Club golfers also copy the way many pros tee the ball low. The pros do this to promote a powerful fade and a low tee is definitely not for the player who slices. Nor is a ball position that is off the left heel for all clubs. This is fine for the Tour pro with his strong leg driven modern swing, but with the average golfer it only leads to excessive body action and problems.
If the golfer is to copy anything from his favourite pro, aside from enjoying his play hopefully, it should be his free arm swing. This is the unbalanced motive force in the majority of golfers’ swings, especially those who slice. Yet most fit people can swing the clubhead fast enough with their hands and arms to play reasonable golf.
This does not imply that club golfers should adopt a classic swing technique, hitting against a firm left side. Nor is there any suggestion that if you have been playing for quite a few years and have a middling handicap, you should try to change your swing radically. However, it may be beneficial to consider a sound swing technique that would suit the average golfer. If you adopt some of its elements into the golf swing you already have, you could see some very positive results. It ought to be said that all golf swings are like finger prints, every one is different. You can mentally feel that you’re copying somebody’s swing: the tempo’s the same, your walk, your every mannerism, is a carbon copy of your hero. But in reality it’s not like that at all, you’re born with your own rhythm of life and that is carried through into the game of golf.
To start with, every golfer must have a pre-shot routine, where he takes a grip on the chosen club and sets up to the ball. If you have a grip that’s right for your swing and a comfortably correct set-up, you are 90 per cent on the way to hitting a good golf shot. But if your grip and set-up are faulty you are virtually guaranteeing a bad one.
Pros can tell at a glance if a golfer has a low, a middle or a high handicap just from his address routine. The low handicapper, having taken an easy practice swing and checked the line of the shot, moves positively to the ball. He aims the club face, aligns his body and settles comfortably for the shot. The high handicapper, in contrast, usually looks tense over the ball. He fiddles with his grip, aligns his body and aims the club, peering down the fairway several times. He may then even take a practice swing or two before shuffling his feet again and tensing up for the shot. Above all, he has no consistent pre-shot routine.
To give yourself a chance of getting it all right and to develop a sound routine, you could use a simple aide memoire, the word GASP. G is for grip, A for aim, S for stance and P for position. In routine, you take your Grip, Aim the club face and align your body in a comfortable Stance with the ball Positioned correctly. Let’s look at these essentials in more detail.
First the Grip. Now you seldom see a low handicap golfer (not to mention a pro) with a bad grip. He seems to hold the club firmly, naturally in his hands. But a ‘natural’ hold for him could seem very uncomfortable and unnatural for you. For there are many ways to hold a club and at least one of them is correct for you, within certain parameters. You must find it and apply it, because if you have been a high handicapper for a number of years and show little sign of improvement, there’s a five-to-one chance that your grip is causing your problems and holding you back.
THINK ‘GASP’ FOR EVERY SHOT.
However, while millions of words have been written by golf instructors on the grip, most of which is good advice, it can be a little confusing for the club golfer. He or she is advised to place the club diagonally across the left palm and keep both palms facing each other, with the ‘Vs’ of thumbs and forefingers pointing to a spot half way between the nose and the right shoulder – for a neutral grip. The problem is that most golfers do not look at where the ‘Vs’ point and probably couldn’t judge where they were pointing anyway.
For a club golfer, to keep things simple, you will not go too far wrong if you:
hold the club just above the roots of the fingers of your left hand, so that you see only the thumb and the knuckles of the first two fingers of the hand when your right hand is off the club; and
when you grip the club with your right hand alone, you see only the nail of your right little finger, but no other finger nails.
From this neutral position, whether you feel more comfy with an overlapping, interlocking or two handed grip (because of the shape of your hands, length of fingers, etc.) it’s easy to make it stronger. It doesn’t matter which of these grips you use. The great thing is the hands should work together. Golf is a two-handed game and you should feel comfortable. It is important that the grip should be in the bottom of the fingers, not running through the palms.
Beware though that you don’t hold the club entirely with the fingers. Bob once tried this ‘grip’ in an effort to get more clubhead speed and distance. He found however that he could not hit the ball consistently in the same direction twice running and abandoned the effort when he started to get blisters.
THE RIGHT GRIP FOR THE RIGHT HAND.
The correct grip for you can only be found with a little experiment, but there can be no variation in the pressure with which you hold the club. It must be firm and light, not squeezed tight. Unfortunately many golfers, judging by the white knuckles and rigid forearms one sees, throttle any chance of a free release out of their swings. You should hold the club lightly at first, for your grip automatically tightens as you accelerate on the downswing. It’s rather like driving a nail in with a hammer.
Next in a sound pre-shot routine comes A for aim and alignment. Forget what you often see on TV, where Greg (and other Tour pros) grounds the club behind the ball, holding only with his right hand, before taking his stance. A pro is concentrating solely on aiming the club in this way; his alignment has become second nature to him, mostly from practice. You however should form your grip firmly on the club and try a practice swing (not taking a divot on the tee) while deciding the line of the shot. To help you line up, choose an aiming point some four or five feet from the ball, a leaf or blade of grass. Then, moving to the ball and looking down on it, you should put the club face behind it squarely along the target line, using your aiming point. To align your body correctly for the shot, just ensure the line of your feet and shoulders are parallel to that line.
Matt, like many club golfers, fails to check this aim, or alignment, of his feet and shoulders with every shot. Then, if his feet point right of the target while his shoulders point left, he develops an ugly shank. It is even more exasperating as Matt doesn’t know why it happens, not why it mysteriously disappears (when he aims his body correctly again.) You must always check that your body is aimed in line with the clubface for every shot.
With S for Stance, you have to consider where to put your feet, how far apart they should be, your weight distribution, how straight your left arm is at address and how you stand up to the ball.
Feet first. As a club golfer, you should never stand with your feet square to the target line as you swing. They must point a few degrees out, otherwise they could lock your backswing and restrict your downswing. They should be as far apart as your normal walking stride, for if too widely spread (as some golfers favour when using a driver) it restricts the hip turn and locks the left knee. This causes a tilt of the shoulders on the backswing, leading to fat shots and slices.
Everything