Welcome to Swing Theory Golf, the ultimate podcast for the golf enthusiast.
I'm your host, Tim McElvanagh, PGA Professional, and I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host
Sean Clautz, a seasoned PGA Professional as well as over 20 years' experience in the
golf industry.
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Hey Sean, I heard you got a lesson yesterday from Tim Pulse, is that correct?
I did Tim, you know it's been playing golf for 25 years and you see these guys on tour,
they always have a coach, they're always working with their pro and sometimes you just can't
figure it out yourself.
I mean most of the time you can't figure it out yourself.
That's why we have jobs, essentially.
Absolutely, even the instructors need an instructor, correct?
So the good thing about taking a lesson, and it's funny because I went out and played last
night so I had the lesson two days ago, didn't practice.
Just straight out and tried it out huh?
Yeah, and guess what happened Tim?
It didn't work.
Well that sometimes happens when we get on out there, it doesn't work all the way that
we want.
Haven't tried it, haven't practiced it.
Yeah, and that's the big thing.
So when we do our instruction with golfers, we hope we kind of space them out maybe once
a week or once every two weeks in the hope and the desire that they're going to go practice.
So I can't have any expectations of me getting better until I put the work in either at my
studio on track man or on the golf course or at a range.
So my problem, and not to be so specific, essentially is just my club face tends to
either open or close at impact.
Mostly with longer irons.
It doesn't really affect the pitching wedge or nine ironing.
I'll hit those pretty straight.
But what Tim Poults kind of factored in on was my grip, the position of my hands on the
club.
Your grip, okay, interesting.
And then also the pressure in my hands on the club.
The grip pressure.
Yeah.
Okay.
Those are things that sometimes go unnoticed.
Yeah I would never even thought about looking into that area.
So yeah, what did he talk about with that?
So typically for the golfers out there, the weak grip that we call it is typically in
the position of your hands is where your hands are more to the left placed on the club right
there.
The left hand is more left and then the right hand is more over the middle of the shaft.
And then the stronger grip we call it is the one where your hands are opposite there, more
to the right side.
Gotcha.
Right the center line of the club.
Pointing more towards your right shoulder.
Gotcha.
Yep.
So basically what he was saying was that the position of my hands was too weak with that
left hand.
So there's two ways to fix the club face problem which again was the main thing we're trying
to fix.
If, he said you can do it one of two ways.
You can either strengthen your grip pressure.
So one through ten, ten being the most death grip that you could ever put on a club.
One you're just kind of literally holding the club.
But you want to probably be somewhere around a six or a seven which is pretty strong.
Wow, I mean I've always been taught that you want to have like a somewhere between a two
and a three to make sure that you've got a, you know, making sure that you feel like you're
holding a live bird in your hands.
I wouldn't think a six or a seven would be holding a live bird in my hands.
I think we'd be killing it right?
But the point of it is it's kind of like if you look at it the pitching wedge nine hour
and eight hour were pretty straight.
They're coming up flight is straight, ball flight's good, no fade.
But that swing speed is probably around seventy five to maybe eighty miles an hour.
Right, when me and you start swinging a five or six iron now our swing speed's eighty six,
eighty seven, eighty eight.
Generous, but yeah.
Yeah.
But we're swinging something faster.
Yeah.
So it's going to rotate more.
Correct.
You know, especially if you don't have a good handle on it.
Makes sense.
You know, so that was kind of like a light bulb moment to me after playing golf for thirty
years.
Yeah, I mean looking at something that you probably as you said goes completely unnoticed
especially with the amateur golfer for sure is to look at something like that.
So that's interesting.
Yeah, and even like we were talking about a little bit yesterday like you know the, when
I walked into that lesson I thought we were going to work on A, B and C.
Yeah.
And we didn't.
We didn't come close.
We worked on a totally different thing which is a lot of times when our students come to
us they think they've already got it figured out.
Well they've already, you know, to you they've diagnosed the problem.
You know, it's either the swing path or something like that and then when you get onto something
like the grip it takes them down a whole different alley in there and it's amazing that you know
you know some of those great minds think that way.
You know like Tim Pulse to think of that.
You know that's amazing.
Yeah, so that was one way.
Either grip pressure and a moment I set up after about ten swings I'm like hey I've got
arthritis in my hands.
It's kind of hurting to actually tighten my grip.
Oh that's a good point too, yeah.
It's kind of hard and I already have mid-sized grips on there.
He said well then you've got to change the position of your left hand because your left
hand is too weak.
It's too far to the left.
Okay.
