Editor’s observe: The featured picture is of Alex Noren‘s closely calloused fingers.
I’ve made a life out of watching so many leisure golfers battle to attain a measure of proficiency and consistency of their primary ball-striking expertise. Statistics point out the overwhelming majority of golfers have by no means damaged 90, and much too many are caught with common scores even larger.
At the moment’s put up is especially for these golfers who fall into that class, however I feel the remainder of you would possibly discover this attention-grabbing as effectively.
For the previous two years, I’ve spent a while with new high-handicap associates who’re in varied phases of golf talent, from relative newbie to decades-long battle. I’m at all times amazed at how golfers can play this sport for years and by no means obtain an inexpensive measure of ball-striking consistency.
I firmly imagine from these observations that the majority mid- to high-handicap gamers fail to attain the consistency they need as a result of they’re making an attempt to “hit” the ball by manipulating the membership with their grasp hand, as an alternative of swinging the membership with their physique core and arms.
And I simply had an epiphany of kinds. So, hear me out and give it some thought this fashion…
My years of statement convinces me that the explanation golf is so darned troublesome simply may be this: no matter whether or not it’s a drive or a brief chip, essentially the most primary error is believing you management the strike of the ball with the fingers. I used to be taught early in life that essentially the most primary elementary of all is that the golf swing is a rotational transfer of the physique core, with the fingers and membership following that rotation by the affect zone.
And this simply dawned on me, perhaps the problem for golfers to fully grasp and undertake this primary elementary lies within the notion that we play golf both “right-handed” or “left-handed”. If you’re typically right-handed in your on a regular basis expertise, and also you play golf within the method we now have at all times referred to as “right-handed”, then you definitely stand on the left aspect of the ball (dealing with the goal). You will have your weaker aspect main the swing, and you’re in all probability making an attempt to “information” the membership to the ball along with your grasp hand. In any case, you’re enjoying “right-handed” aren’t you?
The alternative is true of those that method the sport from the correct aspect of the ball, which we name “left-handed.”
I contend that the talent of putting a golf ball persistently isn’t any form of “X-handed” sport. So, what when you change your considering that when you stand on the left aspect of the ball (once more, dealing with the goal), then you’re enjoying the sport “left-sided.” And when you stand on the correct aspect of the ball, then you’re enjoying “right-sided.”
Serious about it that manner, if you’re left-sided, then it stands to purpose that your left aspect leads the physique core, arms, fingers, and membership by affect – in that order. You’re not a “right-handed” participant, you’re a left-sided participant. And as a left-sided participant, you could arrange in your deal with place with the left aspect of your physique in a powerful place to push the membership again on the takeaway and pull the membership by on the downswing by affect.
Right here’s why that is so vital.
The golf swing is basically a sequence with a number of moderately inflexible hyperlinks. The physique core hyperlinks to the shoulders, which hyperlink to the lead arm, which is linked to the membership with the fingers, and the membership is the final hyperlink within the chain. So, when you have been transferring a size of chain that was too heavy to select up, would you pull it or attempt to push it? Clearly, you can’t push a sequence, however once you attempt to management the swing along with your proper hand, you’re actually making an attempt to push this chain from the center.
I imagine that there is no such thing as a purpose for any golfer to be “caught” with talents that maintain their scores within the 90s to 100s, however I additionally really feel sure that it might take extraordinary eye-hand coordination for any hand-dominant participant to attain a measure of consistency in scoring in low single digits.
A few years in the past, I might do seminars for golf membership fitters, and developed a convincing “present and inform” to show simply how troublesome it’s to regulate a golf membership along with your fingers. I might have a volunteer from the viewers come up and signal their identify on my flip chart with a Sharpie. Isn’t signing your identify probably the most acquainted eye-hand actions you do?
Then I might hand that volunteer a wedge with a Sharpie taped to the hosel and have them try to signal their identify once more. The consequence was normally a virtually illegible hen scratch of a scribble.
So, when you can’t signal your identify from the tip of a wedge, what likelihood do you could have of constructing a persistently strong strike of the golf ball?
Proper-sided or left-sided, regardless of which you’re, I hope you get the identical epiphany from immediately’s put up because the one which impressed me to jot down it.
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