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Tom's Bonus Tip: Swing Fast or Swing Hard?
Lesson Comments: What Students Have To Say
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Tom's Featured Tip: Q&A: Hovering The Club
For simplicity, all advice on actual swings or drills is provided from a right handed perspective.
Q: Hi Tom, I've been reading your newsletters for several years and first of all, thanks for taking the time to write the articles, I really like them. You write them in language that I can understand.
My quick question is about whether I should be hovering the club before my backswing or soling it.
Thanks, Al G., Erie PA.
A: Hi Rich, thanks for your kind comments, for the language comment were you referring to English? Just kidding :-), thanks. Here are my thoughts on your question, which I've never been asked before, believe it or not.
Soling (grounding) the club at address and before the backswing means that you rest the clubhead lightly on the ground, then pick it up to start your backswing.
Hovering the club at address and before the backswing means that the clubhead is not touching the ground, that it's held slightly off the ground.
Most players, including myself, prefer to ground the club. But I must admit that your question is eerily coincidental because I have been toying with the idea of trying out hovering myself, and your question spurred me into doing some more research on it. I have tried it with the driver with mixed results, but I do intend to try it at the range with my irons to see how it affects my contact and my downward attack angle on the ball.
There have been notable successful pro golfers in the past that hovered the club, most notably Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman - and those guys weren't too shabby.
There are several modern day pro's that do it too - Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Matt Kuchar, Steve Stricker, Davis Love III, Jay Haas, Greg Norman, Yani Tseng, and Cristie Kerr to name a few.
These tour players all hover the club when the ball is teed, but a number also use the same method on iron swings and even putts.
The advantages of hovering are as follows:
- It promotes constant grip pressure. If you are a "serial grip tweaker" when you are addressing the ball, this might
be a good cure.
- It promotes a very smooth takeaway from the ball. This is particularly true with the driver, and with the driver it also
helps align the ball perfectly with the sweet spot on the face. It lessens the tendency to snap the clubhead up quickly and
vertically that can occur when the clubhead is soled.
-
It's also a valuable technique when your ball is sitting on top of a fluffy lie in the rough. Soling the club in such a lie
could move
the ball, incurring a penalty. By hovering the club, you not only eliminate that risk, you also reduce the tendency to snag the
clubface in the grass, both on the takeaway and on the way down to the ball.
- It's also an advantage to be able to swing with a hovered club if you ever need to hit a ball out of a hazard, where soling
the club is prohibited.
- The legendary player and teacher Paul Runyan described hovering as "measuring out" or "under-reaching" at address. He contended that if you didn't sole the club but held it just above the ground, and then kept your grip tension and spine angle constant throughout your swing, you would always hit the ball cleanly. I would add that a couple more elements come into play on solid impact, but it's an interesting concept.
The bottom line is that either way may be suitable for anyone, different strokes for different folks. But for myself - I'm going to try it out and see if anything changes for the positive.
Thanks again for the question Al.
Comments: ttucker@rochester.rr.com
Love your practice, own your swing, own your health,
Tom
Tour Greens: Tour Quality Synthetic Greens For Superb Short Game Practice
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If you would like a free, no obligation quote for getting a beautiful practice area or putting green installed on your property - indoors or outdoors - give me (Tom Tucker) a call at (716) 474-3005, or email at at ttucker@rochester.rr.com
For more information please click here: TourGreensWNY.com
Comments: ttucker@rochester.rr.com
Love your practice, own your swing, own your health,
Tom
Tom's Bonus Tip: Swing Fast or Swing Hard?
For simplicity, all advice on actual swings or drills is provided from a right handed perspective.
"Swing Fast or Swing Hard?". I've covered this topic before, but I wanted to address it again.
The subject came up as I was discussing various golf related swing things around a poker table.
We were talking about what it takes to hit the ball far, and invariably someone said you have to swing hard.
I chimed in that you have to swing fast, not hard, to which my buddy responded that you have to swing fast and hard.
You really can't have that one both ways, the answer is swing fast (among other things of course), not swing hard.
I take this position for two reasons.
- The "swing hard" thought planted in your brain often adds tension to your setup and takeaway, which is a swing speed inhibitor.
- However, the more important reason is that the thought of "swinging hard" promotes too much action from the dominant hand through impact. For almost all of my better players that I coach (when a student comes for recurring lessons I deem my relationship with them to be that of a coach), the task is to keep the dominant hand from being too active through impact.
Try it, you'll like it.
Comments: ttucker@rochester.rr.com
Love your practice, own your swing, own your health,
Tom
Golf Lessons
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there's a link for Plum Creek info here: http://www.tomtuckergolf.com/
Lessons are available for all ages and skill levels, please contact
me - Tom Tucker - at (716) 474 3005 or email me at ttucker@rochester.rr.com
for more information.
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All the best,
Tom Tucker
Teaching Pro, Plum Creek Driving Range & Practice Facility
WGTF ' "Top 100 Golf Teacher"
USGTF Class "A" Teaching Professional
IGPA Certified Golf Psychology Coach
Cell: (716) 474-3005
Email: ttucker@rochester.rr.com
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"There are no substitutes in the quest for perfection!"
~ Ben Hogan