If you position, if you move the space between your thumb and your forefinger it essentially
tighten that space on your left hand and position the club more in the fingers instead of having
it start in the palm then you're going to have your left hand slightly more on top of
the club which then makes the club face go more left.
You know we know that the more we strengthen our grip the more left the club face goes.
Correct.
Me and you know that because we do it every day.
Our average listener may not.
They may be looking for other things and it's such an important feature.
And the last part that I thought again was pretty eye opening for me that I didn't think
about in 30 years.
He said hey your left hand is the hand that's completely on the club.
You know the right hand is partially on the club because it's either interlocked or overlapped
but it's not fully on the club so the position of the left hand is ultimately more important
to what the club face is going to do.
Okay so it kind of goes back to the old idea that the left hand is more for the power and
strength and the right hand is just kind of your guide as you kind of come through.
Great point there.
So again he did what we talk about already in these podcasts.
First thing we did was half swings.
Second thing we did was half swings with one hand.
Trying to feel the difference with the one hand left hand versus the one hand right handed.
And you can see another good kind of part of the teaching part is we do this a little
bit.
I don't do it as much maybe you do but basically he had me make a couple of full swings.
Right.
Hold my finish and then from the finish position rotate back to where impact was.
And you can see the club face is open.
Gotcha.
That's a great little drill right there.
Yeah.
You don't necessarily see it when you're completely having your follow through done.
No.
When you rotate back and then you see that your hand is moving on the club and the face
is more open.
Then the evidence is right there for you.
You can see it.
Yep.
Absolutely.
So just from that perspective it was really good to kind of get just a start.
Again just a start of what your hands should be on the club because if you don't have the
basics done.
And that's really the first step that you want to kind of go is the grip.
I mean it's the only thing that connects us to the ball through the club.
So I think that's a great point that he started at the origins of it with the grip.
I think maybe for our general golfer out there which club do they struggle with?
Sorry I gave you the answer.
Which club do they slice the most?
Driver.
Longest club.
Straightest face.
Yep.
Least amount of loft.
Correct.
So the most amount of spin.
Yeah.
Right.
And then also they're swinging at the fastest.
Correct.
So you need to have more of a tighter grip or a stronger grip on that as you rotate through.
So when they and again when we play with golfers who are fading it or slicing it on the golf
course what do they do?
They aim more left.
Aim more left and they swing more left which opens up the path in the face and more right
it goes.
Correct.
Unfortunately.
So that's a hard you know when we teach how to fix a slice on the range first of all they
always want to start with driver.
Yeah.
I promise you they're doing it with their 7R in 2.
So basically the idea would be we usually teach them the opposite.
We teach them to get basically closed with their set up.
Gotcha.
You know that left foot staying in front of the right foot.
And then I also think that golfers might get their stance correct but then they forget
what their hips and their shoulders are doing.
Yes.
And they've all got to match up.
Yeah.
I see them out there with the alignment rod and they get their feet correct but they forget
about the upper two thirds the hips and the shoulders.
So getting making sure that those body lines are straight on or parallel to each other
is paramount.
Pretty important.
Or at least a little closed I think.
You know so you can get to the inside part of the path.
Learn it right.
Have the problem be hey Sean, hey Tim, I'm hooking it now.
How do I fix that?
Well it came to me you were slicing it.
Yeah.
So now we've gone the other way so now we've got to bring it back with some of these things.
Correct.
Your body's got to get that muscle memory type of thing which is it's not cheating.
It's just you're training your body to swing more from the inside.
Absolutely.
To the outside.
Yes.
Instead of currently a person who slices it swings over the top which is a term you hear
a lot.
Side in, over the top, all those kind of bad terms.
So I think just getting, this is another one that I love.
I know sometimes we sound like we're, I don't know, sometimes we sound like we're making
fun of our audience.
Yeah.
It's because we see a lot of things on the range or on the golf course.
So you'll see the player who gets their feet lined up correctly and then they take their
club and put it parallel against their, like they stand up.
Oh yeah.
I love that.
I love that one.
Yeah.
They're lined up down the fairway.
They're not going to do it.
They put their club on their shoulders and then they're way left.
Yeah.
But then they bend down a little bit.
Get into position and then they're in a different, you know, shoulders are in a totally different
alignment then.
Correct.
Yeah.
So yeah, just be aware of it.
Video taping or videoing your swing, videotaping, sorry.
Videoing your swing.
Yes.
Just a really good way and there's even a bunch of YouTube videos on how to video your swing
because you want to do it from a certain level.
Yeah.
I know the AMG, Athletic Motion Golf guys have a nice kind of YouTube tutorial on how
to video your swing because you've got to do it from a proper level.
