Seems grip and body tension can be too weak also?

[yanni]

I tried everything to get rid of my casting. My club head speed with an 7 iron was around 70mph. I tried everything the coach recommended. Nothing really helped. I could accelerate up to 75mph what this was not consistent at all. I had absolutely no control with that kind of speed.

You know this advice "hold your club as you would hold a bird". To me this meant holding the club as light as possible. On a scale of 1-10 probably around 2. Just as much the club does not fly away. Everybody was telling me I should swing very relaxed and loose. When Hogan says something like that he probably has much stronger hands than me anyway. So when he holds a bird this means something very different for him than for me. 

Now look at the pros. Is Tiger loose? Not really in my opinion. He seems to have a very strong athletic position. But he swings very fluently. 

What I did now is to change my grip pressure to something like 5-6 on a scale form 0-10. This solved the following problems

1) With the old loose grip I could not hold the lag cause the club just dropped on his own. This lead to an early release and casting. I could do whatever I wanted but the club released too early on its own on the way down.
2) My fastest swing is 84mph now! The more relaxed ones around 78mph without a lot of effort. 
3) Probably everything is more consistent now.  I could not test this on the range yet though.

Some trainer (not mine) also gave the advice to be really strong (tense) (!) in your body to create speed? To me this is quite the opposite of what most people say. I tried this also but did not gain additional speed. Interestingly enough I did not loose any speed though ! 

Did anybody experience something similar?
 

Edited March 27, 2018 by yanni

[saevel25]

Here is the issue with talking about grip pressure. Your 8 out of 10 is different than my 8 out of 10.

I believe a golfer should hold the club as firm as possible with out causing the muscles in the arms to become rigid. This takes a lot of grip pressure to do.

 

[yanni]

Yes that's a basic problem in golf. Words do not really help as the feel is totally different between players. For Ben Hogan his light grip would be a very strong grip for me.

[rehmwa]

I hold as firm as I can without feeling like I'm squeezing hard (as long as I'm not binding up anything else) - and even firmer if I have a rough lie......  (Also, pros might have much stronger grip pressure than an average golfer, not like a rock climber, but get what I mean).  I suspect they hold 'firmly'.  If you feel awkward because of a lightly loaded grip, then clearly it's too loose for you......

I also get better results in just about every activity that requires precision if I keep my abs tight/flexed.  Includes full swing in golf.  For that, try yoga - some tension is good for performance.  I don't see how one can 'load up' their torso if they don't use those muscles....we're not noodles

I would hypothesize that if one is really fit, then this "firm yet relaxed" posture and core is natural.  If one isn't it might be on the checklist.....

YMMV

Edited March 27, 2018 by rehmwa

[yanni]

2 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

I hold as firm as I can without feeling like I'm squeezing hard (as long as I'm not binding up anything else) - and even firmer if I have a rough lie......  (Also, pros might have much stronger grip pressure than an average golfer, not like a rock climber, but get what I mean).  I suspect they hold 'firmly'.

I also get better results in just about every activity that requires precision if I keep my abs tight/flexed.  Includes full swing in golf.

YMMV

I think this is what the coach meant when he said you could get more power from a firmer body. I will try that. To sum it up

1) Hands tight (at least for me it feels tight)
2) Abs tight. 
3) Rest relaxed

 

[rehmwa]

Just now, yanni said:

I think this is what the coach meant when he said you could get more power from a firmer body. I will try that. To sum it up

1) Hands tight (at least for me it feels tight)
2) Abs tight. 
3) Rest relaxed

 

On the abs - goldilocks it....not too hard, not too soft......just right

[yanni]

4 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

On the abs - goldilocks it....not too hard, not too soft......just right

Understand. I was trying to leave everything as loose as possible. But this was leading to a lot inconsistency and loss of power I think.

Edited March 27, 2018 by yanni

[Foot Wedge]

21 minutes ago, yanni said:

Words do not really help as the feel is totally different between players.

Hold an iron out in front of you halfway between parallel and perpendicular to the ground, so at about 45*.  The lightest grip necessary to hold it steady should be firm enough without causing tension.  Give that a shot.

[yanni]

16 minutes ago, Foot Wedge said:

Hold an iron out in front of you halfway between parallel and perpendicular to the ground, so at about 45*.  The lightest grip necessary to hold it steady should be firm enough without causing tension.  Give that a shot.

Yes this is what I did. And this way more firm than what I was used to.

[Foot Wedge]

17 minutes ago, yanni said:

And this way more firm than what I was used to.

Yeah everything is relative.  I hope it works out for you.

