By Jeff Ritter, PGA

The first fundamental I teach every new student is how to properly hold the club because good golf swings start with good grips. Your hands are your only connection to the club, thus making them the primary mover of the shaft and controller of the clubface. If you hold the club incorrectly, you’re immediately at a disadvantage and more likely to make compensations in your swing.

While I reinforce proper grips to my students, I can’t always be there to check up on them, so I teach them how to monitor their progress. One simple way is to analyze how their glove wears out. Take this battered glove, for example. It took only 10 rounds for this to happen! As you can see, sometimes the root of a swing fault lies in the palm of your hand.

Worn-Out Palm
The most common glove-wear pattern, a worn-out palm is caused by holding the club in the palm instead of correctly holding it beneath the heel pad of the hand and fingers. Gripping the club this way leads to a lack of distance and a tendency to slice. What’s really amazing about grips like this is that they can wear down a glove after only a few holes! So if this has ever happened to you, and you thought that new glove of yours was defective, think again.

The Fix: Hold a ruler vertically in your glove hand. Cradle it in your fingers and feel the heel pad of your glove hand resting on top. This home remedy is a great way to exaggerate the feeling of a proper grip.

Thumb Tear
Look at the massive tear in the thumb! It resulted from a two-fold problem: poor thumb placement and incorrect grip pressure (too much or too little) applied between the thumb and the handle. This grip usually results in a lack of control.

The Fix: Adopt a “short thumb,” where the thumb is cinched up and pinched against the top of the forefinger. Hold a business card between your thumb and forefinger with a grip pressure of “3” (out of 10) to learn the appropriate feel.

Index-Finger Wear
A tear or wear pattern here indicates a poor connection between a player’s hands and is usually caused by an overlapping grip, where the dominant hand’s pinkie digs into the glove hand’s knuckle. You may even notice a callus forming on your dominant hand’s ring finger. What results isn’t just a torn glove but discomfort as well.

The Fix: Extend your pinkie farther into the gap that separates the knuckles on your glove hand. Another option is to adopt an interlocking grip, where your dominant hand’s pinkie and glove hand’s index finger “wrap” around each other.

By By Jeff Ritter, Photography by D2 Productions  

There’s only one thing that can cause a slice, and that’s a clubface that’s either open (or opening) at the point of contact. That being said, here are three tips to help you square up the clubface and rid your game of that slice forever! Get A Stronger Grip. The clubface tends to return to the ball “open” when the hands are placed on the club in a weak position—that is, turned too far to the left. A correct grip has the hands rotated more to the right. To strengthen your grip, rotate your left hand so that your thumb is positioned to the right of center (two to three knuckles should be visible). The right hand also should be rotated to the right, matching the angle of the left hand. To experiment, turn your hands to the right until the ball begins to hook, then back off a little for optimal positioning.

By Jeff Ritter, PGA; Photo by Warren Keating

I can’t tell you how many people come to my lesson tee and say, “If I could just get rid of my baseball swing, then all my problems would be solved!” My initial thought is always: I wish you had a baseball swing, because it would help you play better golf.

Most people don’t realize that baseball and golf swings are essentially the same; they’re just on different planes. A baseball bat is swung on a very “flat” plane because the ball is in the air, whereas a golf club is swung on a more tilted plane because the ball is on the ground. Regardless of where the ball is, both swings demand a similar sequence of events to ensure solid contact. Any movement that generates power is the result of a coordinated effort that utilizes all of the body’s speed producers. From throwing a pitch to hitting a home run, a “kinetic” chain of events occurs to deliver an explosion at the moment of impact. For most people, a simple baseball swing most correctly conveys the idea and attitude of a proper kinetic sequence that’s perfect for golf. In addition, the rounded arc produced by a good baseball swing will encourage proper clubface rotation through impact, thus curing the common slice.

Don't fear flaws - use them to correct any type of ball-flight

By Jeff Ritter, PGA; with Ryan M. Noll

No matter how fundamentally superior the swings of the world’s best players are to those belonging to the rest of us, there has never been, nor will there likely will there ever be, a golf swing without at least one flaw. The swings of greats such as Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els may look perfect, but each features a number of flaws—the same weaknesses that plague the swings of recreational players. If that’s the case, then why do these golfers own championship trophies while you can’t even make the A flight at your club championship? Is it because great golfers can overcome flaws by grooving them out? Not quite. The real answer lies in the ability of tour pros to repeat their flaws and effectively apply others to compensate for the error.

For example, Ben Hogan battled a snap hook early in his career. It affected his game so badly that he developed a very weak left-hand grip, a cupped wrist and an open face at the top in order to offset the hook. Not only did Hogan learn to negate his hook, he also managed to win nine majors and notch 63 victories—not a bad effort considering the flaws inherent in his swing.

Like Hogan, you, too, can learn to use swing flaws to your advantage. The key is to identify your flaws and make sure you have an even number with which to work. I believe you can play great golf with an even number of mistakes by balancing them out. With an odd number, however, you’re in for a long day.

Slicers
A slicer’s golf swing is inherently too steep relative to the ideal swing shape. When you’re too upright, generally the effects are:

1) Deep divots.
2) Toe-first contact with the golf ball.
3) An open clubface at the point of contact.

Deep Divots A steep swing is traveling down too abruptly through the impact zone, which makes it difficult to pick the ball clean and avoid digging deep into the turf. The necessary fix is to inject some width into your swing to help shallow out the steep, descending blow. A great way to add width is to widen your takeaway, much like Jack Nicklaus did in his heyday. The steep-swinging Nicklaus triggered a bigger turn by first turning his head away from the target. Although turned, Nicklaus kept his head stationary, forcing him to stretch his arms low, wide and away from the target on his backswing. This trigger was exceptionally useful with fairway woods.

