5 Lessons On Golf For A Friend Picking Up The Sticks Again
1. Get A Grip On It
This may seem obvious, but if you don’t grip the club properly, you can’t swing it properly. Most people who play golf will NEVER properly grip the club. And, while there are many grips you might employ, there is pretty much only one grip that is right for you. And like so many things about golf, gripping it right can be counter-intuitive.
To get a good grip, if you are right-handed, you need to start with your left hand. You left hand must be on top of the grip. Let me repeat that: your left HAND must be on TOP of the grip. Put your hand out flat, palm down. Note the back of your hand. Put your left hand on the club. On top of the club. It may or may not feel right. The intuitive thing is to put the left thumb on top of the grip. But, you can only do that if your left hand is on top of the grip.
Your left hand is the key. The golf swing requires your left hand, namely the back of your left hand, to work in synch with the face of the golf club. When the golf club, moving at about 100 mph, makes contact with the golf ball, the back of your left hand is going to be transmitting all the power in your body through the grip to the club face.
It sounds simple. It is simple. But if you don’t get your left hand on top of the grip, you will forever be playing with one hand “tied behind your back.” To play golf well, you need to get the proper grip, and that is all about the left hand.
As for the right hand: once you have a good grip with your left, fit your right hand over it. You can interlock (I used to, but I switched recently””this is the grip used by Tiger and Jack); you can overlap (that’s what I use, it makes it easier to hit the ball right to left), or you can put all ten fingers on the club (I do this for explosion shots from the sand). But in any event, your right palm should wrap comfortably around and over your left thumb. The two hands will fit together, like two rhombbi. The diagonal lines should be parallel, and pleasing to the eye. The hands should feel comfortable.
2. Play From the Ground Up
This is advice from Jack Nicklaus, and his golf teacher, Jack Grout. The essential nature of footwork cannot be emphasized enough. Playing from the ground up means standing up to the ball well (recognizing that, in the main, the ground upon which you will stand is not level, as is it on a driving range). The key to good footwork, and to using your body’s strength, is to be able to use your right leg (if you are a rightie, which all these tips will now just assume). You use your right leg to provide resistance on the back swing. You must be able to turn back without “reverse-pivoting”. The reverse-pivot is the kiss of death for any golfer. It means when you turn back, you don’t resist properly with the right leg, and your weight therefore shifts first back and then, alas, forward to your left leg. Good footwork, playing from the ground up, means taking a comfortable stance, with the proper amount of resistance in your right knew and thigh, that when you make your backswing, your right side will “catch” your weight. This allows for a proper “weight shift.” The weight is shifting from balanced, usually 50-50 at address, to something like 90% of your weight on your right side at the top of your backswing.
Some teachers have invited me to test my proper weight shift by picking up my left foot. Obviously, if you are standing on one foot, your weight is all on your right foot. Duh. But that won’t really help you to feel a proper weight shift. I find that you can help achieve a proper weight shift by turning your hips a bit to the left. This will allow you to feel some tension in your inner right thigh at address, which is where a lot of the resistance is going to come from when you turn back.
Now bend your knees. Nick Faldo says that at address, you should feel like you are sitting on a bar-stool. I guess that says plenty about Nick Faldo, but anyway, you need to get your knees bent so that you can resist properly on the back swing.
Waiting for the other shoe…
And, it might not surprise you, your left side will provide some resistance on the down swing. When you swing into the ball, your hips are going to lead (more on that later) and you will be turning them left. Not left as in at the target, but your left hip will turn left, as in 90 degrees to the target line. Your inner left thigh should feel a bit of tension at address. This will be useful when, in swinging down at the ball, your left foot provides resistance against swaying. Swaying involves your left hip moving “left” down the target line: as opposed to left, 90 degrees from the target line. Swaying is bad. Resistance, both on the back swing (your right knee and inner right thigh) and on the downswing (essentially your whole left leg, from your foot up to your hip), is key. It is NOT futile.
3. Let The Club Head Do The Work
You are not likely a golf expert. If you were, you wouldn’t really need to read any of this. You see these things called golf clubs, but you don’t think too much about the science of their construction. That’s ok. Golf can be way too complicated. But you do need to think about the club head. The club head is “weighted”. It is heavier than the shaft. It is weighted for a reason. The “heavy” club head opens and closes, and that opening-and-closing action is what makes the ball go far. And on target.
