Is Your Dominant Hand Over Powering Your Swing?

Did you know that your dominant hand may be the key to the future success of your game? Do you ever wonder why one drive is so amazing and the next one is a duck hook. This strange occurrence and the fact that many golf professionals are trying new putting grip techniques are telling us that a dominant hand grip may have more to do with our swing than we ever thought possible.

Just to add confusion to this theory: Are you aware that Phil Michelson, Mike Weir and Bob Charles are naturally right handed but they golf with left handed clubs. There are also many golfers (including myself) who are naturally left handed and golf with right handed clubs. In my case it was not by choice as we only had right handed clubs in the attic and if I wanted to play I had to figure out how to swing those right handed clubs.

Seeing Phil Michelson (a dominant right handed person) putting with his right hand high and using a claw grip with his left hand low got me thinking about the effect of a dominant left handed person and a dominant right handed person on their swing.

Consider These Facts:
1/ One side of our body is stronger with more co-ordination than the other side as a result of our greater use of our dominant side.
2/ We swing a golf club across our body from one side to the other. One arm is pulling and one arm is pushing. These are very different motions for the brain to manage.
3/ Most people are dominant right or left handed. Our brains are also wired differently for the right or left side. [We don’t know why this happens but it does happen.]
4/ If the power in both of our arms is NOT equal then one arm may be over powering your swing and destroying the consistency of our golf swing.

Ben Hogan practiced with a loose right hand to avoid overpowering his swing and to create lag in his downswing.

Ben Hogan practiced with a loose right hand to avoid overpowering his swing and to create lag in his downswing.

One of our GOLFSTR Swing Tip Subscribers, Scott Mohn (North Carolina) saw my recent Tip about swinging with a loose right hand. He also confirmed that he had been doing the same thing to reduce the influence of the right hand before impact.

He said: “I often follow Ben Hogan’s suggestion of using just the two middle fingers of the right hand to hold the club while practicing. He thought the muscles related to the other fingers of the right hand cause most of the problems for people with over active right sides, hands, and arms. The softer the right hand is for most people, the more lag is created, automatically, without consciously trying to increase it.”

Breakthrough Opportunity to Improve Your Swing:
1/ For your every club in your bag (full swing and putter), you should be testing your golf swing with a loose grip for your trailing hand.
2/ Your straight leading arm, wrist lag and whipping action is the reason why a scrawny 12 year old can hit further than most adults. Allow your leading hand to control your swing.
3/ Your leading hand grip must be in your fingers (not up your palm), to allow the whipping action of your club as you release through impact.

Practice with GOLFSTR+  for a straight leading arm in your backswing and downswing. You will find that a loose trailing hand will easily create lag and whipping action through impact for longer and more consistent hits. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Share

1 comment