How I beat the dreaded shank

There are two types of shanks - one hit from the hosel and the other hit from the extreme part of the toe. I have been suffering from the first kind, especially last year. This year, it has been less severe, mostly due to the fact that I have switched from Ben Hogan Apex blades to Taylor Made LTs that have more offset. Offset really makes a big difference on this case - you might have seen advertisements for Focus/F2 wedges where they go with extreme offset in order to guarantee no shanks. Anyhow, after talking with Shawn Clement from Richmond Hill Learning Centre, and getting a confirmation that I was coming too much from the inside, I knew what I have to fix. Most of my misses have been thin pushes and I soo much wish to get back to the feeling of going through the ball and taking a nice, square divot. In the end I believe I have found it, and for me it has to do with the hip rotation. When I looked at Jim Hardys book the picture that showed me that both the club head and the arms are moving in a circle around the body made a huge difference. In my attempts to keep the club moving along the target line I have disrupted the natural rotational move required in the one-plane swing. In order to get it back I remembered another one of Jim Hardy's tips which is to keep the arms relaxed but passive - let the body lead the hands and let the hands and the club react to the momentum of the swing in which case the arms trace out a circle (if you look at it from the top). By concentrating on relaxing the arms and rotating the hips I got it all - no more lateral shift, solid, solid contact, full weight transfer, easy finish. Lovely. Note however that there is still the matter of timing - there is no doubt in my mind that the one plane swing increases the timing requirement in terms of direction as the ball flies tangentialy from the circle that the clubhead traverses. If you get it on the wrong part of the circle from positioning the ball poorly or from in any way varying the width of the arc you are screwed with direction. Right now I am ok with this - I would rather miss few yards left or right than hit thin or chunk.

That's my two cents on shanking and pushing.

76 - Rocks

It was fun shooting 76 at Don Valley. 11 GIRs and 30 putts. Getting there.