Hands Forward at Impact

One of the most important parts of a great impact is getting the hands in front of the clubhead or ball. This position encourages a delofted clubface and increased ball compression. Additionally, I have found that the hands appear to line up up with the lead thigh at impact for the vast majority of the top players in the game. There are a few factors that play a big role in your ability to get the hands forward at impact and compress the golf ball.

If you are tired of scooping at impact or a weak inconsistent strike then read on..... The primary factor is the quality of your grip.  The weaker the grip the further back the hands tend to start at address and the further back they are required to be at impact. I don't ever recall seeing a golfer with a weak grip (other than Ben Hogan) getting the hands far enough in front of the ball at impact. Think about it: if the grip is weak and the more forward the hands are, then the more open the face will be at impact.  Take a look how many Tour golfers have grips that appear to be stronger vs. weaker and they all have forward shaft lean at impact. Essentially a weak grip necessitates that the hands be further back than they should at impact (they must be back in order to square the clubface), and the more back the hands are, the poorer the strike and the weaker the trajectory will tend to be.

If you are currently the owner of a weak, or even neutral, grip try this:

• As you prepare to take your grip, rotate the face 20-30 degrees closed
• Now take your regular grip
• At address make sure the face is square (this will rotate your hands and arms into a stronger position)

For some reason this method of strengthening your grip does not seem to be as uncomfortable as merely just rotating your hands on the club. Move the club instead. Give it a try.

A proper strong grip will enable you to lead the clubhead with the handle while maintaining a square clubface at impact and compress the ball - isn't that what we're after?

Here is a gallery containing almost 30 PGA Tour golfers from past and present. Take a look at where their hands are at impact:

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Impact Drill: How to Stop Scooping

The Impact "Drag" Drill

An Athletic Impact Drill

Drive the Hips into Impact

Ben Hogan's Secret....

Ben Hogan

Many people have claimed that they know Hogan's secret, but I have never heard one that I have bought in to. Something viable that would separate Mr. Hogan from the crowd; something unique only to him. Thanks to my friend Bobby MacWhinnie for pointing this fantastic quote out to me from the book "Ben Hogan - An American Life" by James Dodson:

His real secret, as it were - lay not in the technical jargon as (he) would have you believe, but rather in the rarest combination of an extraordinarily disciplined brain and an undeniable will power fueled by a fierce survivor instinct to prevail against any odds.

Work those characteristics into your game and you may have a secret of your own!

Read more on Ben Hogan's Secret HERE

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Chicken Wing at Impact?

Lee Westwood is an exceptional ball striker and a contender in almost every major championship.

The interesting part about Lee's swing, which I regard as somewhat unique, is his impact position. Is that a chicken wing? Surely that cannot be good? Remember that the only factor that matters is the physics (forces and angles) that the golf club imparts on the ball.

Retief Goosen is the another premier golfer who gets into this impact position, although to a much lesser degree. In looking at the top picture notice that the handle of the club is positioned in line with the lead thigh.  This is the key element. With the driver, the shaft should be vertical or leaning slightly forward, as in the Westwood image, but with irons there should be a few degrees of shaft lean. As a result the hands should once again be aligned with the lead thigh.

The moral of the story - get the club in a great position, relative to the ball, at impact and good things will happen - chicken wing and all.

Should your chicken wing not be quite as functional as the two players above here is a little help:

Major Flaw: The Chicken Wing in Golf

Lose the Chicken Wing, by Tony Ruggiero

Getting Rid of Your Chicken Wing » The Deep Rough

Jim Suttie: Get rid of the dreaded chicken wing

Weight Transfer and Positioning

Having the use of the Swing Catalyst system has almost been like being able to look behind the curtain to see what truly happens to a golfers' weight when they swing the club. Guesswork and perception are taken out of the equation and the information you read in the following post is based purely on fact. 

