I found this post from an instructor on another forum. Interested to hear others' reaction to this.
"As a golf instructor, there are no secrets. The closest you can get to the "secret" is understanding lag. The more lag you can produce, the better your chances in the long run of improving. Achieving lag is very elusive. I teach my students to try and hit the ball with the back of the hosel. First and foremost, a good turn is needed with back to the target. Then, I get them to try and hit the inside corner of the ball with the back of the hosel with the toe of the clubface facing 180 degrees away from the line of flight.
The ball will be hit square, much to the amazement of most of my students. Sometimes, it takes them about 25 balls, because they dont trust this motion due to years of trying to "hit" the ball with the "sweet spot" of the clubface. The "sweet spot" is not the axis of the swing. With my approach, the release becomes automatic, as does the squaring of the clubface. And distance generally one club longer due to the increased velocity of the release.
Most students I teach throw the club away in the downswing and a good hit is simply luck. By employing the method I have outlined, club throwaway is diminshed.
The hit with the hosel concept works good as a drill. Do pump drills with the thought of hitting the ball with the back of the hosel. On the fifth "pump", take a full swing. After enough practice with this, you will find much more solid and accurate contact, and if you have an over the top move, it should be corrected.
The one negative to this approach is that your arms will ache quite a bit in the beginning. You will not be used to swinging from the inside and producing such lag, and you will be using muscle groups that have not been used before. After a few weeks, this aching should lessen.
I want to emphasize, that you cannot hit the sweet spot consistently through a conscious manipulation of the hands. The golf swing is too quick and anyone that says otherwise is selling you false hope. You will have your moments, but an AJ Bonar type swing will leave you disappointed in the long run. My apporach will get you to the sweet spot more often without any conscious manipulation.
Hope this helps. Until someone has tried the approach I have outlined, I think it unfair to show such negativism. New golfers, if they understood how to produce lag more early on, would progress a whole lot sooner and save a lot of dollars in their search for the perfect instructor or set of clubs. "
"As a golf instructor, there are no secrets. The closest you can get to the "secret" is understanding lag. The more lag you can produce, the better your chances in the long run of improving. Achieving lag is very elusive. I teach my students to try and hit the ball with the back of the hosel. First and foremost, a good turn is needed with back to the target. Then, I get them to try and hit the inside corner of the ball with the back of the hosel with the toe of the clubface facing 180 degrees away from the line of flight.
The ball will be hit square, much to the amazement of most of my students. Sometimes, it takes them about 25 balls, because they dont trust this motion due to years of trying to "hit" the ball with the "sweet spot" of the clubface. The "sweet spot" is not the axis of the swing. With my approach, the release becomes automatic, as does the squaring of the clubface. And distance generally one club longer due to the increased velocity of the release.
Most students I teach throw the club away in the downswing and a good hit is simply luck. By employing the method I have outlined, club throwaway is diminshed.
The hit with the hosel concept works good as a drill. Do pump drills with the thought of hitting the ball with the back of the hosel. On the fifth "pump", take a full swing. After enough practice with this, you will find much more solid and accurate contact, and if you have an over the top move, it should be corrected.
The one negative to this approach is that your arms will ache quite a bit in the beginning. You will not be used to swinging from the inside and producing such lag, and you will be using muscle groups that have not been used before. After a few weeks, this aching should lessen.
I want to emphasize, that you cannot hit the sweet spot consistently through a conscious manipulation of the hands. The golf swing is too quick and anyone that says otherwise is selling you false hope. You will have your moments, but an AJ Bonar type swing will leave you disappointed in the long run. My apporach will get you to the sweet spot more often without any conscious manipulation.
Hope this helps. Until someone has tried the approach I have outlined, I think it unfair to show such negativism. New golfers, if they understood how to produce lag more early on, would progress a whole lot sooner and save a lot of dollars in their search for the perfect instructor or set of clubs. "
