By: Nick Bockenfeld, PGA⌚11 Minute Read
Introduction
At CTRL, we firmly believe that people all have their own unique ideal swing, and that swing advice should always be taken with a grain of salt because we believe that swing tips and advice need to be personalized. I was on r/golf on reddit.com the other day and was trying to make this point. A gentleman asked where people see the worst swing advice and he said for him it was r/golf. While I don’t necessarily disagree with him, as you do see a ton of terrible swing advice on reddit, you also see a lot of great swing advice. I tend to hand out some while personalizing it myself. There are some very knowledgeable players that are just plain obsessed with the game on that subreddit. But It made me think, what would my best swing tips look like? How can generalized swing tips help anyone at all? Well taken with that grain of salt, and making sure that I state that this swing tip should be for this specific person, and give my advice based on that, we should be pretty safe. So what are my best swing tips?
Grip
One of the biggest tips anyone can ever get that is generalized is to check their grip! I don’t care if you are a little weak, a little strong, or neutral, I’ve seen players with each grip type that play phenomenal golf. I won’t tell you which grip you should use, instead, I am going to give some general advice that if you just check up on, you should be in good shape.
Strong, weak, or neutral?
My first big grip tip is to find something that works for you and use it. Do not change your grip every other week as your swing changes. The grip is the only thing connecting you to your tool, and in order to be consistent it has to stay consistent. Look at your lead hand. How many knuckles do you see? Now, remember how many you see! Make sure every time you hit a shot, that is how many knuckles you see.
How tight?
So how tight should you grip the golf club? This one is a little more general, in my opinion. If you find you slice the ball, the cause could definitely be how tight you grip the club. There are varying degrees of tightness that are okay, generally, if you aren’t death-gripping it, you should be okay. When I teach beginner lessons, and we hit on the grip, I always have the player grip the club and then hold it up to me. Then I pull on it and tell them that their grip should only be just tight enough that I can’t pull it out of their hands. This allows you to be much looser with your swing and will help let the club turn over easier.
Stance
Stance is another really important thing, but there are a lot of ways to do it. As long as you stand in a somewhat athletic stance, kick your butt out a little, and let your arms hang loose, you should be in good shape. This is another thing that is really important to do the same every single time. You want to make sure your shoulders, hips, and feet are all aligned to the same spot as well. It helps consistency if you take the same stance every single time in order to hit the same shot every single time.
Hitting a large slice?
If you are hitting a big slice and have no desire to play it, here is a great drill to do in order to make sure you hit it straighter or even change over to a draw! Set up with a very closed stance, trail foot back a foot further than normal. This will promote an inside-to-outside path. Hit shots like this, 3 shots with the closed stance, then take a normal stance and try to keep that same inside-to-out path for one shot, then back on the drill. This can really help to promote more of a draw. Now the last part is to let your club turn over. Don’t try to hold it straight. Let it rotate. A slice is caused by a path really far left of the clubface for a right-handed golfer; reverse it for left-handed players.
Most important is finding the right shaft. Getting a shaft with a low kick point will launch the ball higher. You can also get shafts that are high spinning, so you would want to get a mix of a lower kick point, high spin shaft so that it does all the work and gets the ball higher for you, without changing anything.
Need more distance?
Players chasing distance keep PGA Professionals employed year after year. There are always players seeking distance and for pretty good reason. Have you seen the best players on the PGA Tour? Most of them are LOOOONG off the tee. In fact, being long off the tee helps PGA Tour players a lot. Have you seen the “Strokes Gained off the Tee” category? The longest players fill it. It makes sense. Distance matters not only off the tee, but the higher the clubhead speed, the longer you hit irons and wedges as well. 300 yards off the tee is super cool, but they also hit 9 iron 150+, which is an enormous advantage. People that can do this are few and far between, so how do you get longer? Don’t chase distance by changing your swing and swinging harder. There are a few things you can do first!
The woosh drill
This is a drill Jake Duenckel, CTRL’s former CMO, actually taught me when I was learning how to teach lessons. This drill helps you learn where you are accelerating the most. Ideally, this should be through impact! So how do you make sure you are accelerating the most through impact? Pretty simple, flip your club upside down and start taking swings. Listen for the whoosh in the air. If that whoosh is at impact, then you are good! If it doesn't work, try to work that sound down to impact. Most people reach peak acceleration in the middle of the downswing or to start the downswing, which is not ideal and is wasting energy! Getting longer is a lot easier if you are becoming more efficient.
Are you hitting the sweet spot?
Another thing to do before you go changing your swing is to make sure you are actually hitting the center of the clubface. I know, I know, of course you are! But are you really? Often, players may think they are hitting the center of the clubface, but they aren’t. The best thing to do, check. You can, of course, go buy some impact tape and it will show you precisely on the clubface where you are hitting the ball, or you could grab some foot spray, or sunscreen, really anything that sprays color onto something, spray it on your driver's face, or iron’s face, whatever you are working on, and then hit shots and you will see exactly where you are hitting it on the clubface. If you aren’t hitting it on the sweet spot, you are losing a lot of distance fast!
The CTRL Swing Master
The absolute best way to get better fast, and the best swing tip I have, is to build consistency! Statistically, the most consistent players are always going to be the best players! The fastest way to become a better, more consistent player is the CTRL Swing Master, without a doubt. The CTRL Swing Master is the best golf training aid on the market because it takes your swing and makes it work for you. Instead of breaking down your swing and changing it, it works for you, not against you. If you want to be more consistent, then the CTRL Swing Master is for you!
Conclusion
The CTRL Swing Master is, without a doubt, the best “tip” I could give anyone who wants to get better at golf fast, but other than the training aid, the other tips I give in this, while they are fairly generalized, they can work really well for the right people! Before you follow any swing advice, make sure you check it out and make sure it is meant for you! Everyone has their own unique ideal swing, and because of that, generalized tips you find in magazines or posts like these are certainly not for everyone.