Toe Contact Despite the awesome information we can get from a videotaped or televised golf swing, it’s darn near impossible to get an exact idea of how close or far we should stand from the ball. Players with naturally steep swings tend to benefit from standing closer than usual to the ball to accommodate their upright swing shape. For a player with a normal swing, standing closer to the ball can put the heel dangerously close to the ball, often causing shanks. But for a steep swinger who misses frequently on the toe area of the club, standing closer will help balance the toe hit caused by the steep swing. Scott Hoch, who has among the most upright swings on the PGA Tour (his irons are about four degrees upright), stands closer to the ball to accommodate his steep swing. If he were to back away, it’d be near impossible for him to hit solid shots. In this case, he didn’t change his swing, he just changed his distance from the ball.

DRILL: Get Closer at the Start Steep swingers need to stand closer to the ball. Here’s how to hug it at address. Hold a club in your right hand, then sole it squarely behind the ball and step in with your right foot so that the handle of the club rests against your right thigh. Step in with your left foot, then widen your right foot to about shoulder width for a full shot. Because you started with the club leaning against your body, your setup position will be nearer to the ball than normal, thus helping you to prevent toe hits. This drill is useful for every club in the bag. Remember, always pick a target and align your body not at, but parallel to that spot. You’ll see improvements immediately!

DRILL: Roll the Ball for More Width
Set a golf ball about a foot behind and just inside the target line from where you would normally place a ball at address. With your left arm only, gently use the back of your iron and roll the ball away from the target line. Use a cap or a basket to catch them. The ball should roll slowly, not quickly, into the basket.  So long, deep divots!

Open Clubface
If the clubface is opening too much and stays open at impact, the means for balancing things out is to adopt a stronger grip where both hands are rotated well to the right on the grip at address. In most cases, this grip is considered to be too strong, but for a slicer, it’s the perfect remedy. If you’re concerned that a strong grip will turn your slice into a hook, consider the swing style of Fred Couples. Couples has a stronger-than-usual left-hand grip, but uses a cupped left wrist at the top and a fast turn to the target to keep the clubface in check. Keep in mind that cupping the left wrist usually promotes a slice, while flattening or bowing the left wrist generally will produce a hook. Another common balancing act for slicers is to simply preset the clubface closed at address. This helps the golfer who chronically slices to maintain a square clubface through impact.

DRILL: Front Loader
Another one of my favorite drills that tends to work beautifully is what I call the Front Loader. This drill is designed to help you feel a postimpact hand rotation for more of a hooking shot. Set your ball on a medium-height tee. Hold your club a few feet past the ball as if you were about 1⁄4 of the way into your followthrough with the toe of the club turned well past the heel. Swing back (don’t contact the ball in the backswing) to about a 3⁄4-length backswing then through, striking the ball with the front-loaded rotated feel. You should see the ball easily holding its line and perhaps even hooking a little left.

Strong Hands! If it’s easy to read the glove logo in a mirror, then you know you have a strong grip. Mimic the fold in your index finger and thumb with your lower hand and you’re set. In this postimpact photo of Couples (right), you can see his body has outraced his hands through impact. If he didn’t have a strong thrust through the ball, his strong grip would cause hooked shots. This is why it’s critical to fully turn your body with a strong grip.

Hookers
A player who hooks the ball has a golf swing that’s flatter and more rounded than that of a player who slices, leading to the exact opposite impact and flight characteristics.

1) No divot or divot well behind the ball.
2) Heel-first contact.
3) Clubface closing too much through impact.

No Divot Or Divot Behind
A flat swing tends to travel along the ground for longer than it should, and when this happens, the face is likely to close and sweep across the ball with a hooking motion. Here, width is the enemy.

Try to balance things out by staying centered, with your backswing resisting movement away from the target. Ben Hogan, a very flat swinger, was able to steepen his hit by reminding himself to keep his weight on his left side as well as narrowing his release angle through the ball. Hogan also visualized his arms wrapped tightly with rope, indicating the importance of keeping his arms tight to the torso, another means of narrowing the arc.

DRILL: Left Foot Right Toes
Stand solidly on your left foot with your right foot back and your right toe down for balance. Hit some shots from this stance. You’ll feel extremely centered over the ball, with little or no head movement. Any lateral movement will result in a loss of balance. Staying more centered will effectively narrow the width of your swing, leading to crisper contact. It’s that simple.

Stay Centered! Although Ben Hogan didn’t keep his hands in front of his chest at impact, he could do it when he had to.  Here you can see that Hogan maintained knee flex and kept his weight in the center of his stance, resulting in a crisply hit bunker shot. His weight never fully shifted to his back foot. Staying centered is key for better bunker play, as is a more upright swing

Stand Away From It! Take a look at Zoeller in this photo (right). He has taken avoiding heel hits even further by setting up extremely far from the ball. For the normal player, this stance could lead to off-balance toe hits, but for the flat swinger, this stance can help eliminate heel hits without making a major adjustment to the swing. Try this routine with your irons and kiss heel hits goodbye!

DRILL: Thumbs Up Hold your left hand up in front of your chest and give the standard thumbs-up sign. This will put your left hand in a neutral position. Place your left hand on the grip in the same position so that your left thumb is positioned nearly straight down the shaft. Violà! Hooking the ball is a tall order with this kind of grip.

There you have it. Practice these moves and you’ll see much faster improvement than you ever will trying to grind out swing flaws from your natural swing. Remember, all swings have flaws, and the key to improvement is getting those flaws to work as effectively as possible for you. Do this and you’re sure to see some amazing results.