Weight shift is a poor term.  Similar to the term "takeaway" it does not convey the appropriate sensation.  My research has shown that the term "weight transfer" would be far better.  And here's why: When I think of shifting my weight I make a conscious move to get my body over to my back foot for example.  Not good!  The weight transfers in the swing purely due to the motion in the arms hands and club as they travel away from the target.  Think of it this way - if I swing my arms, which each weigh 15 lbs, and a club  in my backswing you can be sure that I am transferring weight onto my back foot. There is however no conscious shifting or body move that gets the weight over there. This is exactly why the 84 degree  rule (as illustrated below) holds true.

There should be no lateral body move in the backswing, yet many players often wrote or spoke about a sense of weight transfer. The body stays centered while the weight is transferred by the motion in the arms and the club. Video HERE

I found that very good golfers (college and touring professionals) had a maximum percentage of 80% of their weight on their back foot slightly beyond halfway back.  This was achieved with almost no lateral movement in the upper body.

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In the screen shot above notice how the center of gravity indicator between my feet (top right) is almost as far to the right as it goes. This should be the furthest point to the right the weight moves and from here it starts moving back to the front foot.

I did find that a reverse weight shift (reverse pivot) was almost impossible for me to achieve. With the arms and club swinging to the right it made it very difficult to get the weight to favor the front foot in the backswing.

In the screen shot below I have positioned my weight 70/30 on the front foot (with the 84 line as a reference) at the top of my swing as advocated by some teachers. While the numbers may be difficult to achieve I did find that for many people the idea of keeping their body left and sensing the weight being 70/30 in favor of the front foot proved to be very helpful. This helped me to seperate the difference between what a student felt and what was real.  Many times it was better for a student to work towards a feeling than the actual reality.

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At the start of the downswing, when the left arm (for right handers) gets parallel to the ground the majority of top tour professionals displayed a weight distribution of 50/50.  Sam Snead illustrated this beautifully!

I did notice that with single figure handicap golfers there seemed to be a tendency to get their weight too far forward (75/25) at this point. This led to a situation where, when they got to the delivery point (shaft parallel to the ground), they very often had more than 90% of their weight on their front foot and had to back up through impact.  This seemed to be a contributing factor to hooks and blocks - the better golfers most common malady!

All the best ball strikers studied displayed a tendency to transfer the weight to the front foot in a smooth and continuous flow with no backing up or slowing of the transfer. The more straight and direct the CoG trace moved the better. This meant that they arrived at impact with an 80/20 split favoring the front foot and the weight continued to move smoothly over to the front side beyond impact.

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Notice the continuous and smooth CoG trace into the front foot here by Billy Hurley.  His weight was more than likely 85% on the front foot at impact.

The tendency with higher handicap golfers (above 18) was for the weight to get too far back and then remain there all the way through impact. It was not unusual to see one of these golfers have a split of 70/30 favoring the back foot at impact.

In summary:

• The weight should start at 50/50
• Somewhere between halfway back and the top of the backswing the player should max out weight on the back foot at 80/20
• At halfway down (arm parallel to the ground) the weight should once again be 50/50
• The weight should make a continuous tranfer to the front foot in the downswing with an 80/20 split occuring at impact. 

A few more screen shots:

Geoff Ogilvy passing through impact (shaft bend is due to camera lens)

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Peter Uihlein at impact

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Please keep two things in mind as you process the above information: due to the relative newness of this technology there is not a huge sample group of golfers to study and that all percentages are a mean or "ballpark" number.

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The Weight Shift

The photo of Sam Snead above perfectly illustrates where the weight should be positioned at these three key points in the golf swing:

• Just prior to the top of the backswing the weight is almost always in the vicinity of 80/20 favoring the back side.
• At the half way down point top players always seem to position their weight equally here (50/50).
• At impact the weight is always in the vicinity of 20/80 favoring the front side.

The amazing technology from Swing Catalyst has been instrumental in educating me further on this important information. If you'd like to learn more about your weight shift please give me a call to book your session at some point within the next two weeks.

I will be posting at great detail on this topic later in the week so stand by. The evidence is clear!

How to Play Fairway Bunker Shots

Fairway bunker shots are different than those played in close proximity to the green. They are actually played in the same fashion as the rest of the shots in the game: ball first, ground second.

