Fundamentals
March 2025
01
Why You're Shanking It —
And How To Stop
Let's get the obvious one out of the way. The shank — that soul-destroying lateral shot off the hosel of your iron — is the most humiliating miss in golf. And it almost always comes down to one thing: your club face is meeting the ball in completely the wrong place.
The hosel shank happens when you slide toward the ball on the downswing, moving your hands and the heel of the club ahead of where they were at address. The fix is simpler than most people think: stand a fraction further from the ball and keep your weight centred. Don't lunge at it.
"The shank is a confidence problem dressed up as a technique problem. Fix the technique, and the confidence follows."
Three quick checks before your next round:
01 —
At address, check that you can see a small gap between the ball and the hosel. If the ball is sitting right at the neck of the club, you're already too close.
02 —
On the downswing, feel like you're dropping the club slightly inside — not swinging out toward the ball. Shanks come from coming over the top and reaching.
03 —
Practice with a tee placed just outside the ball. If you knock the tee, you're coming too far from the outside. Miss the tee, hit the ball — that's the shape you want.
The shank is curable. Most golfers who go through a shanking phase come out the other side with a cleaner, more centred strike than they had before. Consider it a correction your swing was asking for.
Setup
February 2025
02
Grip It Right.
Everything Starts Here.
If you ask any good golfer what the single most important fundamental is, most of them will say the grip. Not the backswing. Not the hip turn. The grip. Because how you hold the club determines everything that happens after it — the club face angle at impact, your wrist action through the ball, your ability to release properly.
The most common amateur mistake is gripping too tight. You squeeze the life out of the club, your forearms tense up, and any chance of a fluid swing disappears. Grip pressure should feel like you're holding a tube of toothpaste without squeezing any out. Light. Secure. In control.
"Grip pressure on a scale of one to ten? Most amateurs grip at an eight. Tour pros average around four."
A few things to check when you take your grip:
01 —
The club should run diagonally through the fingers of the left hand — not across the palm. A palm grip kills wrist hinge and costs you distance before you've even swung.
02 —
Look down at your left hand — you want to see two to two-and-a-half knuckles. Too few and the face will open; too many and you'll close it through impact and pull everything left.
03 —
The Vs formed by the thumbs and forefingers of both hands should point roughly toward your right shoulder. If they're pointing at your chin, you're in a weak position.
Changing your grip feels deeply wrong for the first few sessions. That's fine — it's supposed to. Stick with it for a month and you'll wonder how you ever played any other way.
Swing Mechanics
January 2025
03
Tempo Over Power.
The Secret Nobody Talks About.
Every golfer, at some point, decides the problem with their game is that they're not hitting it hard enough. So they swing harder. And they hit it worse. This is the fundamental trap of amateur golf — the belief that effort equals distance. It doesn't. Tempo does.
Researchers who've analysed Tour pro swings found that the best ball strikers share a consistent backswing-to-downswing tempo ratio of roughly 3:1. Three counts back, one count down. They don't rush the transition. That short pause at the top — barely perceptible, but there — is where all the power is stored.
"Swing at 80% and you'll hit it 90% of the distance. Swing at 100% and you'll hit it 70% — off the heel, into the trees."
How to actually feel better tempo:
01 —
Count "one-and-two" in your head as you swing. One is the takeaway. "And" is the transition at the top. Two is the follow-through. If you're rushing, the "and" disappears entirely.
02 —
Hit a bucket of balls with a 7-iron swinging at what feels like 50% effort. You'll probably be surprised how far they go. That's the proof of concept. Gradually dial it back up from there.
03 —
Watch your divots. Good tempo produces a consistent, shallow divot after the ball. Overswinging produces a deep, erratic gouge — or no divot at all because you've already lost your posture.
You can't buy tempo. But you can train it. And once you have it, the whole game starts to feel a lot easier — and a lot more enjoyable.