When any golfer, whether they are a complete beginner, a club golfer or a professional golfer hits their best golf shots, they will all say the same thing it feels easy and as the club head strikes the ball, it feels 'sweet' as though there is hardly any contact at all.

However, when you hit your worst shots, they feel horrible as the connection between the club head and the ball was not in the correct place. You feel these shots all the way through the golf club and up into your hands and arms. You get this feeling, or vibration, whenever the ball is hit from the wrong area of the club face.

The correct area to strike a golf ball from the club face is known as the 'sweet spot'. This is an area about the size of a small coin, in the centre of club face. Shots played from this area do not create any vibration, in fact there is very little feel experienced with the contact as the club head moves easily through the ball. However, as the connection between club face and ball moves away from this area, the greater the experience of vibration, or mis-hit. If the ball is struck from only just outside the sweet spot, there will only be a slight feeling of vibration. However, the further away the ball is struck from the sweet spot, the greater the feeling of vibration.

If you experience a lot of vibration following your golf shots, this indicates that you are not hitting from the centre of the club face, but from the edge and there is nothing worse than on a cold day, when your hands are tingling with cold anyway, mis-hitting a golf shot that produces vibration which stings your hands!

To help cure this try the following drill. Get yourself some face tape or impact tape. Place this on to the club face. Now as you play your golf shot, a mark will be left on the tape showing exactly where you struck the ball from. Remember you want to strike from the centre of the face where the 'sweet spot' is as this will give you no feeling of vibration, but also club face control and maximum distance. For every quarter of an inch you are away from the 'sweet spot', you will lose approximately 10% of maximum distance.

If your strike is off centre towards the toe, this will also start to open the club face up at impact and if you are off centre towards the heel, this will start to close the club face. This is because of 'gear effect'. As the club face impacts with the ball, the area hitting the ball is slowed down due to the impact, but any area not in contact with the ball will not slow down and will continue to move at the same speed before the impact. Hitting off the toe, for example, will slow the toe of the club down, but not the heel, opening the club face up and making directional control a challenge.

To improve your strike, distance and accuracy, work on striking from the centre of the club face. If your strike mark is towards the toe of the club when you look at the impact tape, think how you need to adjust on the next swing to get the strike mark closer to the centre - try standing further away from the ball initially.

Work on centering your ball strike and the vibration that you experience after your shots will massively improve, until there is no vibration at all because you are hitting from the 'sweet spot'.

How to Cure Feeling Vibration After Impact

Every golfer knows the feeling of vibration after impact. It is not a good feeling – in fact, it is one of the most uncomfortable things you are likely to feel on the golf course. The feeling of the club shaft vibrating up through the grip and into your hands is undesirable, and it is made even worse when you are playing in cold weather. While it is not possible to completely eliminate the possibility of feeling the club vibrate after impact, you can greatly reduce the chances of this sensation by taking a few smart steps.

This article is going to offer up a variety of ideas for how you can take the vibration out of your game. First, it is important to know where this vibration comes from. In most cases, the club is going to vibrate after impact because of poor contact with the ball. For instance, if you hit your shot thin, there will be a nasty vibration created which is almost certain to sting your hands. Hitting the ball out toward the toe will have a similar effect, although it should not be as severe. You only need to worry about this problem on iron shots, as the large size of drivers and fairway woods absorbs the vibration, leaving very little to reach all the way up into the grip.

The effect is going to be far worse with your long irons as compared to your short irons. This is why so many golfers fear hitting a long iron shot early in the morning on a cold day. If you are lining up a 4-iron shot from the fairway and the temperature is below 50*F, you are certainly going to be nervous about not making solid contact. Any degree of miss-hit is going to be immediately punished by a stinging sensation in your hands. In some cases, that stinging can be so severe that you won't have feeling in your hands for several minutes after the shot. Golf is not a game where you frequently have to worry about physical pain, but this is one case where your fear of an unpleasant feeling may affect your ability to perform.

Before we get into more specifics about how to limit this experience in your game, it should be said that replacing your long irons with hybrid clubs is one alternative to consider. Hybrids are going to protect you from vibration much like fairway woods, and they can do a similar job to that which is performed by the long irons. If you struggle to hit your long irons at a high level, and you often come away with stinging hands, it is worth your time to consider swapping out long irons for hybrids. This plan should take away the fears of stinging your hands, and it may also lead to better overall play.

All of the instruction below is based on a right-handed golfer. If you play golf left-handed, please take a moment to reverse the directions as necessary.

Finding the Sweet Spot

You aren't going to need to worry about any uncomfortable vibrations if you put the center of the club on the back of the ball time after time. Striking your shots on the sweet spot is a great way to take vibration out of the picture, meaning your shots will feel great as they head off into the distance. Of course, hitting the sweet spot means good news for your performance on the course as well, since the sweet spot is where the most distance can be found. Learn how to apply the sweet spot to the ball and any worries about vibration after impact will be a thing of the past.