Play fairway bunker shots in the same manner in which you would play a shot from the fairway with a few subtle adjustments. Two checkpoints to determine: First, do you have a lie that allows for the clubface to get cleanly onto the back of the ball? Second, do you have enough loft on the clubface to get up and over the lip in front of you? If the answer to each of these questions is yes, go ahead and swing away as you normally would. If not, the shot must be played in the same fashion that you would play the above mentioned greenside bunker shot: with a lofted club and impacting the sand before the ball. Do not be greedy when you have either a poor lie or a high lip in a fairway bunker. Take your punishment and move on.

Technique:

Once you have met the above criteria, key on these few simple points to play successful fairway bunker shots:

• Favor a ball position that is centered and grip down slightly, regardless of what club you have selected. It is far better to strike the ball first than sand first.

• Shuffle your feet in lightly. Keep in mind that for every inch you descend into the sand the ball elevates, thus increasing the potential to hit a ‘fat’ shot.
• Keep your lower body very quiet and work towards maintaining your elevation throughout the swing – any change in altitude could lead to a mishit - stay level.

• When it comes to club selection make sure you allow for ample clearance over the lip in front of you (get it out) and plan on your shot travelling a half club shorter (due to gripping down) than what it normally does.

Hopefully this information will help you overcome a case of the fairway bunker blues!

View the video lesson here:

Additonal information for better fairway bunker shots:

Golf Tips for Fairway Bunker Play 

How to Play Fairway Bunker Shots!

Pro's Corner - How to Play Fairway Bunkers By John Leach

Golf Lesson- How to Play Fairway Bunker Shots

Shaft Angle at Impact II

Read the original post HERE After more research and some great input from several excellent instructors I have quite a bit to add to the previous post. There are even a few additional golfers I have found to add to the "zero" club (no change in handle position from address to impact) - there has been so much fantastic input that I just had to share it.

Jonathan Yarwood makes a great point in identifying the difference between irons and the driver:

I think that there has to be a raise of the shaft with a driver due to the nature of the sweeping hit off a tee. However, if you look at players like Pricey, the driver became their nemesis, as they got the plane too low to get it flying with the new equipment. Sergio struggles to flight the driver too. Trevino too at times. With a driver, some ’swing and freewheeling’ is required through the hit allowing the club to raise somewhat.

Mark Costaregni, my fellow teacher at Atlantic Golf Club in NY, and senior teacher with Jim McLean at Doral says:

I think you are spot on with this, we have studied shaft plane at address vs. impact and only a few return the handle on plane!!! Fulton Allem also returns it on plane. I remember some footage of Sergio actually UNDER with the handle!!! I believe this is a benchmark for pure greatness in striking. Also it seems the real power hitters tend to get the handle up at impact because of the leverage factor.

Thanks for the addition of Fulton Allem to the list Mark. Fulty has always been a fantastic ball striker and was a prolific winner in South Africa. At Doral they have a fantastic resource in that the best players in the world come to them every year and that leads to a superb bank of swings to analyze and evaluate. I would have to agree with you when you say "pure greatness in striking".

There were multiple questions regarding shaft droop or bowing and even some skepticism about whether any golfer could achieve the "zero" impact position - however the pictures don't lie. Here is what I have noticed:

• The average shaft angle with a 7 iron at address is around 54 degrees; the average lie angle of a 7 iron is 63 degrees. That allows for 9 degrees of droop/bow in the shaft at impact even with the handle returning to the exact same position at impact - as a result golfers DO NOT need to lift/raise the handle in order to account for the curvature of the shaft.

• I have found that the golfers who get the handle in the "zero" position (zero degrees of change from address to impact) through the hit tend to have what appears to be less droop/bow in their shaft. This is due to the fact that their hands/arms swing into the ball on a lower (more shallow) plane that more closely matches the plane the clubhead travels on. The lower the arm plane coming into impact, the less difference there is between the arm and clubhead plane and thus less droop/bow in the shaft.
• Thus, the higher the hands are positioned through impact the more the shaft tends to curve downward.
• That being said, if you can return the handle to its address position, you should not need to flatten your irons (unless they are too upright already!) due to the fact that the shaft will droop less.

