Golf club

Fastest Way to Lower Your Scores – The Putter

August 20, 2006 by admin

What is the fastest way to lower your scores??

Let’s review a stat or two (very telling…). 43% of scoring occurs on the green (with the putter). Meaning if you shoot 90, you will average close to 40 putts per round. If you shoot 80, you will average 35 putts per round. There is no question, the quickest (and for most, the easiest) way to lower your scores is to work on your putting. In this e-tip, I am not going to discuss the proper fundamentals (we have discussed many times and talk about these in many of our instructional videos) – but rather common faults many have with their putting.

#1 – Improperly fit putter.

Many golfers have improperly fit putters. For most, the putter is too long for their set up and many times the lie angle does not fit. To determine proper length of a putter for you, do the following:

Bend over (at the waist) like you were going to putt. Bend comfortably (no stress on your back).
Hang your arms down comfortably (like you are going to putt) with slight (nature) bend in your arms (at the elbows).
Measure the distance from the top of your upper hand to the ground (may need someone to measure). Add one inch. This is a good approximation of the proper putter length for you.

Lie Angle – Set up over your putter (like you are going to hit a putt). Have someone hold your putter in that position. When the putter is set up, slide a card (business card…) under the toe of the putter and under the heel of the putter. It should be even from the toe to the heel. If not, the putter’s lie does not match your setup. You may need to bend to match your set up.

#2 – Improper Set Up The proper set up is to have the ball slightly forward in your stance and under your eyes.

Problem – if the ball is too far back in your stance – you will hit the ball on a downward blow causing it to “jump” on the green – you want overspin on the ball – caused by an upward blow at impact.

Problem – if the ball is not under your eye line it will be difficult to perform the proper putting stroke and when you set up over the ball, you will not be looking down your putting line (you will be looking at your putting line).

#3 – Hand Dominance

Test – Have both hands free. Clap a small/light clap. Determine which hand is moving and which is still. The hand that is moving is your dominant hand. The hand that is stationary is your non-dominant hand. If both are moving – you do not have a dominant side. (For most, you will clap one hand into a stationary hand…)

Issue – ideally you want your trail hand in your putting to be your dominant hand. For example – if you are a right-handed putter, ideally your right hand should be your dominant hand.

Why? Because, it is much easier to control your putter on line when your dominant hand is your trail hand. It is much harder to “wave” your putter off line when your dominant hand is your trail hand…

If you trail hand is your dominant hand – GREAT. If your lead hand is your dominant hand or if you don’t have a dominant hand – we recommend the following. 1. Practice one hand putting with your trail hand until it becomes more comfortable to putt with that hand than your lead hand. 2. May want to experiment putting cross-handed to “give your trail hand more emphasis” in the putting stroke.

Remember – the trail hand runs the putting stroke… the lead hand basically goes along for the ride…. #4 – Improper Grip

What type of grip do you hold your club with (how are your hands on the club)? Are your hands on your putter the same as your full swing grip?

They should not be…

Why? The reason your grip should be different is the following – you are “training” your body/hands to release the club when you are gripping your irons/woods, etc.. You do NOT want to release your putter. Meaning – you need to have a different feeling on the club (a different grip) on your putter.

Examples – I recommend trying the following –

Reverse overlap – putting the entire trail hand on the club and overlap one finger of the lead hand over the trail hand (this is the most popular grip with professionals).
Cross handed – put your right hand on top, left hand on bottom of the grip.
Whatever is comfortable for you (this is no “wrong putter grip”) as long as it is different than your full swing grip.

Remember the following facts about putting (and practicing putting):

There are only 3 things to work on when practicing putting – face alignment, path and speed. Everything in putting is affected by these 3 points. If you are not practicing at least one of these topics, you are not practicing your putting…
Your trail hand should “run” the putter – if not, your putting will be very inconsistent.
You should have VERY LITTLE body movement when putting – basically only your shoulders and arms.
You cannot be TOO OPEN in your putting stance (within reason) – but 1* closed is too closed. Check your alignment often to make sure you do not have a closed stance.

Good Luck!!

