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If you've been struggling with hitting the ball on line, maybe you haven't fully realized two things. One, reread the posts and research on initial ball direction and the overwhelming importance of clubface orientation over path. Two, your hands are the most valuable tool you have going for you in controlling the clubface. I've always thought it was a little misguided when today's teachers focus on how to move the body, turn the shoulders, shift the weight, etc. without spending more time on the hands.... more specifically, on the importance of feedback from the hands in determining whether your body motions are correct or not. Check out this picture:

Sensory and Motor Homunculus

It's a scale model where the scale is determined by how many sensory and motor neurons are devoted to each body part relative to the others. See how big the hands are? That's the way your brain is wired. That's also why products like the Pure Ball Striker are such ingenious little inventions.

Keep this in mind the next time you are out practicing. Take a little bit of time and focus on how your hands feel in the golf swing. Learn what it feels like to maintain lag pressure, release the right elbow down the target line and hit with a square clubface. I'd also recommend brushing the grass or clipping a weed with every practice swing you take for the rest of your life so that you get the sensory feedback you need.

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I agree that the hands are great tools for lag feedback, but they're not much good for anything else, except of course holding the club.
Very few people have issues squaring the club face at impact. Even a 30+ handicap with a monster slice can get the ball to start straight.

Poor shots are by and large produced by swing path. The swing path is best manipulated by moving "the body, the shoulder turn and weight shift", that's why teachers focus on those factors.

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"homunculus" sounds like something you can catch from those ladies that "work" downtown...

Colin P.

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but they're not much good for anything else, except of course holding the club.

The hands are responsible for finding the sweetspot - the hands provide power, the hands provide direction which has already mentioned here, the hands provide feedback to your brain where your clubhead is in your swing. There is a lot more going on that just holding that hand and feeling pressure - you have to translate this pressure into something useful.

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The hands are responsible for finding the sweetspot - the hands provide power, the hands provide direction which has already mentioned here, the hands provide feedback to your brain where your clubhead is in your swing. There is a lot more going on that just holding that hand and feeling pressure - you have to translate this pressure into something useful.

Let's work our way through your bold statement.

"The hands are responsible for finding the sweetspot" - No, again, the only thing the hands are responsible for is holding your club. As a bonus you can feel lag in certain parts of your hands (pressure points). This feeling in your hands can tell you if you're maintaining lag or not. "The hands provide power" - Only a limited amount. There are a few movements you can perform to power your swing. They're called "Power Accumulators". They are; straightening the right arm from its bent position at the top of the backswing, uncocking your wrists on the downswing from their cocked position, rotating, or rolling, the wrists anticlockwise through impact, and finally, the turning of your torso on the downswing, which pushes your left arm through impact. Of these, the only "handsy" accumulator is the rolling of the wrists through impact. It's seldom advised however because it doesn't provide much power, and it can seriously throw off your swing plane, and therefore the ball flight. "The hands provide direction" - In what way? Yes your hands are moving the club because they're holding onto it, but as you can see above, the movement of the hands is controlled by moving other parts of your body. "The hands provide feedback to your brain where your clubhead is in your swing" - No it doesn't, at least not accurately enough to be of any use in a golf swing. You must have heard the expression "What you feel, aint real"? What you think is going on with your hands behind your back isn't the case. That's why we have video to see exactly what you're doing during the swing.

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The hands are important for me for a number of reasons.

1: Tension - Too much tension and I flip like crazy, the swing gets very robot like. When I ease up on it and hold the club softer, I'm able to swing smoother. And hit the ball farther.

2: Clubface control. The clubface is in large controlled by the hands. You can rotate the arms and mess it up, but most of the time it is hands. Holding the club off, rolling it over through impact. I would not give clubface angle or swingpath angle the majority of responsibility for poor shots, it can be one or the other. Surely, for a high handicapper, the OTT path will always lead to trouble, but for a lower handicap, with a consistent swing path, the clubface will most of the time determine if you hit your target or not. A deviation of 1ΒΊ will result in many yards 200 yards ahead.

