Category: Holyduffer Podcast

Do you practice golf or play golf. If on the course all you can think about is how to swing the club no matter how long or short your shot – you do not play golf. Besides a flawed technique, not playing the game is the number one reason for bad scores. If your focus is not on the target, you are gonna run into a problem.

Working on your swing must end on the range. If you are not sure enough to react to the ball on the course you will have a malfunction of some kind. To play golf, just as in any sport, you cannot be thinking about how to do it. You have to react to the situation. No one ever thinks about how to throw a ball, they just do it. They do not break down every position of the throwing motion and think about that when they are trying to throw to 1st base.  This is harder in golf because the ball is not moving and so there is all this time to pull the trigger. In that space, all manner of thoughts can creep in.

The reason you find yourself working on swing instead of score on the course is that is all you do on the range. A range session must have some gameplay to truly be productive. More importantly, you must end your session with gameplay to be able to get to scoring on the course. The process of how to create the shot you need to execute must happen before you get set up to the ball so that all that is left is pulling the trigger. Separate your practice swings, swings that are meant to ingrain a certain motion, and actual shots where you forget the technique and just hit the shot.

When practicing on the range, hit no more than 5 shots of practice and then hit 1 shot to a target with the same club you practiced with, then move to another club and target and keep going until you miss the target. One shot each time. After you miss one then go back to practice the move you are trying to ingrain.

At the end of each sesson use the targets on the range to play a golf hole.

First decide if you are going to play a par 5, 4, or 3.  Pick a target that allows you to easily judge the quality of the shot.  Each shot has to have a target and a grade of how well it turned out. Include chips and pitches. Assume 2 putts on the imaginary green.

In addition to the stroke score grade how well you executed the each shot. Did you hit your target? Was the tee shot offline? Was the shot shape what you wanted? Was I thinking swing or target?

The goal is to walk away from your range session with pars and strait A’s. Add this to your range work and the golf course will a llot easier to handle.

Putting is the most precise part of the golf game. The margin for error is minuscule.  So then the target you choose to aim at must be small and precise. I find that the best way to do this is to use a golf ball placed 4-6 inches in front of the hole. The ball is placed so that it is directly in the way of a made putt. If you can hit this target you can hit the much bigger one beyond it.

To practice this drill, start by setting up to a reasonably straight putt and put a ball in the way. See how many times in a row you can hit the ball with a putt. When you feel confident with hitting your target remove the ball and set up again this time visualizing the ball in the way. You will notice that you will be more focused and accurate with your putting.

If you are having trouble hitting the target during the drill you may be thinking about technique and not letting your natural athleticism work for you. Forget about everything but hitting the target, just react to the target and see if this helps you. If not move closer until you can hit 8 out of 10 and keep moving back until you are hitting at least 60 percent of your targets from 10 feet.

Hit the target and the putts will start to drop. Be athletic and focus on the target, not the stroke. I guarantee that this game of inches will become much easier with this simple drill.

Someone once said that the bunker shot was the easiest shot in golf because you did not even have to hit the ball. Think about that for a minute. The bunker shot is essentially a fat shot with a shallow divot. Most amateurs are frustratingly familiar with the fat shot, they just need to shallow out the divot and viola! You have a bunker shot.

The most powerful part of this idea is forgetting about the ball and just concentrating on the divot you make. This allows the ball to just get in the way of the stroke.

The ball is never the intended target in golf. Just like in the bunker the ball is not the target of the club, the ground is. Being able to control the length depth and direction of the clubs interaction with the ground is all that matters unless the ball is on a tee and then it is only the tee that matters.

Although most of us have a problem controlling these variables, it only takes a little work in the bunker to get this skill mastered.  Find a practice bunker and start practicing making shallow long divots. Don’t worry about where they start in your stance until you can make a consistent divot at least the length of a dollar bill. Then draw a line in the sand that is in the middle of your stance. Once you can consistently make a shallow divot after the line we can move out the bunker and back to the chipping green.

The chipping swing is just a smaller bunker swing. Instead of making sure that you are close enough to the ground to take a small about of sand/grass you are going to move your vertical center up so that you will only brush the grass. The next big thing you have to adjust is the ball position. With a bunker shot the ball is forward of the entry point in every other iron shot the ball is slightly behind or resting on the line of entry.

Just like with a bunker shot, the proximity of the entry point to the ball will have a great deal of influence on the trajectory and spin of the shot.  contact the ground toward the back of the ball and you will get a lower spinning higher flight. Contact the ground further forward and you will get a high spin low flight shot, assuming the same loft.

This concept works for the full swing too. Work your ground contact into a larger swing radius and the ball will magically move in the direction of your divot The direction of the divot is determined by the path of your swing. In the smaller swings of the short game this is not as big a deal, but when the swings get bigger and the clubs get longer it is of paramount importance.

Play around with this idea of forgetting about the ball and just contact the ground where and how you want to and the ball will go along for the ride.

Talk long enough with anyone who has studied the golf swing and you will hear about the weight shift. The basic idea is that weight loads up along the midline of the back foot and transfers forward to the front midline during the swing. Now there are many theories about the technique and timing of this shift, but almost all golf instructors agree that it is one of the more important parts of the swing. What is not discussed is the clubhead weight shift.