The next time you are playing a "well worn" golf course take a look at the divot patterns on the range or a shortish par three.  Keeping in mind that most golfers are right handers, you'll see most of the divots are in the shape of a trapezoid. This is due to high hands and excessive droop in the shaft getting the toe further into the ground than the heel.

Here is an excellent drill to illustrate how any golfer can work towards achieving this ultimate impact position. If there ever was a drill that would make you hit it like Hogan, this is it.

Reed Howard, an fine young golfer illustrates how to perfectly execute this drill. Does this look like Ben Hogan or what?

A point to note: the line drawn on the photos of Moe Norman is not the original shaft plane line. The shaft plane line is drawn along the shaft at address. I am not sure what the yellow line in the photos represents, but it does act as a good reference point.

The select list of golfers who belong to the zero club are:

• Moe Norman
• Ben Hogan
• Nick Price
• Lee Trevino
• Vijay Singh
• Joe Durant
• Carl Pettersson
• Sergio Garcia

The golfers who are very close (within two degrees), but not quite there:

• Trevor Immelman
• Lucas Glover
• DJ Trahan
• Boo Weekley
• Paula Creamer
• Sean O'Hair

All very good ball strikers in their own right!

I have only ever personally witnessed two golfers "naturally" return the handle to its original position. They are - Lindsay Renolds and Michael Koulianos. Both superb ball strikers!

Try the drill - strive for zero - and know that if you get close to it you can only get better!

I really believe that if any golfer can work towards getting into a better position (zero!) at impact they can only improve their ball striking and increase the enjoyment they get from the game.

Keep working!

Shaft Angle at Impact

All I can say after doing the research for this post is WOW! This is something that is really interesting and I've never really delved into it before. In looking at the illustrations above and the photos below you will see what I am referring to - it is very rare for any golfer to return the shaft/club at impact to the same position it occupied at address (when viewed from down the line).

In fact so rare, that I have only found four golfers who do it more often than not. The amazing thing is that this group of golfers is a collection of some of the finest ball strikers that ever played the game. They are Lee Trevino, who Jack Nicklaus claims is the best hitter he ever saw, Ben Hogan, Nick Price and Sergio Garcia.

I have included the picture of Tiger Woods from 2000 below to illustrate where most PGA Tour caliber players return the shaft to at impact. Notice how his handle is above where it started (on the red line) at address.

Out of the four golfers I have found to get the shaft completely back to the line it appears that Sergio might be the least consistent at always returning the shaft back to the line, but as noted above, he does so more often than not.

Another interesting point to note is the golfers who are very close to returning the club to the line: Vijay Singh and Joe Durant (who has led the Tour in GIR stats 4 times and finished in the top 12 for the last dozen years!). In fact looking at the stats Joe Durant is a much better hitter than Tiger Woods - and consistently so!

Two additional golfers who may get the club onto the line but I was not able to find enough quality footage on were Sam Snead and Moe Norman (I found these images on Moe HERE and it looks pretty close). Certainly no slouches in the ball striking department either!

So, the next time you are reviewing your swing, pay particular attention to your impact position, but more specifically where your shaft is at impact relative to where you had it at address. There's a good chance you'll be above the line (and zero chance you'll be below it!) but do what you can to lower the shaft angle at impact in order to dramatically improve your ball striking and accuracy. Plase check back soon as I will be filming a few drills soon to help you get closer to a truly great impact.

Read Part II of this article HERE

Any thoughts? Any other golfers who you think might get the club to the line? Evidence? Please chime in.

To learn more about better ball striking check out THIS

Speedchain - Dynamic Power for Golf

View the HD video lesson HERE

 The speedchain is a tremendous teaching and training aid for just about any golfer looking to get a sense for what the body should be doing throughout the golf swing. And by now you should all know I am a big fan of getting the body to work correctly. While it may not be the easiest aid to use and "operate" it is superb at communicating the feel of the transition and downswing.

