Harold Hilton (Video) - by Peter Finch
Harold Hilton (Video) - by Peter Finch

Harold Hilton is a renowned English amateur golfer who won the Open Championship twice but also the English Amateur as well, so competing against the best amateurs and the best professionals during his heyday. Now one of the very kind of unique things about Hiltons’ approach to the game was how he actually set up poster wise and how he approached his pitching. Now what Harold Hilton did very, very unusually especially when you compare to the modern day professionals was stand over the ball with the hands very close to the legs and the back very, very, very arched over, he was in a very, very hunched position with the hands very, very close.

Now especially pitching but also with the full swing as well what that meant is that the backswing was very, very wristy on the way back and on the way through the ball he maintained his position over and only extended upwards with the body after the ball had been hit. Now this is quite a strange and an unusual position but what it allowed him to do what it allowed him to do is strike down on the ball very, very well and very, very consistently with the wedges and with the irons. So very simply he got himself hunched over the ball, hands very, very close to the body, very wristy take away and then only rose the power of the shot once impact had been made. But it worked for him obviously very, very well and if you are struggling for contact with the wedges and with the irons adding in a little bit more wrist hinge can certainly help although I wouldn’t especially recommend hunching that much over the ball. 2015-04-20

Harold Hilton is a renowned English amateur golfer who won the Open Championship twice but also the English Amateur as well, so competing against the best amateurs and the best professionals during his heyday. Now one of the very kind of unique things about Hiltons’ approach to the game was how he actually set up poster wise and how he approached his pitching. Now what Harold Hilton did very, very unusually especially when you compare to the modern day professionals was stand over the ball with the hands very close to the legs and the back very, very, very arched over, he was in a very, very hunched position with the hands very, very close.

Now especially pitching but also with the full swing as well what that meant is that the backswing was very, very wristy on the way back and on the way through the ball he maintained his position over and only extended upwards with the body after the ball had been hit.

Now this is quite a strange and an unusual position but what it allowed him to do what it allowed him to do is strike down on the ball very, very well and very, very consistently with the wedges and with the irons. So very simply he got himself hunched over the ball, hands very, very close to the body, very wristy take away and then only rose the power of the shot once impact had been made. But it worked for him obviously very, very well and if you are struggling for contact with the wedges and with the irons adding in a little bit more wrist hinge can certainly help although I wouldn’t especially recommend hunching that much over the ball.