PLEASE don’t hesitate to call or email us anytime!! Remember – ALWAYS PRACTICE WITH A PURPOSE

How to Hit Fairway Woods and Hybrids

April 20, 2006 by admin

We have recently received quite a few requests to cover the fundamentals of hitting fairway woods and the recently popular long iron replacement clubs – the hybrid (aka the utility club, baffler, heavenwood, etc…)

We are also sure you have seen the increased popularity in these clubs (in particular the hybrids) by all players (both amateur and professional).

Reasons for the increased popularity include:

The ease of hitting these clubs compared to mid and long irons. The fairway woods and hybrids are built with a low center of gravity, weight in the front and base of the club, and a beveled sole with rounded edges, all making it much easier to get the ball off the ground with medium to minimal club head speed.
The ease of hitting these clubs high. As golf courses get longer and longer and greens get harder and harder, golfers are needing longer clubs in their bags that they can hit high and land soft on these hard greens… 2, 3, 4… irons with not do this. These clubs are built to come in relatively low and “hot” (minimal spin). The hybrids are built to create much more height on the golf shot with a soft landing on the green.

I remember a few years ago watching an old “Wonderful World of Golf” Show featuring Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. They were standing on the 17th hole (don’t remember the course) – a 200+ yard par 3. Jack pulled out a 3 iron and hit it just overhead high – the ball landed on the green, one hopped and stopped about 5 feet from the hole – a GREAT golf shot… but sorry to say Jack – that shot doesn’t work anymore. If he were to hit that shot on today’s greens (even the average municipal golf course’s greens) it would have on hopped over the back and ended up in the river… this is why Jack now also carries an addition fairway wood and hybrids… because, of course, the change in his swing – little slower now, not as easy to hit long irons…, but more importantly, because of the change in the golf course – much harder and faster and the need to hit those higher/softer shots.

As you go through this practice tip – think about the golf you play, the type of shots you need – How many times do you have 170++ yards into those par 3s or 2nd shots into the par 4s, etc.. that you need to hit the green that has a hard time holding even wedge shots??

How many times do you have to hit shots into tight pin positions from over 150 yards??

How many times do you set up over a long/mid iron thinking the percentage is pretty low to hit it solid and at the target??

A lot of these issues can be solved using hybrids and fairway woods and of course knowing how to properly play these clubs.

Good Luck! Remember – ALWAYS PRACTICE WITH A PURPOSE

The Grip cont.

April 5, 2005 by admin

This is a busy time of year for us and great things are happening. Our Orlando Academy is booming, and with construction of our building underway, I can only imagine the great things to come in the following months and year.

After teaching in Orlando for the past three months, once again we see the majority of the problems starting with how you, our students, hold and hinge the club. In other words, the way you hold the club is inhibiting the way your hands move. This grip problem causes arm movement problems and the entire swing is affected by poor hand placement. Since your hands and arms produce a majority of the speed in the golf swing (up to 90%), you can only imagine how much the grip is affecting your ability to produce speed. I have said this before, you can not spend too much effort understanding the grip. And you can’t spend too much time learning how to hold the club and move your hands and arms. With our expanding 2005 schedule and our new academy, I can’t imagine a more important addition to the Graves Golf Academy product line than the upcoming Training Grip / Club product. It has been a long time coming and FINALLY, we will have a product that will teach the foundation of Moe Norman’s golf swing….the grip/hold on the club.

So, with great enthusiasm for our newest product and as I continue to emphasize the importance of the grip, arm position and arm movement, I want to discuss some common grip issues, problems and the things that the Graves Golf Academy, Transitional Training Grip will address, help and solve.

The Grip: Most Common Problems and their effects

Moe Norman overlapped his trail pinkie over his lead hand index finger for the majority of his career until 1994. If you take a deep look at Moe’s hands, you find that the club did not sit directly across the lifeline of his trail hand. It couldn’t. If it did, there would be nowhere to place the lead thumb. The fact is that Moe’s grip was perfect in the sense that the way he held the club aligned the club correctly with the arms. His lead arm aligned with the club shaft forming the “Rod” and the trail arm aligned forming the single axis. This arm and club shaft alignment are significant. It indicates that the hands and arms are together in this piece of the golf swing puzzle. This means that if you hold the club incorrectly, your arms will also be incorrect.

One of the beauties of Moe’s golf swing was the way he moved the club shaft. The way he hinged his hands and the club moved on plane with tremendous hand speed.