You don't want to just be and you've got to be on the correct down the line.
Michael Breed's got a great book out there too.
Yeah.
He did a great in-depth study about it and where you want to place the camera, you know,
for certain positions because if you get the camera out of position by a couple degrees,
it will make it look like it's over the top or and then you're really starting to dig
into problems.
So check those things out on YouTube and Michael Breed, that'd be good.
Yeah.
I think the first thing is definitely getting the path of your body working more.
Again, if we're trying to get rid of a fade or a slice, we've got to get the paths to
come more from the inside to the outside.
Correct.
And the last part of path, we could talk about path for hours, but I think that golfers give
up at the ball, you know, at impact.
Yeah.
They forget that path is also how you exit the club.
So a lot of times we might see them coming from inside out on the downswing, but then
they get to the ball and then their left elbow starts collapsing and the club head starts
going way left and they pull the club essentially in towards their body.
Yeah.
And that's equally as bad.
Well, it reminds me of one of our patrons that we used to work with, Sean Van Patten,
it used to say it's a golf swing, not a golf hit.
And you really do see that they really just try to hit at the ball and then they forget
about post-impact and getting through.
So it's just kind of a choppy motion, you know, like chopping wood or something.
My analogy there is I think if you look at a professional bowler and watch how they make
their follow through, right?
They're not throwing the ball or pitcher is another good one.
Yeah.
They're falling off the mound to the opposite side of where they're throwing from.
And they're trying to get into balance.
Correct.
But the bowler, there's some unbelievable PBA bowlers, professional bowlers up in Claremont
outside of Orlando.
Oh, okay.
I had the opportunity to kind of watch probably 10 of them.
There was a program where we had bowlers and golfers.
Oh, really?
That's interesting.
Yeah, it's really cool.
I bet that was a very interesting conversation with professional bowlers for sure.
Absolutely.
So Jason Couch was on my team and he's a, I don't know if he's a Hall of Famer, but I
think he is, but Norm Duke, Randy Peterson, all these guys who are just high level bowlers.
Not early Anthony's like an older school guy from the 70s and 80s.
Okay.
And then more like the, we'll call it 90s, 2000s kind of current.
So we're bowling and it's like I said, it's like a five player kind of team.
So we bowled at night and then we played golf the next day.
So it was really interesting to see Jason.
He had probably six strikes in a row.
And then you see him walk up, do his normal routine, which we're going to get to, I think
either today or in a future one, but walk up, do his normal routine.
And as soon as he released that ball, he knew that it wasn't a strike.
I mean the instant that he released it.
Just an athlete, just he's done it so many years.
He knows instantly.
It's amazing.
So the next day I said to him, I said, Hey, how did you know you missed that seventh ball?
He goes, how did you know?
I said, cause I play golf and I know what looks good and what feels good.
And as soon as I hit it, I know where it's going to.
He goes, yeah, it's the same thing.
He goes, as soon as I released it, I knew I was two centimeters to the left and I could
tell it wasn't going to go in the center, center pin.
And I could tell it was going to miss and I was going to have two pins left.
Wow.
Amazing athletic feel right there.
That's amazing.
So finishing or getting to a good finish and you know, we call it, we call it posting sometimes,
but getting to that good finish, going back to the lesson with Tim, going, getting, getting
to a good finish, but also having the club face in a good position at that spot.
It's not just that impact.
It's got to stay, you know, all the way through rotating all the way through as you come through.
Yeah.
She just can't quit at it.
That's it.
So that's, that's the first part is the club path.
Okay.
And then the second part would be how do we keep the club face again, if we're not trying
to fade it, you got to get the club face to go left or closed or whatever the term you
want to use to your path, to your path.
That's exactly right.
So I think it's always good to kind of, again, start off short half swings, feel the club
face, get to a good position, you know, through impact.
Yeah.
I like the, the analogy or the thing that you use with your students is you make sure
that they, they hold the follow through at a, you know, a three quarter finish right
there and making sure that their arms are extended.
I think that gives people a really good feeling of extension all the way through.
But also, you know, they, they don't worry so much about their backswing as much as they're
worried about the follow through.
And you start to see that that swing shorten up and they start to get that thing on plane
a lot easier when they're focusing on something more in front of the ball and keeping that
structure out in front of them compared to, you know, when they just kind of collapse
at impact.
Right.
And that's the, that's the chicken wing that we see on that left arm.
Yeah.
And I think that's, I think that's really, again, relative to other sports, you know,
as we're talking about being dynamic golf and not being so static with what, with our
movements and our golf swing.
