If You are Not Serious About Improving Your Golf Swing, Do Not Read This
April 17, 2008 – 7:52 pm | by GolfdirtBy Paul Macleod
Warning: If you are a weekend hacker and are happy with it, do not read this. Just click away from this article and go on with whatever you were doing.
If you play just for the heck of it and could care less about the score or competition, there is a great knitting site you may be more comfortable with. Go there.
For everybody else, those of you who strive to get better at golf, this is an absolute must read.
I plan on not messing around with this. Rather I want to get right to the point.
And here it is. The best players in the world, not all of them but the vast majority of them, and all of the top name players in the game, do this one thing consistently.
Now think about this for a second.
Most players and many teachers will tell you one thing, and do an entirely different thing in their swings. It’s not so much that they don’t want you to know the truth; it is more that they just don’t know what actually happens in their swing.
But for the sake of keeping this short and to the point, here is the one and only magic move that anyone on the earth can do if you are of sound health.
Here, in the real golf world, where players break par routinely, they, the players, almost all do exactly the same thing.
They keep the club face square to the ball for as long as possible.
Have you ever wondered why some waggle the club as part of a pre-shot routine? Observe them very closely next time you watch a PGA or LPGA player.
Their waggle is a wristy movement, with very little arm movement. And no real backswing. It’s just a little movement of the hands. The purpose is to remind them of the position the right wrist must be in throughout the swing in order to keep the club face square to the ball throughout the swing.
This is something, the proper waggle, that you can do in your living room. It is so simple it borders on stupid. But if you do it correctly and get the feeling of where and how the hands and wrists are supposed to work, well you will soon be hitting it like never before. Honest.
You must know that there are no PGA players who have bad grips. If they did have poor grips, it would not allow them to make the correct hand movement, even for just the waggle.
So make absolutely positive that you have a great grip.
Here is a brief explanation:
With your left hand only (sorry to you lefties)… grip the club so that your hand is more on top than it is on the side. You should be able to see at least two knuckles when you look at the back of your hand.
Now put your right hand on the side of the club… not the top and not under. Make sure that the thumbs of both hands are not on top of the club, they belong on the sides. If you do put them on top despite being told not to, you will be unable to get your wrist in the correct and mandatory position.
Ok… the left thumb now fits into the lifeline of the right hand, and it fits there very very snugly. This grip is not light. It is not a loose grip. It is a tight grip. Not a death grip but close. If you think I’m nuts, watch a PGA player as he prepares for a shot. Look at his forearms, you can see all the muscles and tendons as they are flexed in response to a very tight grip.
A good example of saying one thing and doing another.
If you have the grip correctly, at this point you should (must) feel the following things.
1. Your right hand index finger should feel some pressure against the grip of the club; this is quite noticeable.
2. The middle and ring finger of your right hand should feel a slight pulling in the “up” direction.
3. In response to this pulling, your right hand inside the thumb pad that sits on the left thumb, will feel some pushing down onto the left thumb.
4. There will be a degree of “squeezing” between the right index finger and the right thumb. This is not an attempt to squeeze the life out of the grip. It just exists.
If you follow all of that, you will now have a pro grip. It is not as easy as it sounds. But let me tell you that if you do this grip, you increase your chances of doing this magic move tenfold.
And one other thing, if you have less than a great grip, you will always be less than a great player. Lastly on the topic of the grip: It is without a doubt one of the few things in the golf swing that anyone with two hands can do perfectly every single time.
So how do you feel when, in the future, you get lazy with this pro grip and drift back to the one that won’t work, but you do it anyway? I would be naive to think that it won’t happen!
Now let’s do the waggle.
What you want to accomplish here is a rehearsal of the real thing. This waggle is not meant to “loosen” you up, or to reduce tension. It’s one and only purpose is to get ready to duplicate exactly the position that your hands are going to be in at the top of your swing.
We are going to do this in two parts.
The first one is, after we take this great pro grip and get all the four (4) feelings under control, you push down on the left thumb with the lifeline of your right hand. Do not move your arms.
The club should have moved up some and be at about a 45 degree angle to your body, and the arms have not moved yet.
Check the position of both hands now. You should see two knuckles of the right hand and one knuckle of the left hand. The right wrist is now bent back toward the right forearm.
Remember to remember that at this point the arms have not moved.
Now a little explanation. What you have done so far with the waggle move is to pre-set exactly the correct position of both your hands as they should appear at the top of the swing or, better said, the finish of the backswing.
Now repeatedly do this with the hands only. Do it 25 or 30 times till you get it exactly correct. Check the check points. If you will do this so that you become very comfortable with the waggle as it has been explained, and the grip as it has been mandated, you will then be able to actually hit a ball.
Ready?
Now back to set up and your first move is the waggle, check points please at this time.
Now the swing, start by using exactly the same move as you did with the waggle, but now allow your shoulders to turn into the backswing, bringing the arms and wrist with them as a unit — not independently moving either hands or arms. Just let the shoulders do it.
Bring the whole thing to the end of your backswing. Whatever and wherever that is will be just fine.
Stop!
At the finish of the backswing I want you to check the right wrist and the left hand to make sure all is well.
The left hand should be flat. Not cupped back, not even a little. And it won’t be if you have done this correctly because your right hand will be in the same position that it was during your waggle.
That is, the hand will be bent back toward the right forearm. Exactly as it did when you waggled. Provided you did it according to plan. That is the reason I asked you to do the waggle 25 or more times to make sure you did the check points. All so that when you got to the finish of your backswing you would be in the correct positions.
It’s all about angles folks, the waggle put your right wrist in the correct angle and the shoulder turn kept the angle intact.
Some call the right wrist position at the top the trayed position.
Now for a quick drill.
Do the waggle, repeat it exactly into a small swing. About half or less. Let the arms move into the swing by the turning of the shoulders while maintaining the position of the hands. Now just turn into the ball allowing your arms to fall toward the ball, maintain the hand position through impact. Slowly at first and gradually speed it up as you get used to this new and exciting feeling. Results will come… promise.
Paul Macleod publishes ebooksbestbuy.com where you can learn the four magic moves in a golf swing. Learn the first one for free and take it to the range for a spin.