Your intuition tells you that you need to manipulate the clubhead. You want to do the work to open and close the club head. To turn it. You want to drive. You want to be in control. That’s all ok, but it won’t help you, and under pressure, it will hurt you.
A good golfer, ALL good golfers, learn to let the club head do the work. It is designed to be weighted in just the right way to open and close properly. You just have to create the proper setting in which that action can occur. So, if you have taken a proper grip, with your left hand on top, your right hand comfortably over your left, then you should be in a position, upon swinging back, low and wide, for the club head to open properly. The weight of the club head induces it to open. It will open without manipulation. It will open more if you try to turn it. But it will open the right amount if you just swing it back without gripping it too tightly, but with a proper grip. Once it has opened properly, again low and wide being the keys, it will close properly without you having to “turn it back”.
Why? Because it is weighted. The “heavy” club head is designed to close. It opens when you take it back just the right amount, and it closes, back to square, when you swing back down through the ball. The preposition is key. THROUGH the ball. Not to the ball. Even at the ball is misleading. You will be swinging the club head through the ball, and if you are swinging well, and your swing is holding up under pressure, it means you are letting the club head do the work.
4. Back To The Target
Ok, so you have a proper grip, left hand on top. You are standing up to the ball nicely, your hips turned a little left so there is resistance in your legs,and your knees are bent (what will you be having to drink?). You are of a mind to let the club head do the work.
Now you need to make your back swing. As far as the club head is concerned, low and wide are your key thoughts. But what about your body? Your body is, as far as I am concerned, all about your shoulders on the back swing. Your shoulders need to make a big turn. Every swing. A big turn means your left shoulder will literally be pointing behind the ball (right of the ball). Your left should will make this big turn, while your right leg will resist, preventing a reverse-pivot, and catching your weight on your right side. A big shoulder turn will culminate in the feeling that your back is to the target.
If you are limber enough, your back should be to the target. At address, I actually have my shoulders pointing a bit left of the target””because you will recall I advocate you turning your left hip slightly left, to get the proper resistance in your lower body. So a full shoulder turn is slightly more than 90 degrees. You can settle for 90 degrees, but a full, back-to-the-target turn comes from just slightly left of the target line (by a few degrees) to just behind the ball (by a degree or more, whatever you can handle without reverse-pivoting). Take as big a shoulder turn as you can, without letting your weight shift back to the left. Your weight catches to the right and at the top, your back is to the target. You are COILED. Now, you are ready for the down swing….
5. Lead With The Hips
You have a good grip, a good stance, you are committed to letting the club head do the work, and you have taken a low wide back swing that has culminated with your back facing the target (the hole, the spot in the fairway, wherever it may be). Now what?
I believe you need to lead with your hips. That means your left hip will turn back to the left. You are “uncoiling.” Left does NOT mean towards the target. Left means to the left from the direction your left hip was pointing at address. Let me repeat this. On a clock, if the target is at 12, and the ball at 3, your left hip points at address somewhere between 11 and 12. When you uncoil, your left hip is moving back along the clock.
It is not “swaying” down the target line. It is turning left, so that at impact, it is pointing somewhere between 10 and 9, and at completion of your swing, following your “follow through”, your left hip is pointing at 9. You will now be facing the target. So I say lead with the hips, though I mean lead with the left hip. Your first move down is uncoiling your hips, and your left hip turns left. To apply power, you can feel as though you are firing your right hip. Watch Tiger, or any golfer: watch his hips. Watch how from the top of the back swing, he clears his hips. He moves them left, through 10 at impact to 9 at completion. You don’t need to focus on firing your right hip. But, the faster you turn your hips, not swaying down the line but turning them “in the barrel” (to use a common image), the fast your will swing. Arm strength helps. Letting the club head do the work with a proper grip is key. And you need that resistance with your legs, as you play from the ground up. But a good hip turn is what supplies the power.
If you have one swing thought for the down swing (and it is easy to have many, which is too many), you would do well to make it “lead with the hips.”