So how do you go about striking the ball with the sweet spot? The following tips should be a big help.

• Stay on balance. There is nothing more important than balance when it comes to finding the sweet spot. When you are balanced during the swing, your body will remain in the right position, meaning you will be able to easily find the center of the club face at impact. Unfortunately, the average golfer moves all around during his or her swing, which means they are basically trying to hit a moving target. The big advantage that you have as a golfer when compared to other sports is the fact that the ball isn't moving – don't give away that advantage by swaying all around during the swing. Get yourself properly balanced at address and keep that balance for as long as possible.
• Don't swing too hard. It is common for amateur golfers to swing harder than is necessary. In an effort to hit the ball as far as they can, many players exert too much effort – and they wind up missing the swing spot as a result. There is simply no need to swing that hard. Golf is a game which is about control and accuracy first, with distance coming in second. Sure, it is nice to hit the ball a long way, but that power isn't going to do you much good if you are unable to control it consistently. Turn the effort down in your swing by 10% or so and you will find that you are able to hit the sweet spot far more frequently.
• Watch the ball! This is about as simple as it gets in terms of golf tips, yet many players miss on this key point. When you are trying to hit the sweet spot – which should always be one of your top priorities – you need to watch the ball all the way through impact. It is hard to hit something that you can't see, and you won't be able to see the ball if you are lifting your head up and out of the shot before contact has been made. It will take discipline to see the ball come off the club each time, as you are going to be tempted to look up early to see where the shot is going. Learn how to resist that temptation for the betterment of your golf game as a whole.

Finding the sweet spot is an important job, but the keys to making it happen are actually quite simple. You need to keep your eyes on the ball, you need to be balanced, and you need to avoid swinging too hard. During your upcoming practice sessions, spend some time on each of these three points individually. As you go, you should find that your ball striking gets better and better – and your fear of vibration coming through the shaft of the club will go down at the same time.

Making Smart Club Selection Choices

The best way to get rid of the vibration after impact is to make solid contact. When you hit the ball on the center of the face, you should feel almost nothing in your hands, and your shot should be a success. Of course, no golfer is able to square up the ball at impact on every swing, as this is one of the hardest games in the world. So, to further protect yourself against the unwelcome feeling of a vibrating golf club, another step you can take is to make the right club selection in every situation. Picking the right club is one of those skills in golf which is often overlooked, yet is incredibly important at the same time.

The following list includes a few tips on how to optimize your club selection in order to avoid having stinging hands for the rest of the round.

• Avoid long irons early in the day. Unless you are playing in a particularly warm place, the golf course is likely to be rather chilly early in the day. If at all possible, avoid hitting your long irons before the temperatures have a chance to rise. Just one poorly struck long iron can leave your hands stinging for a while – meaning there may be a carryover affect to other shots in addition to the initial shock of that first sting. Rather than playing a long iron into a long par three, for example, consider hitting a soft shot with one of your fairway woods. Or, instead of going for the green in two with a long iron on a par five, you may decide to lay up in position for an easy wedge shot. It won't always be possible to steer clear of your long irons during cold weather, but do your best to avoid situations where they are required.
• Consider the lie. When trying to decide which club to use, you should always take the lie of the golf ball into consideration. If the ball is resting cleanly on the fairway, you should have no trouble hitting whatever club you might want to use. However, if you have a poor lie, such as when the ball is resting in an old divot, you will need to think twice about employing your long irons. It will be tough to make clean contact with a long iron when the ball is sitting down, so it is very possible that you will wind up with stinging hands in the end. To get around this issue, play it 'safe' with a more lofted club to avoid the dreaded vibration. Not only is it smart to respect the lie of the golf ball when trying to steer clear of vibration, this is simply good strategy in general for playing at a higher level.
• Don't force it. One of the common ways to end up causing vibration in the club is to swing too hard while using a club that isn't enough for the distance at hand. It is amazing how many amateur golfers continue to make this mistake. When picking a club for a given shot, you need to select your club based on your likely distance – not based on the distance that you could hit the ball under perfect circumstances. Sure, you might be able to hit your 7-iron 170-yards from time to time, for example, but you probably don't hit it that far on every single swing. Plan your club selection based on an average result to avoid causing yourself to swing too hard. By making a smooth swing instead of a hard one, it will be more likely that you will hit the sweet spot, and more likely that you will avoid stinging yourself at impact.

Good golfers know how to make good club selection choices. This is a point which is not only beneficial in terms of keeping your hands healthy, but it will also help you get around the course in fewer strokes. Course management, which includes club selection, is a skill that you need to develop in your game, just like any other skill. Take time to learn how to pick the right clubs and you will be on the track to better performance.

