Butch Harmon and producer Tommy Fleetwood at last year's Masters.
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If you hit the ball right, Butch Harmon said, try to hit it left.
And vice versa.
“I'm a big believer – and I learned this from my father – on the contrary,” he said.
Harmon, a hall of fame 100 golf instructor, was speaking in a recently recorded episode of A New Kind of Golf on SiriusXM, and the topic was much discussed: How to fix a piece. After his initial objection thought, Harmon dove into that look.
There are several steps, says Tiger Woods' one-time coach:
— Use a firm grip.
“So if you're a tipper,” Harmon said on the show, “usually you open the clubface a little more, you're a little higher, your approach is a little more out, unless you're going in.” hitting a big push from below. So I would really look at the person's grip, I would tighten his grip, find the upper hand – mine, being on the right, the left hand about two or three knots and the right hand lower.”
— Use a more closed setup.
– “Let them come out as far around their body as possible,” Harmon said on the show, “to try to keep the clubface closed.”
Harmon also said he has two training machines. The first is a club several feet long – which can emphasize to the player the movement of the club against them.
“I have a club that's almost… as long as my grip, and I use that a lot to show people what it takes to control the club,” he said on the show hosted by Michael Breed, GOLF Top. 100 Teacher Lifetime Achievement Recipient. “And when you put your hands that far off the face of the club, you can really see it. And I explain to them, you come in a lot here. If we get this left hand over and the right under, this toe will go over there. And then if we get you to come a little bit inside, you can get this club released. “
Another thing Harmon does is to have a player turn and move a little.
“And I'm recording it,” Harmon said on the show. “Because you're moving slowly, you can make your body do whatever you want. And I'll have them hit balls for maybe five or 10 minutes, on the tee, say, a 6- or 7-iron, with a slow walk, a firm grip, a closed stance, feel like yourself. 'You're hitting the inside of the ball, not the outside of the ball, which is what you do when you come up with an overswing.
“And two things happen: No. 1, they can feel the process, feel what they are trying to do; but No. 2, they're surprised how they hit it with what they think is a slow swing.”
Editor's note: Listening to A New Breed of Golf, please click here. [A SiriusXM subscription is needed.]
Second Editor's Note: Recently, three-time award winner Padraig Harrington reconfirmed his attempt to put the piece together, and that story can be read. by clicking here or scroll down.
***
Hook, Padraig Harrington says.
And hook and hook and hook some more.
“The bigger the hook you know, like 20, 30, 40 yards of hook, the worse looking shot,” he says.
And that's how novices can fix a piece, he believes.
And that's how beginners can understand clubface control.
And this is how amateurs can learn this:
“No golf swing is static,” Harrington said.
He was speaking on a recently released episode of “The Rough Cut Golf Podcast” – which you can listen to in full here – and the topic of the piece is popular. Right-handed novices always send it to the right (and to the left). Novices are also researching its cure as if it were a disease. Google “how to fix a slice” and you're ready to scroll and scroll.
However, Harrington's thinking is simple.
Go left if you are ready. Go right if you are left-handed.
“So most of the freshmen, say when you hit a piece, they think, I want to learn to hit this good, straight game or say a 5-yard draw,” Harrington said on the podcast. “Well, actually, if you have a piece and you want to remove it, you have to stay on the list and hit the biggest hook you can, like 20, 30, 40 yards of hook, a very bad looking picture. And you have to keep hitting that for a while.”
Over time, however, Harrington said, players will begin to combine the ball, which will require a different job on the other side. On the range, the golfer must try to deliberately cut the ball.
There is a pair of results.
Harrington thinks the player will learn to control the clubface. Notably, at one point in the episode, he noted that understanding that is a matter of “people who hit the ball badly.”
“So for a lot of people who are newbies,” Harrington said in the podcast, “it would be better if they went to the range and hit a big hook and a big slice and a whole argument every second, and then at least they'll understand. And which is the closed face and the open face. And as they get better, they can reduce how much they do it. Although many people go from a big piece to trying to get a square face. And unfortunately, many beginners do not know what a square face is. So they have a chance of knowing what a closed face is and an open face, but they have a very small chance of knowing what a square face is.
“So you learn by doing extremes.”
And finally the ball will go to the left. Or it's okay.
But don't expect things to stay that way, Harrington said.
Golf, right?
“That's right [the swing] it won’t always be the same,” Harrington said on the podcast. “Don't believe it will ever happen. Always – always in golf, you go from one to the other and overdo it a little bit. OK, now stop that, go back, and hopefully as you get better, there's less movement, that it's just a small fraction of the movement, but it's not going to be like that for the rest of your life.
“No golf swing is static.”
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