Play Better Golf Blog

Jeff Evans is a busy man. Between running a pro shop, giving lessons to amateurs and competitive tour players, making lesson videos on Youtube, selling his awesome little training aid (The Pure Ball Striker), and then somehow having a personal life as well, it’s no wonder his time effort on GolfWRX.com has been so appreciated. Jeff is certified Golfing Machine instructor who is extremely knowledgeable in all aspects of the golf swing.

Below is a copy of a post he wrote on GolfWRX. I’ll be including Jeff’s Youtube videos in the coming days to help elaborate on his ideas.

Enjoy!

http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/313159-the-strong-single-action-grip/

The Secret of Golf – By Jeff Evans

There has been much written on what is the “secret” of golf. Mr. Ben Hogan said that he had a secret, and it was obvious if he told you where to look. I truly believe that there are many things a good golfer does to produce the secret of golf. These good players may do it with or without awareness; but regardless, they do it with consistency. We could review all the possible secrets, but let us go directly to the point and look at the true secret and the possible components used to build the secret.

From my experience, this is what I have found to be true. At nearly 20 years of age and a terminal athlete, I began playing the game of golf. I had no idea what to do except to hit the ball as hard as I could. Once in a while, I would feel something different from all the balls I hit. The ball felt, flew, and sounded different coming off the face. This only happened sporadically; but as I practiced more, I noticed it happened more regularly. However, I had no idea why. During the course of about 20 years, countless numbers of balls hit, and numerous frogs kissed along my journey, I’ve realized that what all good players are able to do is “sustain their line of compression” through the impact interval. This is relationship-based geometry. Geometry is the study of relationships through which we evaluate plane geometry, straight lines, circles, squares, triangles, and their attributes.

“The Secret of Golf” is to sustain the line of compression, and every good player is able to monitor their feel through their hands. What to feel? Every player senses their motion differently, but the feel of clubhead lag pressure ensures proper direction and control of the ball. Once the player gains control of the ball, they can then control their individual score. First, they must be able to monitor their hands. This monitoring is true awareness, which gives the player a feel. To feel what? To feel the clubhead through the hands — location, condition, and direction, for any stroke.

We are all “feel players”; but we must know what to feel, and communicating feel is very difficult. By delivering the hands rather than the clubhead to the ball, we gain the awareness of clubhead lag pressure. Because the clubhead is now trailing or following the hands, it gives the player a forward leaning clubshaft. The clubhead is trying to catch up with the hands and overtake them, but will not until well after impact.

When I spend time with TOP LEVEL PLAYERS, they always want to talk about what they are feeling. It is my job to come up with drills that help players of all levels learn what they feel/sense. That is the concept behind the Pure Ball Striker. It allows the player to feel/sense their “unique feel” from putter through driver. Let’s learn to “Sustain the LAG.”

Sustain the Lag
What does that mean? Through impact interval, sustain the lagging clubhead, monitoring it through the hands until the club, hands and left shoulder get in-line at the bottom of the swing arc or low point. To quote Nike, let’s “JUST DO IT!” So, here we go!

Educated Hands

Regardless of a pivot or hand controlled system the hands must be educated.

Educated Hands
The hands are the only connection between the club and the body obviously. This connection could be considered the command post. For an uncompensated stroke through impact interval the left wrist is flat, level and vertical and the right wrist is bent, level and vertical.

Flat- the wrist is flat when the forearm and the back of the hand is form a straight line.
Bent- the wrist is bent when the hand is bent backwards. (With open hands the tips of the fingers would be trailing or lagging the palm)
Level- the wrist is level when the wrist bone and the edge of the hand form a straight line. (The first knuckle of the first finger and the edge of the hand and wrist are in line)
Vertical- the wrist is vertical or 90 degrees to the plane angle.

The hands sense the club through pressure felt in specific areas of the hands. One may consider the hands the command post and processors of feedback. Pressure is felt in specific areas of the hands and are called Pressure Points 1) Palm of the right hand where it touches the left thumb 2) the last three fingers of the left hand and 3) the trigger finger where the right index finger butt pad touches the aft side of the grip. These pressure point all cover a specific portion of the grip called the sweet spot plane or longitudinal center of gravity. Being able to sense or feel the club is an absolute and requires awareness which is the ability to monitor the 3 functions of the club. Monitoring leads to management of golfers total game but one must have the knowledge and understanding of what to monitor. To club control and club control leads to ball control and ball control lead to score control.

The hands have a condition, a location and a direction as seen it the pix below. It is the direction that maintains the condition to and through impact interval.