Ben Hogan has long been admired for his dynamic golf swing and the effortless ease with which he drove his weight up onto his front foot.  It often looked like he was "cracking a whip" when he swung a club. Training with the speedchain will get you to sense the hip drive and weight shift - just prior to - the arms and the club completing the back swing. A necessity for delivering maximum power and snap into the back of the ball.

The speedchain is made up of a sturdy grip attched to a length (20') of chain where the links get bigger and heavier as they extend out away from the grip. The weight of the chain forces the body to work as efficiently (correctly!) as possible. I would recommend using or purchasing the XX Strong Model (for all golfers) as the heavier chain limits the amount of whipping in the terminal end of the chain - it just seems a little safer.

Here's a teaching/training aid that is guaranteed to help your swing and as a bonus it offers an excellent core workout as well - I cannot recommend it enough!

FYI - I am in no way affiliated with the manufacturing or selling of the speedchain.

 For more information on Speedchains and purchasing click HERE

View the HD video lesson HERE

Impact Drill: How to Stop Scooping

This is a version of a drill that I have presented many times, but each time I use it, it impresses upon me the importance of a proper strike on the golf ball. In using Trackman I have come to learn that the correct attack angle (an upward or downward hit) with an iron should be anywhere between 2 and 5 degrees down. If you have ever topped shots or alternated between thin and heavy strikes, you are more than likely getting scoopy through impact and this drill is right up your alley.

This drill will get you to do the following through impact:

• Get the weight shifted onto the front foot
• Lead the hands ahead of the clubhead
• Hit down on the ball
• Take divots in the right place - after the ball!

All you need is a small piece of one of those swim noodles that all the kids like to use in the pool. Secure the strip of noodle into the ground by pressing tees through the center as illustrated. It may take a little experimenting, but eventually you'll find the appropriate distance to line the balls up from the noodle. Before long you should start to see a consistent line of divots occurring on the target side of the golf ball - a positive sign! If you find yourself hitting a few of the dreaded "hosel rockets" your grip is too weak; Essentially you now need to scoop the face in order to square the clubface through impact. Get it stronger!

Some additional drills to help with impact:

• The Impact "Drag" Drill
• Hip Thrust Drill
• The Towel/Line Drill for Compression
• The Hip Slide and Why it is Important
• Golf's #1 Impact Exercise

Golf Grip Guidelines

Here is an excellent method to ensure that your grip stays in the fingers and favors the strong end of the spectrum.

Remember - a strong "ish" grip helps the handle get in front of the clubhead at impact and encourages all golfers to keep their hands passive through impact.

Have a friend draw a "channel" on your glove diagonally across the base of the fingers (as illustrated left). Be sure that the guidelines are not too high up in the palm - if this is the case the wrists will have a hard time setting the club and the grip will always look weak.

When gripping the club be sure to position the handle along the lower of the two guidelines - this will make sure that the handle does not sneak up into the palm.

Be sure that once your glove hand is positioned on the club you can see at least two knuckles and the V formed between the thumb and the index finger is pointing to the trailing shoulder.

As we saw with Louis Oosthuizen and his glove - you can draw or write whatever you want on any part of your equipment, in any color too!

For additional information on the grip:

• Golf Grip: Where should it be?
• Golf Grip: Strong, Neutral or Weak?
• The Grip and how it pertains to Impact

Impact Drill

Here is another great drill to help any golfer gain a better perspective of what impact should feel like.

• Drape a towel (large or small) around the hosel of any iron.
• With the clubhead resting on the ground as pictured above drag the towel along the ground toward the target.

This drill can be done with or without a towel (pictured below) and will give you the sense of leading with the handle into the impact zone.

Notice the flex and pressure in the shaft as I am pressing down while dragging the handle into the hit.  Give it a try - I did, and I think it can help you too.

Thanks to my fellow instructor Mark Costaregni at Atlantic Golf Club for turning me onto this drill and Joe Connery for his camera expertise.

View the HD video of this drill HERE

The Secret to the Backswing in Golf....

A picture is worth a thousand words..............