfortable, which may bite me in the ass later, but there wasn’t time in the class for me to ask him about it in more detail. I’ll get to that question next week and let you know the outcome. At that point, he had us just take the club back to a 3 o’clock position (where ball address is 6 o’clock) and notice the motion of the club. He stressed keeping the toe of the club pointing up at the 3 o’clock, and keeping the club and the hands in front of us. Immediately when I tried this I noticed that my hands were coming up, breaking my triangle somewhat, and had to focus more on the sweeping motion back. At the same time, he had us turning hips and shoulders and loading weight on the right leg. This is where it got interesting. I’ve always had difficulty with firing my left hip out to start the turn for the downswing, and I’ve never really managed the coordination, even though it’s been explained to me before. Steve pointed out that to get the motion started, you have to sort of "push" with your right leg to get things moving, which caused me to naturally shift my weight across and brought my shoulders through the turn with my hands ahead of the ball. It was very interesting to realize that I’ve hit good shots before, but I’ve done them incorrectly transferring weight. In slow motion, this made much more sense to me. Another item he got into with us was finishing the swing. He demonstrated how not finishing the turn would cause the ball to slice, assuming that your hands were neutral. I say assuming because this became a problem for me later. Finally, he had us reverse a club, holding it down by the hosel, and swinging it with just to left arm, using the body to create power. We were trying to listen for the whipsound that the club makes, and the type of sound and "location" of it would tell us whether we were doing it right. This was awkward for me, but I’m going to practice it at home and see if I can make it work. Next, we got to hit some balls. The total newbies struggled, and I took some solace from the fact that I was there once, and have come a ways since then. My first couple were bad chops. Steve tells me that I’m getting to eager, and to slow down and use a short backswing, because we’re just going for some small shots at a flag around 60 yards away. So I slow down, concentrate, and I start getting the ball to the target, but not along the intended trajectory. He also points out that I’m not really "rolling" my left arm and wrists, which I should be doing. I go back to the drill for a moment, and decide that I’m trying to "power" the club through the swing instead of…dragging…(might not be the right word, but that’s sort of how it feels) the club through the swing with my left arm – it then hits me that the proper rolling motion, to me, feels like a dragging sensation. I try this and have much better success with trajectory, and my weight transfer is more natural. Contact with the ball is much more consistent, and I feel a solid "thunk" all the way up the club. But I’m slicing. Consistently slicing, which means I’m likely doing something to open the club face, and I suspect it’s something with either my grip, which I will have addressed next week, or my wrists on the downswing and follow-through, because my belly and shoulders are finishing the shot on a deadline with the target, but I’m veering right. Tolerably right, in some instances, but not as straight as I want to be. The point is that if it’s consistent, it’s something I can figure out and fix under Steve’s watchful eye. For the last few balls, he let us go a bit so I started taking some full swings and really getting behind the ball. Still the slice, but the distance was much improved, and I felt much more in control of my swing, in balance and contact, while focusing on my left arm, was much more consistent. Miles more to go, indeed, and in my case, I’m occasionally a little frustrated that I can’t get all the attention I would like in a classroom setting, but it’s what I signed up for and $179 is a bargain for all the free stuff we get in addition to the instruction. So far, so good. Our homework is to practice just the "coiling" with hips and shoulders in front of a mirror for two minutes a day until next week, and to not hit more than 20-30 balls in a bucket at a time (I have a tendency to hit 100 or so when I practice) while we’re learning these fundamentals. It was a good lesson. I’m going to have to "unlearn" some things, but I feel pretty good about it so far. Discuss. -b You must remove MYPANTS to email directly.