3: Lag. Feeling pressure point 1 as I come down with a smooth and accellerating stroke. Lynn calls it "elusive" in the video below, that is a good word, because once you get started in the wrong direction, or rather in the wrong sequence, there is no stopping. I've done a lot of things to work on lag, but what has made the biggest difference is the hands, how they feel, how I use the pressure points, how they control the tension in my body. Lag can be a very abstract thing in the golf swing. We can see a lot of stuff happening and not happening, but you can't see when the hands throw away the lag. And you can't see when they sustain the lag and drive through the plane line. Most of it sits in the hands. For some, it comes naturally, for others, it takes more work. Hitting on a grass range vs mat range can make a huge difference in how fast you progress in this area.

Lynn Blake explains it well in this video that was recently posted on this forum somewhere:



I've started with the ball more forward, hands more forward, weight more forward, shorter backswing, slower downswing (initially), and driving the club into the ball, down the plane line. My ballstriking has never been better. If I hit a poor shot, I'll feel that I had too much tension or didn't drive PP3 enough.

The hands are our only contact with the club, of course they are important. Another one is grip, which can make a huge difference to many parts of the swing. I got a lot of good things going in my swing, but without the right feelings in my hands, all of that is useless, as I will still be able to hit the ground 2 inches behind the ball.

My hands have always been very late, so I'm working on getting the hands to drive the body. Some people say the arms and hands should be passive on the downswing, I can't possibly imagine how that is possible. It is at least not for me, I have to get the hands going. The hands move away from it's initial position by folding the right elbow and crossing the left arm over your chest. There is no way they can get down again to a good impact position without being forced.

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My hands have always been very late, so I'm working on getting the hands to drive the body. Some people say the arms and hands should be passive on the downswing, I can't possibly imagine how that is possible. It is at least not for me, I have to get the hands going. The hands move away from it's initial position by folding the right elbow and crossing the left arm over your chest. There is no way they can get down again to a good impact position without being forced.

this, big +1 youll hear many people say something like, "i make a good shoulder turn, and then turn back thru the ball, and everything else is just along for the ride" - and i used to believe it. therefore, i was late with the arms/hands, and would have to flip to be able to even hit the ball. of course, i still flip, as does most of the forum here, and most of the golfing population, but you really have to drive the hands down, thru, and out like what the video says. keep pushing the hands. dont flip them. push them hard.

Colin P.

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β€œconvulsive throwing pressures instead of steady driving pressures”

And

β€œcreate and sustain steady driving pressures”

And

β€œdownward, outward and forward – a true 3 dimensional impact”

Colin P.

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this, big +1

another +1. Well said IMO. Been working on maintaing the flying wedge lately, and yeah you have to drive the hands through. My ball striking improved overnight doing this. The accuracy has been surprising, I never hit the ball this straight. Still having a hard time committing to it with the driver though. I'm sure the body needs to be involved and you can't have an arms only swing obviously, but I think this goes under the category of "feel is not real." If your hands are going to get in this position (below), you need to get them there somewhat manually I'm guessing. What I'm saying is, you can't stop your hands and assume the body will do the rest. That's what I'm learning anyway.


I agree that the hands are great tools for lag feedback, but they're not much good for anything else, except of course holding the club.

I guess I'm in the minority because I'm no 30 hdcp but still have considerable issues squaring up the longer clubs at impact. I'm sure swing path may have something to do with it but if I'm snapping a hook almost 45 degrees to the left it's not all swing path related.


this, big +1

Another huge plus 1. This little "tip" screwed me up good. "Passive arms" do not work for me.

My golf teacher, who I think is awesome, has a very natural approach to teaching the swing. We never talk about positions or takeaway or swing planes or anything like that. About the only thing he ever does talk about is how important it is to have "good hands". Hands is pretty much all he ever talks about. If you ask him - the hands are the single most important thing in the swing . .by a long shot.