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Cause: Holding the club too far in the Palm of the Trail Hand

Effect: Loss of Speed and Correct Angles

By holding the cub too far into the trail hand palm, you inhibit hand action. You limit the RANGE OF MOTION of the hand and it’s ability to move the club fully. In effect, you minimize your ability to move the club shaft. This means that you have reduced the ability to produce speed. The reason each club has a long shaft is to help your project the club head with hand movement. By holding the club in a limiting position, you aren’t using the tool (golf club) in a full capacity. And, I’m not talking about a little speed

here, I’m talking about major speed issues. Just think about it, If the trail hand produces 75% of the speed in the golf swing, and you inhibit the movement of the hand and arms which move the shaft, the snowballing effect is significant.

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Cause: Grip On The Club is Too Big

Effect #1: Holding the club in the Palm of the Lead Hand

Effect #2: Hands (set up) too high at address (above ideal single axis set up)

Effect #3: Inability to feel proper pressure points

Often we see students holding the club in the palm of the Lead hand especially when the grips on our student’s clubs are too big. When the grips are too big, it becomes difficult to hold the club far enough down in the lead hand in the fingers. Subsequently, a grip that is too big will also make it difficult to hold the club into the correct position of the trail hand. The club should be held in the fingers of the lead hand where the fingers hold the club under the heel pad of the hand not the THUMB pad. Holding the club under the thumb pad creates a weak and un-hingable (new GGA word) position where the lead hand can not hinge correctly and produce the necessary leverage angle. This position also places large amounts of stress on the lead wrist. Many students complain about pain and stress on the lead wrist joint. **************

Cause: Grip on Club Too Small

Effect #1: Poor Grip and Arm Position Below Single Axis

Effect #2: Inability to feel pressure points

Effect #3: Poor Clubface position and hand rotations

Grip size is an important issue since each of us had different hand sizes. Let’s review what is important about the grip to see why a grip that is too small can cause problems. First, it is important that the club aligns with the lead arm (Rod) and trail arm (Claw) where you hold the club in the fingers of the lead hand and in the proper rotation and position of the trail hand. With the arm and hand positions correct, it is important to address correctly and hinge the hands correctly. A grip that is too small can keep you form pure single axis. Second, it is important that you can feel the pressure points in both the lead hand last three fingers and the trail hand trigger point. These pressure points are important and if your grip is too small, you will have a hard time feeling these places. Without the correct pressure points, it can become difficult to hinge the hands and “feel” the club. If you can’t feel the club, you can not move the arms correctly. The correct hinging of the hands combined with the movement of the arms is what produces speed and keeps the club in the correct plane. Last – a grip that is too small will have a tendency to slip/twist in the hands, causing club head to twist into incorrect positions at impact.

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Cause: Grip too Weak

Effect #1: Club face is open leaving shots weak and right of target (right handed player)

Effect #2: Loss of Leverage and speed

Effect #3: Many swing problems to compensate

Another common problem is a grip that is too weak which means that the lead arm is not aligned with the club correctly in the Rod position. This causes huge problems when it comes to correct club movement. Usually, the hands are unable to hinge which causes an enormous loss of speed. And because of the incorrect hinge and leverage, you lose the correct angles of the club into the impact position causing fat shots or shots that are swept because the club is coming in too shallow. But most of all, a weak lead hand leads to many swing compensations such as head movement, poor arm movement and unnecessary lateral motion. There are many others but my point is that a weak lead hand means trouble.

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Cause: Grip too Strong

Effect #1: Hooks

Effect #2: Rotation of body to compensate for hand position

Effect #3: Stress on back

Effect #4: Other Swing problems to compensate

Having a Strong lead hand means that the hands are rotated too far away from the target. Although you can produce speed from this position because you can leverage the club, it is difficult to release the club when your hands are too strong. This causes many swing problems such as hooking the ball, shoulder problems, rotation of the torso to make up for the inability to release the club and the weight staying back on the trail foot because of too much body rotation. You can also find stress being put on your back because of your inability to release the club. The Worst of All the Grip Problems: Lead Hand Weak, Trail Hand Strong On a final note about the grip, what I find might be the most troublesome is to have a lead hand that is too weak and a trail hand that is too strong. This combination of faults is rapidly becoming more popular as

we see students exaggerate unfortunate PALM idea. The fact is that Moe had his hands in the correct placement to move the club in an ideal single plane movement. This single plane / single axis included correct hand hinging which produced correct angles into impact and club speed. The lead hand and trail hand must work together as the lead hand hinges and trail hand cocks they are UNIFIED. This unification moves the club and club had correctly where you can move the club with minimal effort and maximum speed. This ideal mechanical advantage of the hands allows the body to stabilize and the arms to move correctly creating a simple golf swing that Moe called, “The Feeling of Greatness”. Good luck working on your grip – remember – you must START with your connection to the club – your grip… get it right – swing is made easy.. grip not right – continuous struggle with compensations making up for improper grip.