Response:
A couple quick disclaimers here before I get going with these posts. I’ll try to describe things as accurately as I can, but my own strange peccadilloes with regard to my swing and understanding of the mechanics may cloud things a bit – I’ll do the best I can. Any mistakes about what the pro was saying are my own. I’m working from the perspective that he has my best interests at heart, and even though some things may sound counter-intuitive, we can discuss those as we go through these posts. Good discussion often helps clarify stuff. Also – at times, I may explain something the pro said in fewer words than he used – I’m not transcribing the lessons here, but I’ll hit the salient points best I can. So…. Class of 6. There’s me, who has had some "lessons" from a friend and one session with a pro, three guys who have never swung a club before, and a father-son combination. Son hasn’t played (he’s 15) and father has been, at best, an every-six-months-business-golfer. Our pro is a guy named Steve, and it’s nine thousand degrees outside and my shirt doesn’t breathe very well. Steve is big on energy, and discussing how the body can efficiently transfer energy down through the club to the ball. The main item he wanted to hammer into all of us was that it doesn’t take a hell of a lot of work to hit the ball hard, and that energy transfer is affected by a number of things. Where this applied to me is my tendency to "chop" down on the ball (sort of a Ginsu-swing) and hit it really thin, or worm-burn it down the range. Keep in mind I have yet to play an actual 9 or 18 holes on my own. From there we got into basic grip. This was annoying to me, because three different pros have now told me three different ways to grip the club. I’ve been told that both "y’s" formed by thumb and forefinger should point to my right shoulder, and I’ve been told that right-y should point at right shoulder and left-y should point at left shoulder. I cheated a bit and went with what was comfortable, which may bite me in the ass later, but there wasn’t time in the class for me to ask him about it in more detail. I’ll get to that question next week and let you know the outcome. At that point, he had us just take the club back to a 3 o’clock position (where ball address is 6 o’clock) and notice the motion of the club. He stressed keeping the toe of the club pointing up at the 3 o’clock, and keeping the club and the hands in front of us. Immediately when I tried this I noticed that my hands were coming up, breaking my triangle somewhat, and had to focus more on the sweeping motion back. At the same time, he had us turning hips and shoulders and loading weight on the right leg. This is where it got interesting. I’ve always had difficulty with firing my left hip out to start the turn for the downswing, and I’ve never really managed the coordination, even though it’s been explained to me before. Steve pointed out that to get the motion started, you have to sort of "push" with your right leg to get things moving, which caused me to naturally shift my weight across and brought my shoulders through the turn with my hands ahead of the ball. It was very interesting to realize that I’ve hit good shots before, but I’ve done them incorrectly transferring weight. In slow motion, this made much more sense to me. Another item he got into with us was finishing the swing. He demonstrated how not finishing the turn would cause the ball to slice, assuming that your hands were neutral. I say assuming because this became a problem for me later. Finally, he had us reverse a club, holding it down by the hosel, and swinging it with just to left arm, using the body to create power. We were trying to listen for the whipsound that the club makes, and the type of sound and "location" of it would tell us whether we were doing it right. This was awkward for me, but I’m going to practice it at home and see if I can make it work. Next, we got to hit some balls. The total newbies struggled, and I took some solace from the fact that I was there once, and have come a ways since then. My first couple were bad chops. Steve tells me that I’m getting to eager, and to slow down and use a short backswing, because we’re just going for some small shots at a flag around 60 yards away. So I slow down, concentrate, and I start getting the ball to the target, but not along the intended trajectory. He also points out that I’m not really "rolling" my left arm and wrists, which I should be doing. I go back to the drill for a moment, and decide that I’m trying to "power" the club through the swing instead of…dragging…(might not be the right word, but that’s sort of how it feels) the club through the swing with my left arm – it then hits me that the proper rolling motion, to me, feels like a dragging sensation. I try this and have much better success with trajectory, and my weight transfer is more natural. Contact with the ball is much more consistent, and I feel a solid "thunk" all the way up the club. But I’m slicing. Consistently slicing, which means I’m likely doing something to open the club face, and I suspect it’s something with either my grip, which I will have addressed next week, or my wrists on the downswing and follow-through, because my belly and shoulders are finishing the shot on a deadline with the target, but I’m veering right. Tolerably right, in some instances, but not as straight as I want to be. The point is that if it’s consistent, it’s something I can figure out and fix under Steve’s watchful eye. For the last few balls, he let us go a bit so I started taking some full swings and really getting behind the ball. Still the slice, but the distance was much improved, and I felt much more in control of my swing, in balance and contact, while focusing on my left arm, was much more consistent. Miles more to go, indeed, and in my case, I’m occasionally a little frustrated that I can’t get all the attention I would like in a classroom setting, but it’s what I signed up for and $179 is a bargain for all the free stuff we get in addition to the instruction. So far, so good. Our homework is to practice just the "coiling" with hips and shoulders in front of a mirror for two minutes a day until next week, and to not hit more than 20-30 balls in a bucket at a time (I have a tendency to hit 100 or so when I practice) while we’re learning these fundamentals. It was a good lesson. I’m going to have to "unlearn" some things, but I feel pretty good about it so far. Discuss. -b You must remove MYPANTS to email directly.