Stance/posture/hands question...

[BigJim13]

I was leafing thru either Golf Digest or Golf Mag the other day and came across a tip (one of many in the mag). Normally I skim them and move on. This one caught my attention. It was regarding the hands and where they should be at address.

Basically the tip read that for all shots your hands shoudl be even with your zipper on your pants/shorts. I then thought back to my stance and hand position and even tried it out and noticed that I move my hand position depending on what club/shot I am hitting.

For instance for a driver, I play the ball off my left instep. I would then move my hands forward of my zipper to address the ball. I do it this way for most of my long irons, hybrids or FW woods.

Conversely for short irons/wedges I play the ball more middle to back of my stance and my hands more to the middle but tend to forward press with my hands to get the shaft leaning ahead of the ball.

So I gave a try to keeping my hands in the middle of my zipper and it seems MUCH easier to maintain a one piece takeaway and to keep my arms and body connected.

Has anybody heard of this or incorporated it into their swing? Were you already doing it and I have been doing it wrong for years, LOL, which is the most likely answer... any thoughts/opinions would be much appreciated!

[mont86]

Thats how I set up..I have heard it many different ways. I see alot of guys set up with a forward press. It doesn't feel right for me.

[FATC1TY]

I set up square with my zipper... Forward press only feels right to me, when I putt and when I'm chipping or trying to do a short lob from something close to the green. Helps keep me back to the same point at impact.

[Pa Jayhawk]

Have seen a number of different philosophies on this, by a number of different top instructors. Although many have stated as well that you should have them in the same position at impact as you do at setup, which seems to make sense in how I play. Not that I am even a good ball striker.

[mcctee]

The best tip I can give you is to go out and get a copy of Ben Hogan's
'Five Lessons, The Modern Fundamentals of Golf'. Follow through on Hogan's recommendations on practicing the fundamentals he describes especially the stance and posture items. This will clearly answer all your questions on these areas and you won't have to go anywhere else for them as almost all teaching professionals will give you the same information since they themselves studied this book to get where they are, including touring professionals.

There are also plenty of golf videos out there showing Ben Hogan swinging the golf club and even a good amount of visuals on YouTube.

Good luck but I know this tip will help you improve your game!
Tom

[MrT]

I totally thought about this thread while at the range today. I really work on getting my hands back to my address position at impact....what da ya know! I was mashing the ball with a little fade....and when I didn't put them back in the slot I was fighting a slice or a hook.

Anyone else try this?

[BrandonM7]

I guess my hands are close to center at setup. Really the club dictates it - by design when soled the club shows you which way it wants the handle to go. Harvey Penick said it more eloquently than that. So with my wedges my hands are a bit ahead of center, and they move back slightly as the clubs get longer. I guess if you played a continuously variable ball position you could keep your hands in the same place with each club. But I don't do that. But I don't think it really matters to me. All the body positions are so different between setup and impact that I don't think any hand position I chose at setup would effect my impact positions. But that's just me - different things work for different people, so roll on with it if it works.