taking your grip so that the thumb extension of the forefinger—press up against each other tightly. Keep them pressed together as you begin to affix your grip and maintain this airtight pressure between them when you fold the right hand over the left thumb. In this connection, I like to feel that the knuckle on the back of my right hand above the forefinger is pressing to the left, toward the target. Furthermore, when you fold the right hand over the left thumb—and there is a lot to fold over—the left thumb will fit perfectly in the cup formed in the palm of your folded right hand. They fit together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.” Ben Hogan
“The pressure points in the grip are the last three fingers of the left hand and the forefinger and thumbs and the little finger of the right hand.” Walter Hagen.
“The only way I know of achieving a relaxed grip which will at the same time retain adequate control of the club is to actuate the club and hold it mainly by the three small fingers of the left hand.” Bobby Jones.
“Whatever you do, make sure your left hand dominates your right—or vice versa if you’re a lefthander—from the time you take hold of the club until you finish the swing. If you hold the club with the same pressure in each hand, your naturally stronger right hand will over power your left hand and take control of the swing, with disastrous results.” Byron Nelson.
“I don’t ever remember losing the club in my left hand once in my entire life.” Byron Nelson.
“In a way, the last two fingers of my left hand are a focal point for my sense of rhythm—a kind of band leaders baton—holding up the drums while the violin finishes.” Sam Snead.
“He showed me the classic overlap, or Vardon, grip—the proper grip for a good golf swing—and told me to go hit the golf ball . . . I worked hard to learn the grip Pap showed me. It probably helped that my hands were larger than the average kid’s . . . that was pretty much all the swing instruction he gave me for many years. ‘Get the right grip, hit the ball hard. Go find the ball, boy, and hit it hard again,’” Arnold Palmer.
“The standard grip is the overlapping grip or the Vardon grip. Harry Vardon popularized it both in Great Britian and America. In a good grip both hands act as one unit. The grip is the heartbeat of the action of the golf swing.” Ben Hogan
“I’ve felt my swing would not fail if I held the club a certain way, that would repeat every time.” Dave Eichelberger said. “To me, that’s what Hogan’s secret was.”
“But is there is one thing I would tell all golfers about technique, it would be that the grip has a tendency to change even during the course of a round and you have to keep checking it day in and day out. The grip is the foundation of the swing. Well, there’s one other thing—you must constantly work on timing and tempo.” Patty Berg
Arms—Setting up the Triangle
“Keeping the arms together and pinching the knees together in unison.” Walter Hagen.
“Ben Hogan used to practice the swing with his arms bound together by a belt around his forearms. He wasn’t trying to stress the differing positions of the left arm and the right arm that ideally occupy throughout the swing, but rather to encourage them to work in a balanced and thus harmonious fashion. I think of keeping my elbows together a lot, for the same reason. I also press my knees toward each other when I stand up to the ball, as though I’m slightly knock-kneed—again, in part, to help create a good working relationship between opposite sides.” Sam Snead.
“The arms work absolutely subjectively to the shoulders, that is why they are controlled. The triangle formed by our arms and a line between the shoulders never loses its shape . . . it should be possible to push a wooden snooker triangle in between the arms and to leave it there without impeding the swing back or through.” Percy Boomer.
“Most people think they lift their arms to get them to the top of the backswing. With a modern controlled swing they do not lift them . . . the arms work absolutely subjective to the shoulders, that is why they are controlled.” Percy Boomer.
“It is by the management of the arms that championships are won or lost.” Percy Boomer.
“Keep your left arm connected against your chest, the same as a baseball batter or forehand down the line in tennis or anything else—the lead arm always stays on the body. It all came from baseball and Babe Ruth, teaching Sam Byrd how to bat. A drill—a handkerchief under the lead arm and keeping it under throughout the swing. Ruth taught it in baseball, and Sam Byrd brought it into golf, explained it to Hogan and some of the other guys. Sam Byrd found that in golf all the great players did it. Whether they knew did it or not, they did it, just like the great hitters all do it.” Jimmy Ballard.
While living in San Diego, this author took a golf lesson from John Schlee, the third round leader and eventual runner up to Johnny Miller when he posted his final round 63 in the 1973 US Open. Imagine how that impacted Schlee’s life. Schlee, who was one of the chosen few to spend time on the lesson tee with Hogan in Fort Worth. His message to me . . . “imagine holding an orange between your elbows.”
“A word of emphasis about the elbows. You want to press them as closely together as you can. When you do this (and the elbows point directly to the hip bones) you will notice that the pocket of each elbow—the small depression on the inside of the joint—will lie in the center of the arm, at the midway point. The pockets will be facing toward the sky, as they should, not toward each other. In this position of address, though the left arm hangs relatively straight, the right arm should be broken a little at the elbow as the elbow points in. The right elbow, as it folds close to the body, should always be pointing toward the ground. If the upper part of the right arm adheres as closely as possible to the side of the chest.” Ben Hogan.
“As your arms become schooled, you will get the feeling that the arms and the club form one firm unit—sort of as if the two arms were equal sides of a triangle, with the club emerging like the spire of a steeple at the peak point where the arms join.” Ben Hogan.
Lower Body: Stance, Posture, Ball Position
“The value of perfect posture and body rhythm.” Walter Hagen.
“Never reach for the ball. Your weight as you address the ball should be distributed evenly between the ball and the heel of each foot, with special emphasis on the left foot. This gives you the best possible foundation for your swing. If you start reaching perceptibly for the ball, the arc of your swing will become to flat. The predominant fault is standing too far from the ball, rather than too close to it. It is next to impossible to stand too close to the ball.” Byron Nelson.
“Many a golfer make the sizable error of thinking of the stance as that preparatory part of the swing in which the player merely lines himself up on the target he or she is shooting at. While one of the purposes of the stance certainly is to set up the direction of the shot, it also has quite a number of other functions that are much more important. Power and control must be combined in a good golf swing, and the stance is that step in which a golfer sets himself up so that (1) his body will be in balance throughout the swing, (2) his/her muscles are ready to perform fluidly, and (3) as a logical result, all the energy he pours into his swing will be channeled to produce maximum control and power. When you see a fine player making little individual movements of his feet or his knees or his shoulders as he settles into his stance, do not mistake these for empty gestures of nervousness. And they’re not movements, either, that precede his arriving at a static, fixed position. What he’s actually
