Feeling The Golf Club Head In The Short Game (Video) - by Peter Finch
Feeling The Golf Club Head In The Short Game (Video) - by Peter Finch

If you play golf for any period of time many people will head around where their sure game just seemed to work, where they were feeling the shorts around the green, they had fantastic control over the pace of that chips and of that pot. But sometimes that gets lost, sometimes people forget those feelings and then all of a sudden the tightness and the tension starts to appear around the greens and that’s often caused by again not being able to feel where the club head is throughout the entire technique. And it often really comes into effect when people are faced with a tricky chip or they have got that pot to in the matter of about four feet and all of a sudden you can see the tension start to develop, you know that they can’t feel the club head at all because they are gripping on so, so tightly.

Now very quick test and a very quick drill that you can use around the chipping ring which works is if you take a club, just a sound wedge, I’ve got a 56 degree wedge here and you need three balls for this as well. Just take a club in one hand, we’re not hitting with this at this moment in time and you take the ball in your dominant hand. Take the ball in your dominant hand, pick a target, I’ve got mine which is about 20 yards away. Now what I am going to do is I’m going to keep my hand, I’m going to keep my grip very, very relaxed. I’m going to be focusing on my target, taking the ball back, throwing it through and release it down towards my target and that was pitched pretty much precisely where I wanted it to. Now what I am going to do is I’m going to move the ball across, I’m going to keep that very same relaxed grip pressure that I had when I was throwing, I’m going to focus on where that ball landed, I’m going to relax my hand down and just try and find exactly that same patch. Little bit fuss. And then I’m going to pull this third ball across and on this one, I’m going to grip on as tightly as evenly possible. So I can’t feel the club head here, all I can feel is my hands and that is a chunker. Now the reason for that is on the first throw I had a nice relaxed grip, I could throw it out there, I could pick my target and I could do what I have done since I was a child learning to throw the ball back into in most of the games that we played at school. Now as soon as I pulled up ball across with my chipping technique by using that same mentality, by softening the hands by feeling the club head, I could get a real good approximation of where I wanted the ball to land. When I pulled the third ball around and tightened my grip, I had no concept of where the club head was. Without the concept of where the club head was with a very tight grip, I had no control over where that ball would be ending up and I certainly had no control over the strike. So around the greens it’s about feeling that control, about lessening that grip, pressure really feeling nice and relaxed and then just using that analogy of throwing the ball. Sensing where the target is and letting the ball go there. 2016-10-12

If you play golf for any period of time many people will head around where their sure game just seemed to work, where they were feeling the shorts around the green, they had fantastic control over the pace of that chips and of that pot. But sometimes that gets lost, sometimes people forget those feelings and then all of a sudden the tightness and the tension starts to appear around the greens and that’s often caused by again not being able to feel where the club head is throughout the entire technique. And it often really comes into effect when people are faced with a tricky chip or they have got that pot to in the matter of about four feet and all of a sudden you can see the tension start to develop, you know that they can’t feel the club head at all because they are gripping on so, so tightly.

Now very quick test and a very quick drill that you can use around the chipping ring which works is if you take a club, just a sound wedge, I’ve got a 56 degree wedge here and you need three balls for this as well. Just take a club in one hand, we’re not hitting with this at this moment in time and you take the ball in your dominant hand. Take the ball in your dominant hand, pick a target, I’ve got mine which is about 20 yards away. Now what I am going to do is I’m going to keep my hand, I’m going to keep my grip very, very relaxed. I’m going to be focusing on my target, taking the ball back, throwing it through and release it down towards my target and that was pitched pretty much precisely where I wanted it to.

Now what I am going to do is I’m going to move the ball across, I’m going to keep that very same relaxed grip pressure that I had when I was throwing, I’m going to focus on where that ball landed, I’m going to relax my hand down and just try and find exactly that same patch. Little bit fuss.

And then I’m going to pull this third ball across and on this one, I’m going to grip on as tightly as evenly possible. So I can’t feel the club head here, all I can feel is my hands and that is a chunker. Now the reason for that is on the first throw I had a nice relaxed grip, I could throw it out there, I could pick my target and I could do what I have done since I was a child learning to throw the ball back into in most of the games that we played at school.

Now as soon as I pulled up ball across with my chipping technique by using that same mentality, by softening the hands by feeling the club head, I could get a real good approximation of where I wanted the ball to land. When I pulled the third ball around and tightened my grip, I had no concept of where the club head was. Without the concept of where the club head was with a very tight grip, I had no control over where that ball would be ending up and I certainly had no control over the strike. So around the greens it’s about feeling that control, about lessening that grip, pressure really feeling nice and relaxed and then just using that analogy of throwing the ball. Sensing where the target is and letting the ball go there.