Golf Tips: In to the full swing

Moving into the full finish, everyone will have slightly different finish positions depending on their own particluar golf grip. - Picture by Darren Kidd /Presseye.com

Ideally, the hands should merely secure the golf club and the body should release the club into a full finish.

THE WEAK GRIP (one that would normally slice the ball to the right for a right hander).

If you tend to have a grip that leads to an open clubface and you don’t want to change it, you have a different option when you swing through to finish.

I want you to imagine that you are outside of your body and looking at yourself swinging the club down towards the target. At waist high though impact you don’t want to be able to see your arms or hands as they should be right in the centre of your body.

Moving through to finish, you’ll really have a sense that the clubhead is working over more with the club exiting more above the shoulder line and into a slightly higher finish position.

This is the definitely where you’ll want to finish the swing with a weak grip. To accommodate a better squaring of the clubface with this grip, make sure your grip pressure is a little softer.

The grip end of the club will finish a little higher than the clubhead.

STANDARD TEXTBOOK GRIP

With a standard textbook golf grip, swing through the ball maintaining a grip pressure of approximately 40-50% and get the club to exit up through and bisecting the lead shoulder joint.

When finished, the clubshaft will be almost horizontal, bisecting the head. All or most of the bodyweight will be on the front leg.

THE STRONG GRIP (one that tends to hook the ball)

You’ll definitely want to up the grip pressure a little bit here. Move from 40-50%, up to around 60% grip pressure, which will help to prevent the clubhead closing over too much. You will definitely see this in the swing of local pro Graeme McDowell.

On a full release of the clubhead into the halfway through position, the leading hand will still be more on top of the trailing hand. As the swing progresses, you’ll really want to feel that the body is clearing harder and that the clubhead is being almost dragged across the ball into a lower position around the body.

You’ll note that the club position isn’t as horizontal across the back of the head, but that the grip end is lower, with the clubhead finishing a little higher.

So in summary:

- WITH A WEAK GRIP USE A SOFTER GRIP PRESSURE AND FINISH WITH HIGHER HANDS

- WITH A STANDARD GRIP MAKE SURE THE CLUBSHAFT FINISHES HORIZONTAL BEHIND THE HEAD

- WITH A STRONG GRIP MAKE SURE YOU HOLD A LITTLE FIRMER AND HAVE THE HANDS FINISH A LITTLE LOWER AROUND THE SHOULDER

Michael Langford

Golf Performance Ireland

Roe Park Resort