Golf Tips and Instruction- February 28, 2007
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How To Break 80 Newsletter
February 28, 2007
“The Web’s Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter”
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In this issue we’ll discuss…
1) Using the Fingers Grip
2) Perfecting Your Swing Plane
3) Article- Rules and Remedies: Unplayable Lies
4) Article- Nutrition 101: What To Eat (And Not) In Order To Play Better Golf
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1) Using the Fingers Grip
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If you want to add power to your swing, increase control of your clubhead, and maybe even eliminate a slice that?s been plaguing you for years, adopt a grip that places more of the handle in your fingers, and less in your palms.
Many beginning golfers have problems gripping a club correctly. But they’re not alone. Even veteran golfers grip the club incorrectly. Having gotten used to a grip after using it for so many years, they have a hard time changing grips, even though it could improve their games.
Among the biggest gripping problems is holding the club too much with the palms of your hands. Holding a club too much in the palms causes two things to happen. And both of them are bad for your game.
First, you short-circuit power. Your fingers are the fastest parts of your body. If you’re not using them, you?re robbing your swing of tons of potential speed. Second, you lose some control. You can?t grab an object with your palms as tightly as you can with your fingers. Thus, you lose some control of the clubhead as it speeds through the hitting zone.
Next time you’re at the practice range try this approach to gripping a club. Instead of gripping it with your palms and then wrapping your fingers around the handle, try gripping the club with your fingers, then wrapping your palms around the club. For golfers with less overall strength, try gripping the club with all 10 fingers instead of using an interlocking or overlapping grip. Now hit some balls with the new grip.
The results may surprise you. You?ll not only gain a true whip of the club through impact, but you’ll also increase your feel of the club. That means you’ll be able to feel the clubhead square up through the contact area, just as it should, resulting in a longer, straighter shot.
If you want to generate more power from your swing, try gripping the club with your fingers more. It increases the speed of the clubhead through the impact zone, improves the feel of the club at impact, and generates longer, straighter shots. It may even help you produce that power curve you?ve always wanted to hit.
=================================================== 2) Perfecting Your Swing Plane
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Swing plane is among the most important concepts in golf. It?s also one of the most intimidating and confusing ideas to weekend golfers because many are unsure what it is, let alone why it?s important. But if you can perfect your swing plane, you?ll hit the ball straighter and farther.
To envision a swing plane, stand at address with a ball on the ground in front of you. Now imagine a dotted line drawn from the ball, along the clubshaft and up past the club?s grip. This is your swing plane line.
As you take the club away, it should remain on the dotted line until it?s parallel to the ground, or about a quarter of the way through your takeaway. From there the club may move slightly above the dotted line as it reaches the top of your backswing. That?s a natural result of the lifting action of your arms.
Below are five tips to perfecting your swing plane:
1. Rotate your upper body
2. Maintain the ?triangle?
3. Keep hands parallel to target line
4. Keep the bend in your knees
5. Stay above swing plane
To create a perfect swing plane, rotate your upper body against your hips, keeping them steady. Maintain the triangle formed by your hands, wrists, and forearms during the initial stages of the backswing, but keep the hands moving parallel to the target line. Also keep the bend in your knees assumed at address, creating a solid platform to support your turn. Don?t allow the club to move behind you or under the swing plane.
The natural change of direction from backswing to downswing will drop the club on the dotted line, so that the clubhead approaches the ball on the same plane as it was at address. Through impact, the rotation of your forearms keeps the club on the dotted line well into the finish.
Swing plane is a critical concept in golf. Perfecting it helps you not only hit the ball better, it also improve your scores and your game.
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If you want to truly discover the secrets of shooting like the Pros and creating a more reliable and consistent swing, check out:
http://www.HowToBreak80.com
Also, for past issues of this newsletter and some of my most
recent articles, visit our blog at www.HowToBreak80.com/blog
To view this newsletter online, please visit:
http://www.howtobreak80.com/newsletter02212007.html
Here are some of my recent articles:
3) Article- Rules and Remedies: Unplayable Lies
3) Article- Nutrition 101: What To Eat (And Not) In Order To Play Better Golf
Until next time, Go Low!
Jack
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break80ezine@aweber.com
=================================================== About the Author
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Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 and Shoot Like the Pros!”. He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicaps quickly. His free weekly newsletter goes out to thousands of golfers worldwide and provides the latest golf tips, strategies, techniques and instruction on how to improve your golf game.
March 9th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
[...] Read full entry [...]
May 17th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I am an older golfer of 60 but played to scratch in college and a few years beyond. I never paid much attention to the swing plane theory but have studied this concept in recent years. Breaking down the logic of being on-plane is simple once you see an “Iron Byron” hitting a ball. Aside from weight shift typical in a human, the Iron Byron is perfectly on plane and the clubface is always “square”. Why then wouldn’t one want to copy that swing? If you analyze Tiger’s swing he seems to be perfectly on plane with his hands and wrists perfectly square at the top. I’ve heard Gary Player talk about Hogan “cupping” at the top and I too do that but I believe this is an extraneous move that with practice could and should be eliminated so as to further simplify the swing. Tell me where I’m wrong?