Is it all in the Hands?

One of my continuous themes in this blog is my trials with the big stick.

I've often thought that if I could hit the driver like I do the sand wedge I would have been on tour long ago.

I ran across a rule of thumb that suggested you should hit your driver twice the length of your nine iron.  Well, I would be very happy with 260 off the tee.

All of this brings us to the new topic.  Rich II, whom you may remember from a prior post, lent me feedback tool called Tour Striker.  The Tour Striker (TS) is not an unusual device.  It connects to the end of a grip and there are plastic bits that will press against your arm and it you swing properly, they will continue to press against your arm.

I have another example of this called the Tour Angle 144.  This is basically the same thing, but you grip it under your fingers on a club and then have a piece that bumps the arm.

Then there is Greg Norman's "The Thing."  Someone wanted to borrow it and it's been in the trunk of the car for a couple of years.  I can't remember who asked.


The idea here is that you are not manipulating the wrists much whilst swinging.  Doing so upsets the club face contact angles and leads to other issues like slowing down the arms to make it all work.

I like these devices and think they have merit.  Sadly, I've not bothered using them enough to fix my many errors.  Well, I must have at least one.  I've found over the years that I cannot use an interlocking grip.  This symptom leads me to suspect that my hands do not work together.  Working together is a classical theme that runs through most golf instruction.

I also have some callouses in the "wrong" place that also hint at this action.  No pro that I've ever worked with has mentioned this.  Some high speed camera work might help.  Also why is there not a grip with pressure sensors in it that would send data to a cell phone during the swing?  A project waiting to be made...


My club striking efficiency decreases with the longer the club, id est, I'm much longer with a 9 iron than a 7 iron proportionately.

I've noted my "helping" the longer clubs with my hands.

To fix this I'm going to try to use an interlocking grip.  I'm sure I can do this at low speed.  At high speed it'll work or I'll break some fingers.  I think there will be an element of trust that I'll have to dig within to find and allow the proper things to happen. 

It may be that all of this will fix my use of the wrists, a good thing, but may just lead me to the next flaw in the swing.  But I have to think that this is a step in the proper direction.  Just the saving on tape I use to cover callouses will be worth it.

Once again I must thank Rich II for his inspiration.  Just having the tool by my chair has led to a new action plan -- and what is more valuable than that?