[iacas]

On 3/27/2018 at 1:58 PM, yanni said:

I tried everything to get rid of my casting.

Well… you didn't post a Member Swing topic here. So you didn't even try every free thing.

[Zeph]

Yeah, try to let others help with direct feedback to your swing. Randomly trying all kinds of internet tips will most likely not get you anywhere. You focus a lot on your hands, but in almost every case of throwing the club out early, there are other elements in your swing causing it. You might be doing things that force you to cast the club, no matter how hard you try not to. If you don't fix those other problems, the casting will always be there. At the same time, fixing other issues can get rid of the casting without even focusing on casting.

Start a thread and post a video, it's a great opportunity to get free tips from some really good instructors that will give you suggestions on where to start. I would be surprised if you'd get tips on grip strength right away.

[The Recreational Golfer]

It was Sam Snead who said you should hold the club like it was a baby bird, and someone else said, Sure, if that baby bird is a hawk.

As with @saevel25, hold it as tight as you can without feeling any tension in your fingers, hands, or forearms.

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by The Recreational Golfer

[Patch]

I was told to hold the club as tight as possible, without feeling "too much" tension in my forearms, or as little as possible. 

My guru also said that idea of releasing the club, meant relaxing the wrists enough to let the club swing freely on it's own into the ball. That the point of release was usually automatic.

Another way to look at it was to hold the club as firm as possible, without feeling a bounce back effect at impact with the ball. Kind of like a "vibrating wobbly" effect. 

 

[yanni]

Thanks. I tried going the youtube and internet advice route. Did not work at all. Lead to errors instead of solving them. Took regular lessons now in which we got rid of everything I teached myself wrong. I did everything me teacher taught me and still was casting. The last element was the grip. My pro told me 90% of his students grip too tight so he never thought about I could grip to loose. I found this out myself just trying different things. The problem is solved now. And make very clean contact and gained tons of distance. We also use video every time so I can clearly see its finally solved.

My thread was not so much about "How I can solve casting" it was more about sharing my experience. The idea with posting videos is still a very good advice.

5 hours ago, Patch said:

I was told to hold the club as tight as possible, without feeling "too much" tension in my forearms, or as little as possible. 

My guru also said that idea of releasing the club, meant relaxing the wrists enough to let the club swing freely on it's own into the ball. That the point of release was usually automatic.

Another way to look at it was to hold the club as firm as possible, without feeling a bounce back effect at impact with the ball. Kind of like a "vibrating wobbly" effect. 

 

This describes what I do right now and it works. My wrist and forearm are quite loose. But my hands are much stronger compared to before. This also gives me way more control. I actually found this out by doing very small and slow swings. But note compared to others my pressure is probably still weak. Just for myself it feels very strong.

What I learned now that words do hardly translate to the real feel. 
 

Edited April 5, 2018 by yanni

[Buckeyebowman]

Long ago I read an article where the guy wrote about meeting Hogan and shaking his hand. Said it felt like he'd put his hand in a vise! Lots of people didn't give golfers credit for how much strength they had in their hands and forearms. Not so much these days with the overall level of fitness among Tour pros.

Have also read and heard in several places that the first muscles to "fire" when initiating the downswing are the core muscles.

But, it sounds like you've found something that works, Yanni. Good for you.

[JonMA1]

I sometimes wonder if the whole tension thing comes from holding the club to far into the palms and not enough in the fingers.

Don't know if this will help @yanni, but I remember reading from some of the better players here that they grip it tight while keeping their wrists as loose as possible, and that it took some time to be able to do that.

As far as tension in the rest of my body, I don't know what's right or wrong (for me). If I'm super relaxed, all my bad habits get even worse than normal. It's why I'm not a big fan of "just swing the club head".

[yanni]

3 hours ago, JonMA1 said:

I sometimes wonder if the whole tension thing comes from holding the club to far into the palms and not enough in the fingers.

Don't know if this will help @yanni, but I remember reading from some of the better players here that they grip it tight while keeping their wrists as loose as possible, and that it took some time to be able to do that.

As far as tension in the rest of my body, I don't know what's right or wrong (for me). If I'm super relaxed, all my bad habits get even worse than normal. It's why I'm not a big fan of "just swing the club head".

If you watch the pros I don't have the feeling there are super relaxed. Even the lady golfers seem to be very athletic and I have some tension in their body. I think this tension is really needed to get a stable posture. Still their swing ist very fluent. I think the thing is certain parts of the body have to be relaxed others not. In my experience shoulders, hips, wrist and arms should be relaxed. Core and hands should not be totally relaxed.