WEBVTT

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This concept video is answering the member question, "Can't I just strengthen

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my

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grip?" So many golfers who come into the ball with an overly open club face

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like

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this and a scoop pattern to close it, kind of like this, will invariably ask,

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"Can't I just strengthen my grip?" I don't like feeling the motorcycle or the

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shaft rotation. I'm gonna talk through a little bit of, yes, you can just close

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the face with shaft rotation by changing your grip, but the problem is if you

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also struggle with low point control, the motorcycle does two helpful things

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for

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you. It closes the face and moves the low point forward. If you just change the

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grip, all you do is change the face, you don't really change the low point. So

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what

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can happen is if you strengthen your grip but you don't have a pattern of

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shaft rotation coming into the ball, then what will tend to happen is with this

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stronger grip, you will tend to over close it because you'll also have the

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shaft fairly vertical and you'll start to hit some left shots. And so then you

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've

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got a few different options for holding off the left shot. The best option,

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which

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is where, I say yes, you can if you do these other things, the best option is

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if

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I have a stronger grip, then all I have to do is keep my body rotating and

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leave

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the club more behind and the body rotation will change the low point, move

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it forward so I can hit the ball solidly and I don't necessarily have to do a

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whole lot of the motorcycle feeling because I'm going from extension to less

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extension, not getting all the way into flexion. But unfortunately that's not

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what most golfers do. What most golfers do is one of two things. So when they

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get

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the grip overly strong, they'll do one of two things. They'll either hold the

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face open by swinging the path a little bit more into out with the arms, more

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low

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to high kind of like this and now they start picking the ball. That swinging

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the arms into out helps prevent closing the club face too much, but it moves

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the

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low point backward. So I start hitting picky shots and what'll happen is if I

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start swinging hard then the club will tend to pass and now I hit really kind

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of

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sweeping pull draws. It's a hard pattern to play. The other options, that's

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more of

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the arm swinging it or holding off the face. The other option is more what the

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body will do. So in order to delay the closing of the club face or to prevent

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the club face closing, they'll tend to go into more early extension kind of

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like

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this and that can cause shanks off the hosel or it can cause best-case scenario

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is

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some of the same low point control issues of trying to hold off the wrist.

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Basically both of them, I've rotated the face closed and then both of them are

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trying to hold the face open by pushing the shaft vertical like this as opposed

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to delaying the club face closing or holding it open by getting more body

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rotation. So if you just want to strengthen your grip and focus on getting

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body rotation while monitoring that the path doesn't get too far outside in,

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that

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can be a fine solution. But the reason I'm an advocate of the shaft rotation

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and

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more the motorcycle and the good arm release mechanics is it does two

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things. It helps square the club face and it gets the low point forward with

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really good arm extension or really good arc width on the way through and that

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that combination seems to be what I see as one of the most common traits among

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elite ball strikers is that the club is moving away from their chest as they're

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going through impact and in order to do that you need to have, you need to be

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preventing the club from reaching its widest point and if the wrist is going

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more towards extension or this elbow is starting to bend sooner where the club

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is passing your sternum that typically means that you've already reached your

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maximum and you're going to tend to struggle a little bit more with low point

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control. So you can just strengthen your grip if you also add body rotation but

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if you want the best long-term solution working on better arm mechanics has a

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great combo effect that will have a bigger impact on your game than just

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strengthening your grip. So this would be with more of a neutral grip and good

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arm mechanics kind of like that and then this would be my version of a

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stronger grip with more of a hold-off or or less motorcycle movement but more

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body rotation.