I guess I'm in the minority because I'm no 30 hdcp but still have considerable issues squaring up the longer clubs at impact. I'm sure swing path may have something to do with it but if I'm snapping a hook almost 45 degrees to the left it's not all swing path related.

You've already mentioned the cure for your initial ball flight problems in your previous post. Maintain the "flying wedge" with your right wrist through impact. It ensures a flat left wrist which in turn ensures you're square through impact.

It's hard to do to start with, especially with longer clubs because you feel as though you should be "releasing" your wrists through impact for power. Stick with it though, you'll be pleased with the results.

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I guess I'm in the minority because I'm no 30 hdcp but still have considerable issues squaring up the longer clubs at impact. I'm sure swing path may have something to do with it but if I'm snapping a hook almost 45 degrees to the left it's not all swing path related.

I'm no 30 hcp either and agree about the importance of the hand position at impact.

In my last round I started pushing and push-fading some of my drives after a few holes. I concentrated on everything but my hands to try to fix the problem (swing plane, weight transfer etc etc) and it didn't go away. Not good - 2 shots were played from an adjacent fairway on par 5's ..... On the range a few days after that round I discovered what the problem was - it came back again after maybe 10 decent drives. It's an old chestnut with me, namely cupping my wrist a bit at the top and failing to square my left hand properly through the contact zone. Just aweful, but an easy one to fix. Once I realized what was happening I started squaring/flattening my left wrist and was hitting drives pretty darned straight, maybe with a bit of draw which I generally like as long as it doesn't turn into a hook. So I agree with those who say that the hands are critical and something that is often forgotten with all the emphasis on weight shift, swing plane, knee bend yada yada yada. I hate it when something I thought I'd fixed years ago rears its ugly head again, but once you realize what's happening, Bingo! For the time being .....

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My golf teacher, who I think is awesome, has a very natural approach to teaching the swing. We never talk about positions or takeaway or swing planes or anything like that. About the only thing he ever does talk about is how important it is to have "good hands". Hands is pretty much all he ever talks about. If you ask him - the hands are the single most important thing in the swing . .by a long shot.

The hands can "save" a shot and The Golfing Machine says you need a pair of "educated hands" to play good golf, but if all your instructor talks about are your hands and you're still shooting 90 then as "awesome" as he may be you need to look elsewhere.

The hands can only do so much. If they're constantly having to save things because the body's in bad positions you won't get as good as you can get as quickly as you can get good.

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I never really feel like my hands are doing anything except driving forward. Lynn Blake is fond of saying that they're "clamps" and don't really do a whole lot. If you have over-active hands you're probably doing something else wrong in your swing to where they need to try to "save" the shot.

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"homunculus" sounds like something you can catch from those ladies that "work" downtown...

It's one of the monsters that Buffy killed in Season 4.

When I'm hitting the ball well, I have a real good feeling of hitting the ball with my hands coming in square and toward the target...hence the clubface as well. When I can't get that feeling, my swing is reduced to guessing.

Homonculus are human look creatures made by alchemy ;b

As soon as i start thinking of my hands, i am dead.

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I never really feel like my hands are doing anything except driving forward. Lynn Blake is fond of saying that they're "clamps" and don't really do a whole lot. If you have over-active hands you're probably doing something else wrong in your swing to where they need to try to "save" the shot.

My take was going to be there's more bad information in this thread than an Amway convention. So many people still hold on to the old notions, which have been disproven time and time again. I was at the range today, and heard it all again, "you're slicing, you need to release the club..." Student hits a bigger slice. "You didn't release it." Hits another monster slice. "Try moving this shoulder here, this foot should have weight on it here..." Another slice.

Finally, the kid hits one ball straight... He's timed it just right to shut the face and pull it. Viola! Magic! The thing is, none of that is true. I found a video of me when I was hitting some bad snap hooks, and got a shot of the club around impact. The line is where the face is pointed, the circle is where the ball landed. What's more ironic, the times I hit the ball best, my hands feel as if I'm hitting up on the ball, not down.

Note:Β This thread is 5147 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic.Β Thank you!

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