Thinking About Your Equipment

The equipment you use on the golf course will have a large impact on the way you are able to play this game. It is a common misconception among amateur golfers that you need to use expensive equipment to play well. That simply isn't true – a professional golfer could beat the average amateur while using the cheapest gear on the shelf. However, while you don't necessarily need to use high-priced equipment to play good golf, you do need to use equipment which is well-suited for your game. That applies to club heads, shafts, and even grips. With regard to vibration in your hands after impact, all elements of the equipment puzzle are going to play a role.

To start, let's discuss the issue of club heads. With regard to irons – which are the main talking point when it comes to vibration – you are going to experience far more vibration with blades or 'muscle-back' irons than you will with cavity back clubs. You will usually see professional golfers use blade irons, because of the control and feedback that they offer. However, that feedback can turn against you in the form of vibration, when the ball is not struck correctly. If you don't have the skill necessary to strike the ball on the sweet spot most of the time, you will be better served to pick a set of cavity back irons. You can still hit excellent shots with these kinds of clubs, and they are going to be far more forgiving in terms of vibration. Unless you regularly shoot scores in the 70s and below, stick to game improvement irons and enjoy the comfort that they offer.

Next, we are going to talk about shafts. It is common for golfers to use steel shafts in their irons, and that certainly is a worthwhile choice. Steel shafts tend to be heavier than graphite shafts, which gives you more feel during the swing, and this is typically the choice of the pros as well. However, steel shafts are going to carry far more vibration into your hands than will be the case with a graphite shaft. If you find yourself plagued with poorly hit shots that are always stinging your hands, consider making the switch to graphite throughout your set. The graphite will probably help you add some club head speed thanks to the lighter overall weight. Also, since the vibrations of a poor shot are not going to hurt your hands nearly as much as they would through a steel shaft, you won't have to make your swings in fear of a painful ending.

Finally, we also need to review the topic of your grips. Most golfers fail to think much at all about the grips they put on their clubs – but this is actually an important piece of the overall equipment equation. For players who are tired of feeling the sting, grips which offer plenty of padding are an obvious choice. There are plenty of padded grips on the market today, so it should be easy to find one which works for your hands. These grips are usually a little more expensive than the thinner, basic rubber grips, but the investment should be worth it if your hands feel better at the end of the day.

Golf is a hard game, so there is no sense in making it any harder than necessary by using the wrong kind of equipment. Think through each aspect of your equipment set up and decide if there is any way you can improve on what you have in your bag. Even without spending a ton of money, you may be able to better your situation on the links through smart equipment selections.

A Few Final Tips

Don't let the prospect of a vibrating club throw you off your game. The information which has been offered in this article should help you reach a new level of performance on the links – and you should wind up with stinging hands far less often thanks to this advice. Before we close, let's cover a few other points which are relevant to this discussion.

• Get it out of your mind. You are never going to be able to make your best golf swing if you are always thinking about the possibility of vibration after impact. In order to strike the ball cleanly, you need to set this idea out of your mind and focus instead on the things you need to do in order to execute your swing. Build a pre-shot routine and then invest all of your energy in going through that routine properly. By moving any fear out of your mind before making a swing, it will become less likely that you will wind up with painful hands and a poor shot.
• Learn from your mistakes. There isn't much good to say about golf shots that wind up with strong vibrations coming through the shaft, but there is something you can gain from this experience. Due to the pain involved with this kind of shot, you are unlikely to forget the poor swing anytime soon. So, since it is going to be so fresh in your memory, you might as well learn something along the way. What happened that lead to your poor contact with the ball? Did you pick the wrong club, or was there a mistake in your technique? Learn from the mistakes you make along the way in this game and you will quickly take a big step in the right direction.
• Consider a golf glove. This might be an obvious point, but we really shouldn't finish this article without touching on it quickly. If you currently play golf without a glove on your hand, consider buying one to act as a bit of vibration protection. Of course, a simple leather golf glove is not going to take away all of the pain of a poor iron shot, but it will help take the edge off. This is a particularly beneficial choice on a cold morning, when the grip twisting against your skin can be almost as painful as the vibration itself. It might take a bit of time to get used to wearing a glove, but the adjustment shouldn't take all the long in the big picture.

There are few things in golf as unpleasant as hitting a shot which leads to sharp vibrations heading up the shaft and into your hands. Most people don't think about golf as being a sport which can lead to any kind of serious pain, but those people haven't hit a thin 4-iron shot on a cold morning. Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to limit the likelihood of this outcome, including using tips provided in this article. By focusing on making solid contact, and by making smart club selections, you should reduce the frequency with which you will be feeling the sting of a bad iron shot. And, at the same time, the improvements you make to your swing and your planning will also help you to play better golf overall. Good luck!