Archive for September, 2015
Common Shanking Fault
Common Shanking Fault
This is a common thing I see when golfers come to me for help with the shank.
In the backswing they take the club too much on the inside, this is sometimes down to an over active shoulder turn in the early part of the take – away or just a miss use of the wrists in the early start back of the swing. Both of which get the hands and club too far behind them by the time their hands have reached just about hip high in the backswing.
As they make the move into the forward swing the tendency is for the club to move too far out in front of them because of the poor move in the backswing. This leads to a steep out to in swing path and more often than not aligns the hosel of the club to the ball resulting in a shank.
THE CURE
As you make your take – away make a conscious effort to keep your shoulders quiet and have the feeling that you stand the club up much more vertically. This will lead to the butt of the club pointing at the target line and the golf club will be in balance and on plane.
The thought I would like you to have as you make your forward swing is to have a feeling of holding your right shoulder back as this will keep the club on plane. This will lead to a great swing path through the ball leading to a much more solid strike from the center of the clubface.
Mark Wood is the worlds leading expert in curing a shank.
Putting Drill #1
This is another drill that is used worldwide amongst the elite touring professionals and one of my favourites’. You need 18 tee pegs and at least 6 balls, I always recommend that you practise short game and putting with the balls that you play with on the course so you know exactly how that ball feels and reacts on certain shots etc.
- Start by placing the first ring of tee pegs 2 feet away from the hole going around in a clockwise fashion. Then place a ring of tee pegs 3 feet away in the same fashion followed by another ring of tee pegs 4 feet away from the hole (see picture above).
- Then place one ball by each tee peg 2 feet away from the hole.
- The drill then starts where you need to hole each ball from the first set of tee pegs before you move back to the 3ft set of tee pegs. Once you have holed from the 3ft set of tees move back to the 4ft set of tee pegs and hole all of the putts.
- Try and do this drill at least 3 times from all the pegs without missing any putts, if you miss then start over from the first set of pegs 2ft away.
Mark Wood
PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach
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