Key Points To Avoid Golf Shanks (Video) - by Pete Styles
Key Points To Avoid Golf Shanks (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now, although the fault of hitting the heel of the golf club is kind of a fairly one dimensional fault, the ball should be hit here but it’s hit here, it’s one dimensional fault. Actually the reasons for that fault are multidimensional, so we've got a concept there are quite a few different things that could be causing the problem and we can run through these as a sort of fairly quick little tick list.

So when we’re setting up the golf ball, some of the faults could be found right here. It could be that the golfer is too close to the ball. They don’t have enough room, they have to push the club away, they get the shank. It could be that the golfer is too much on their toes at the start then during the swing, they actually fall forwards causing the shank. It could be that the golfer is actually too much on their heels at the start. The golfer is so much on his heels, he’s generally not going to want to go back on to his heels anymore so he starts leaning on his heels, rocks forwards during the swing and falls on to the tiptoes. So the balance is fundamentally important there. We also want to make sure that the golfer doesn’t start with the hands too low or too high. They can still cause problems with the shank. Then we’ve got the golfer, he swings up to the top nicely, brings the club slightly forward then brings the club down on the outside. The club’s down on the outside the whole way into the downswing and they hit the heel. We’ve then got a golfer that swings up to the top, drops it in beautifully trying to avoid the shank but because he’s so far from the inside, the club can only go out, throws the club too far away in the follow through, and that causes the shank. We then a golfer that’s perfectly set up, perfect backswing, bang on plain and then falls over and that person shanks it as well. So you can see how all of those different faults can go together to create a shank. So you’ve got to look all these different areas. If you are someone that shanks the golf ball, you got to identify all these different areas and one by one just tick them off and effectively until you find out, “That’s the reason why I shank the ball. That's how I can create it.” And hopefully that will help you then improve and eradicate the shanks. 2016-04-21

Now, although the fault of hitting the heel of the golf club is kind of a fairly one dimensional fault, the ball should be hit here but it’s hit here, it’s one dimensional fault. Actually the reasons for that fault are multidimensional, so we've got a concept there are quite a few different things that could be causing the problem and we can run through these as a sort of fairly quick little tick list.

So when we’re setting up the golf ball, some of the faults could be found right here. It could be that the golfer is too close to the ball. They don’t have enough room, they have to push the club away, they get the shank. It could be that the golfer is too much on their toes at the start then during the swing, they actually fall forwards causing the shank. It could be that the golfer is actually too much on their heels at the start. The golfer is so much on his heels, he’s generally not going to want to go back on to his heels anymore so he starts leaning on his heels, rocks forwards during the swing and falls on to the tiptoes. So the balance is fundamentally important there. We also want to make sure that the golfer doesn’t start with the hands too low or too high. They can still cause problems with the shank. Then we’ve got the golfer, he swings up to the top nicely, brings the club slightly forward then brings the club down on the outside. The club’s down on the outside the whole way into the downswing and they hit the heel. We’ve then got a golfer that swings up to the top, drops it in beautifully trying to avoid the shank but because he’s so far from the inside, the club can only go out, throws the club too far away in the follow through, and that causes the shank. We then a golfer that’s perfectly set up, perfect backswing, bang on plain and then falls over and that person shanks it as well.

So you can see how all of those different faults can go together to create a shank. So you’ve got to look all these different areas. If you are someone that shanks the golf ball, you got to identify all these different areas and one by one just tick them off and effectively until you find out, “That’s the reason why I shank the ball. That's how I can create it.” And hopefully that will help you then improve and eradicate the shanks.