Shank Cure

I don't know if you have ever had this, when a pro watches you in a lesson type situation you hit the most perfect shots of your life and you think to yourself, WTF, where did this come from?

Well, I played 12 holes with Pete the club pro tonight and after showing him a nice pull hook with the driver on the second, I preceded to stripe the ball down the fair way and hit greens with better play than I have almost ever done, no sign of the shank and no more hooks! I was beginning to think it would be a waste of time, until finally on the 7th I managed to demonstrate the short wedge shank not once but 3 times in a row.

never been pleased before to hit a shank!

Anyway, Pete confirms it's weight getting onto my toes with too wristy an action contributing. The cure is to plant weight firmly on my heels for these short half shots, open the stance a bit and to play them with less wrist movement, more firm wrists. On full shots my momentum and pivot takes care of my balance and there is no problem, but on part feel pitches there is not enough pivot to keep me in perfect balance so I need to be more rooted.

One drill is to shove a bit of two by one under my toes at the range apparently, I'll give it a try :D

Anything to eradicate the dreaded Artur J's...

Regarding the hook, I'm not swinging out to in and pulling it with my swing path like I thought, Pete pointed to the high flight as evidence that it is not a bad hook, more of an over active draw, he thinks it's again to do with over active wrists. Apparently the grip, alignment and back swing look sound and the club is not closed at the top of the back swing, the swing path is fine, so it must be too active a release closing the club face too much comming in to the impact. I'll also be working on having more passive hands from now on.

On another note it was a pleasure to play and watch Pete work the ball around the holes, fades, draws, punch shots and good putting all at a great tempo.

12 hole playing lesson, bunker tips, flop shot tips, general course management tips, and swing advice all for £30, bargain!