IT'S GOOD FOR YOUR GAME

It takes two hands

to hit the ball

Ben Hogan said he wished he had three right hands, and one of the best ball strikers ever, Tommy Armour, nicknamed the Silver Scot, wrote an entire instruction book based on hitting with his right hand (both were right-handed). The premier English player Henry Cotton used a rubber car tire to train his students’ hands. And yet much instruction today is driven by too much emphasis on lagging the clubhead to keep the hands out of the swing.

So do you use your hands or don’t you? Yes, of course you do, but you must use both of them correctly to release the clubhead to the ball.

Remember, the 90-degree angle formed by the shaft and the front wrist in the backswing must spring open in a burst of power to form a straight line running from your front shoulder to the clubhead. And the way to accomplish this is to use your trail hand to apply force while your lead hand and arm keep moving.

This is called the release, and done correctly, you can hear the whoosh the clubhead makes as it reaches the ball. Try making the whoosh with your lead wrist still cocked ― you can’t do it because your hands are still loaded.