If you just had a five year old and told him to throw you a ball underhanded, right, they're
not going to stop at impact or when they release the ball, they're not going to stop.
No, they're going to step through.
Yeah.
They're going to walk towards you.
They're probably going to, if you think about it, you're probably going to have your left
foot and your right foot in different positions at the beginning.
You wouldn't have both feet, you know, with each other.
Cross call, cross crawl pattern.
Yeah.
You know, basketball is again a good one because again, you don't see the free throw shooter,
think about again, the three point shooter, like it's almost like they're, they're on
the court and they're, they're not showboating.
No.
But they hold that finish of that, that hand.
Correct.
When they, after they released.
I relate that to the old tiger spin when they, they spend the time, you know, they spend
the club.
That's kind of that feeling, you know, you did that athletic movement perfectly.
Right.
And, and you just want to kind of hold that moment.
And I think that's just positive reinforcement.
You know, that's a good, good, good, good way to say it.
So, so yeah, so get the club face left of your path.
So I guess in how we're going to help people with this slice thing, you have multiple ways
you can do this at home.
You could take a cardboard box, some type of, ideally, you know, 48 inches long or whatever,
just a standard shipping box that you'd ship for your golf club or whatever.
And put it next to the ball, like down range, like just to the right of the, right of the
golf ball and then move it at an angle.
So it's slightly coming from the inside of the outside.
Okay.
So it's pointing a little bit out towards the second basement.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Where you can't hit the box, you know, gotcha.
And then basically again, same thing, just elevate it as you go faster.
It's going to be a little harder because you got to turn your shoulders more and that's
going to make you sometimes hit the box.
Correct.
But learn it from that position.
Again, same thing, driver is a really good one to do with smaller swings.
Yes.
These half back swings.
Yes.
But to your point, to the good follow through, you know, whether, whether your backswing is
halfway back, your follow through is going to be three quarters of the way through.
Yeah.
You know, if your backswing is three quarters of the way back, then your follow through
is going to be a full, it's always longer.
Yes.
Short to long.
Yeah.
That's what I always say.
Short to long.
Yeah, exactly.
So hopefully I think that is, you know, a pretty good start to help.
I think so.
I think that's a good, good spot to be at right there, path, face, you know, always
work on your grip.
I think that's very important, making sure that you feel that in the fingers.
I find a lot of my students find it in the palm and that, you know, you're not able to
rotate your wrists and grasp that club as, as hard as you can.
So, you know, if you're having those issues with the slice, you know, start off with the
grip, then start taking a look at your face and your path and work on those things.
Yeah, absolutely.
So practice hard, you know, go and just one last little thing is I think on the range
we get caught up in hitting the ball off the ground.
Yeah.
You know, I think there's a really good value to hitting the ball off of a tee.
Yes.
Seminar and little small swings again, just, just, you know, if it's on the tee, you kind
of eliminate the worry to get the ball up in the air.
And I think it also helps promote a little bit more of a shallowing motion.
If you have it teed up a little bit too, you know, it kind of helps get your right shoulder
down a little bit as you come through impact.
Yeah.
That's a good, good point.
So if you're going to look at some videos online, I would probably recommend, uh, John
Rom.
It does a really good job of shallowing it.
Yeah.
Ricky Fowler is kind of known for it.
Matt Kuchar looks, you know, some of the guys that look like they're shallowing it.
Yeah.
Everybody's pretty much doing it.
There's not too many guys who are, there's people that swing slightly outside in over
the top.
A little bit.
There's some of them.
Very, very little.
Yeah.
But, uh, the guys that you probably want to have in your, in your imagination is the guys
who look like they're doing it more.
Again, I don't think I mentioned this one.
Justin Rose has a great downswing drill.
Yes.
And his is a really good drill because it's feel versus real is what he says, right?
Um, the feel of where that club, the handle and the club head are coming from behind your
body literally.
Yeah.
Club head is literally behind your, your back into, into impact is way further inside than
you ever kind of.
Oh yeah.
You feel like you're dumping the club back behind you, right?
Yep.
And you're not really going to do that in the full swing because you're going to turn
and rotate and all those things.
Yeah.
But you've got to get your body to feel the opposite of what you're currently doing.
Correct.
So you can get it back to where you're trying to go.
Absolutely.
Start getting those feels.
So, um, once again, thank you so much.
Um, and, uh, we look forward to the next session.
Thank you, Sean.
See you guys next time.
Bye.
Thank you for tuning in and teeing off with Swing Theory Golf.
Keep swinging, keep improving and stay tuned for more exciting episodes.
This is Tim Akeleban, signing off.