Better Golf through Better Thinking

I like to think that golf is easier than most of us think it is. One thing that I find through years of teaching is most of my students over analyze things that are not that important and forget about the easy little things that make a huge difference. While most of us are busy thinking about more turn or keeping our left arm straight, we forget the simple things like; grip, ball placement, alignment and posture.

Correct ball placement, a good grip, alignment and posture will serve you so much better as a starting point for good golf. Great instructors will always tell you how important it is to get posture and set-up techniques down so that you can begin to see what may be wrong with your swing. Better golf through sound fundamentals is a great way to improve. If you begin your practice session with some set-up aids such as: laying some clubs down to be sure to get the alignment procedures and ball placement correct and then check your posture in a mirror, you have a far greater chance of getting the results you are looking for.

Let’s first examine the grip. To me the most important thing to focus on is placing the club in your hand properly. I use a baseball bat to get my students to realize that the club is held much more in the fingers then most people think. Rest your club over your shoulder like it was a baseball bat and feel how the club sinks down into the fingers of the hand. The grip feels fine up on your shoulder, but most of us will place it back into our palm when we put it down in the hitting zone and that is where we make the first mistake. Keep the club in the fingers more and under the meaty pad of the hand while it is in the playing zone, it will make your hands feel much lower than what you are use to, but that is where it belongs.

When the club is gripped properly, it enables you to use the hands effectively. The most common error I see is the club runs through the hands more vertically than it should and doesn’t allow a proper takeaway or release through the shot. Be sure to get the club under the meaty pad and in the fingers more and the club will naturally sink a little lower at address position and give you full use of the hand action. Most of us know that the V’s the thumb and forefinger make is suppose to point at our trailing shoulder, but this is not the main focus, for me it is having the club in the right plane with our grip.

As the illustration shows, the club runs through the hand more in the fingers and when you close on the grip the meaty pad rests on top of the club. Once you have the club running through the hand properly, it will be much easier to get your V’s to point to the trailing shoulder.

A proper grip is essential for you to have a chance at swinging the club effectively. A PGA Instructor like myself can get you tuned in easily within seconds, getting use to the grip takes time and patience, but the positive results you’ll experience are well worth the time and effort. I like to say that, “the result is well worth the adventure.”

Next month we will talk about set up, posture and ball position. Until next month good golfing and have a wonderful April. The Masters lays in wait.

Good Golfing

Chuck

Golf is a Journey

Well, the season here in Ohio is slowly coming to an end and I feel like I left some strokes out there on the course. Of course they were all good strokes because I certainly had my fair share of bad ones. As this season winds down, I think back to all the busy days at the driving range working on my swing and many other swings. What a blessing to have the opportunity to share swing thoughts and life thoughts with so many people.

When I was ten years old I knew what I wanted to do with my life and I have been able to pursue that dream thanks to all of those folks who have trusted me with one of their most precious possessions, their golf swings. I have to tell you it is always a learning experience on the practice tee, whether it is by myself or with my students. My favorite Instructor, Jim Flick once said that if you are not constantly learning then you are doing an injustice to yourself and your students.

I am always excited when I see the lights come on for my students and it is always such a rush when I know that one of my students has just said or done something that I learned from. Yes, I learn from my students all the time because I have an open mind and I am searching for all the answers that I can find. Golf is as I like to say “a journey well worth taking” and while I am on that journey I might as well explore as much as I can.

It is hard for me to believe that I have now played this game for almost 50 years; I must say that I love to be able to say that. I am a pretty adequate player of the game, but still not as good as I would like to be and certainly not as good as I could be. I have hit thousands of golf balls and played thousands of holes and still I seek what I can not find – “perfection”. I guess the reason I bring that up is to encourage my students to know that; “things take time”, but if you truly want to get there you can. Remember – “Golf is a Journey, Vegas is a destination”. We live in the greatest country in the world one that encourages each of us to try our best and achieve our goals, I still believe that whatever you want you can achieve.

As winter approaches, I will try to be a little more efficient about writing some instructional items for my blog. I should have some more time now that I won’t be teaching everyday. I do hope however, to continue teaching throughout the winter months and I am currently looking for an inside studio type setting to teach in. I now have some new equipment to use that would be fantastic for a studio type setting. I am using Digital Pro Golf (www.digitalprogolf.com) as my video teaching aid and have a new computer to be able to show you your swing compared with Tour Players, it allows me to break the swing down frame by frame. If you have never been in a video lesson, you really need to try it, video really helps.

I am working on a couple of swing aids as we speak and a putting tool to help you learn a better stroke. I hope to have some info posted on my blog about those items soon. I sell Rife Putters and Golf Logix GPS systems and would be more than happy to try and help you locate things that are of interest to you in the game of golf should you need me. I sell gift cards for lessons all year long.

Thanks again for reading my blog. Please feel free to drop me a note via email anytime. I look forward to helping you with your golf game in anyway I can. I could even be coerced into playing on occasion. See you next month when I will get back to some instructional thoughts.

Good Golfing

Chuck