Please feel free to contact us anytime with any questions or comments. Remember – Always practice with a purpose.

Clubs to Fit the Single Plane Swing

December 20, 2004 by admin

I have been getting a lot of emails and calls lately (in the past week) about students wanting to change their clubs to fit the single axis swing. And to be honest, I have heard a lot of MISS INFORMATION that I am sure is causing a lot of problems with fitting clubs. I think many may be buying or building clubs right now (maybe Christmas, maybe because hitting balls has slowed down due to winter months and decided time to tinker with clubs.)

#1. The club for the single axis swing IS NOT NECESSARILY (and I repeat NOT) more upright (lie angle) than a conventional club.

Reason – this may have been true 3 or 4 years ago, but most if not all manufacturers irons are more upright now than the past.

Examples (lie angle) (listed 5 irons): * The Ralph Maltby Complete Golf Club Fitting Plan (2nd Edition) as the standard lie angle for a 5 iron as 60.5*. (Used and recommended by the PGA). 4 years ago, this recommended lie angle was 59*.

Callaway: 2000: Standard 59.5*, 2004 Standard: 62.3*
Titleist: 2001: Standard 59*, 2004 Standard: 62*

Here are a few of today’s standard lie angles:

Callaway: 62.3*
Titleist: 62*
Ping (Black Eye): 61.75*
McGregor: 62*
Cobra: 62.5*
Natural Golf: 62*
Taylormade: 61*

If you take a standard club off the shelf (what 95% of clubs that are on the shelf are built to) and bend 2* upright as many say you should, your club will not fit – not even close.

This has cost a lot of golfers $ as they get a club that is way too upright and must replace as many clubs you cannot bend enough back.

**** If your lie angle is 3* or more off, it can affect your ball flight by up to 20 yards right or left. Meaning, perfect swing, perfect contact, perfect path, perfect face angle at impact, lie angle off 3*, your ball will be 20 yards left or right of the target.

#2 The lie angle is dependent on height vs. arm length. Not everyone is the same – not even close. We have tables and standards for this.

A couple of examples:

Moe – 5 ft 7 inches tall – wrist to floor 32 inches – lie angle: 59*
Todd – 5 ft 9 inches tall – wrist to floor 34 inches – lie angle: 60*
Tim – 5 ft 10 inches tall – wrist to floor 34 inches – lie angle: 60.5*

Please, please, please, please let us give you a recommend lie before you build a set of clubs or purchase…

#3 Length of club is also variable of height vs arm length. The length does not change as much as lie angle as you just have a different angle to the ball, but distance will remain the same. There are some variations and need to know those before you build or purchase. Example. 6 ft tall individual with average length arms: 5 iron graphite 38.5 inches, steel: 38 inches.

#4 Grip size: VERY IMPORTANT – determined by hand size. THE SAME GRIP DOES NOT FIT EVERYONE. Even if you use the no tapered grips – they may need to be stretched or built up accordingly.

Example: Medium Large or 7 3/4 inch hand size – Mid Size grip with 4 under wraps lower hand, 2 under wraps upper hand.

Point to remember here – MUCH BETTER too small than too large. Too large will inhibit the release of your swing because it does not allow for proper pressure points in the swing.

#5 Flex of club is determined by how far you hit shots or club head speed. Need right flex to get right launch angle on your clubs so you can hit to maximized distance. This is true for all irons and woods.

Ex. 100 mph with driver (230 ball fly) is a stiff flex. 90 mph with driver (210 ball fly) is regular…

Let us help you determine shaft flex – critical to good ball striking.

Don’t just get something off the rack or build something to standard.. this is like buying a shoe that is the model shoe (one that doesn’t fit, but on top off all the boxes..). Make SURE your clubs fit you…

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