The clubhead weight shift is what happens when the clubhead moves around the hands on the axis of the trail wrist. to feel this shift, take a club in your trail hand and move the club as if you were going to hammer something.  As the clubhead moves back and forth the trail wrist is loading and unloading the weight of the clubhead.

Good or bad, all swings do this weight shift. Good swings rotate the trail side to push the fully unloaded position forward as much as 6 inches past the ball. Bad swings unload the club weight at about the point of our first drill, somewhere center or slightly trail to the ball. This is the classic no lag look for the handicap golfer. The better golfer has moved the trail wrist forward toward the target.

Now let’s expand our drill to understand the movement of the club weight. Start with the club in front of you in your trail hand and just practice the hinging and straitening of the wrist. Next, on a mat set up a club or alinement stick in the middle of your stance with a 7 iron start working on your load and unload wrist move. At this point do not try to move the weight of the club forward, just get the wrist move down.

Now that you can make the weight of the club move in front of your hands, start using the rotation of your trail side to move the weight of the club forward making sure not to cross the target line with the club until you have fully unloaded the wrists. This is important because the second most common swing fault is getting across the line and having a power pull that the only way you can save is to open the club up. Pull slice anyone?

Once you have mastered this little pitch shot move start adding more coil going back until you can make a full swing that moves the weight forward. By focusing on how and when you deliver the weight of the clubhead the swing mechanics will follow.

Now start using a ball with small swings at first and work your way up to a full swing stopping and going back to a smaller swing anytime the contact is not right.

If you find yourself digging too much or having trouble keeping the club head from crossing the target line too soon focus on not letting your head slide and dip forward. This should solve this issue.

Hand speed is king in the golf swing. Just ask Tiger Woods. Mr. Woods has come back from a fusion of his lower back with a driver swing speed in the 120’s. The fusion has reduced his mobility or stretch he can obtain yet he is blasting it 300+ yards.

To get how to max your hand speed spend a few minutes watching a fastpitch softball motion. The legs hips core and shoulders are all moving in a linked motion to make the arms and hands rocket past the body.

Watch as the left hip and glute pulls the right hip around as the right leg pushes forward.  The rotation moves up through the core towards the shoulders. As the right arm rips down toward the right hip all the big muscles start to slow down and the all the energy is transferred to the arm and wrist snap. This is the whip effect. The real speed is caused by the brakes, not the accelerator.

The second thing that most golfers get wrong is that the target is not the ball. The target you are trying to max your speed to is a line about 45 degrees forward of the center line of your body. To find this line, take your stance and feel stacked over your feet and hips. With the butt end of the club aligned with your sternum rotate your shoulders until your club and sternum are pointing 45 degrees forward of the midline of your stance. Let your body move freely to make the club point correctly. This is the target of your speed.

Now with your target in mind, we can start maxing out our speed. Start slowly at first and try to make the club fully extend to this target. Do not use a ball at first and do not move at more than 60 percent of your max speed. Experiment with where you need to let go of the club to max out at the target line. The point of letting go is where everything on your right side is slowing down to let the arms race past while the left side clears out of the way of the speed.

Use the image that the club head is loosely attached to the shaft and that you are trying to have it pop off as hard as possible at the target. As you build up speed make sure you let your left side clear and do not try and stop at the target line. Once you have got a good feel for the sequence add a ball into your practice. Again not going more than 60 percent of your max. Once you are comfortable with your ball striking start to add speed until you are at 80-85 percent of max.

The last piece of the puzzle is to manage how much lateral movement and left shoulder motion you need to get the ball flight you want. For now, just work on getting every bit of hand speed you can. Do not worry about flight or direction except that you should see a fairly neutral or slightly push draw flight.

A golf glove. That’s all you need to master the devilish art of holing putts.

Take your glove and put it in your right or back arm pit. Hold it there with gentle pressure from your arm. This should look familiar as many PGA Tour players use a similar technique to work on the arms staying connected to the body in the downswing. For putting we have a small range of motion that is best controlled by connection with your shoulders and your back arm.

Now gasp the putter so that right hand and putter handle are in line with your sternum. Your right hand should be bent to a 90 degree angle to the ground.So that if there was a wall in front of your hand you could you could hit it flatly. To practice this new pattern you can set up to a door or some other place that allows you a flat surface you can get a feel for square contact in the putting swing.

Once you are comfortable with the basic motion, put your left or front hand on the grip to gently support the putting motion. Your right hand is the control position Think of your hands as sharing 100 percent of the grip pressure. The right hand should have 70 – 80 percent of the hand pressure. With the rest in your left hand.

The ball position is determined by the setup of your triangle. This should be roughly the center of your stance. The zero position is where club hangs in a square position flat to the ground. We are not trying to hit on the down or up swing. We are only letting the club face find the ball at zero with momentum needed to drop the putt.

To test this, use some tees to make a gate just wide enough for your putter head to move through. Now place the ball at the edge of the back of the gate. Now setup behind this gate. Start by making  small swings back and through, removing the ball if necessary to get the motion right.

The secret to putting is consistent square contact on your intended line. I didn’t mention speed because without the ability to hit your intended line,  speed is irrelevant. You can have the best speed control in the world, but you will never hit anything outside of 3 feet without hitting your line.