Maintaining the simplest swing plane and allowing the club to swing freely is somewhat challenging to the traditional approach. However a number of Tour players including Ryder Cup player Darren Clarke, have been impressed by the accomplishments of PGA Instructor Stan Utley [a Tour Winner himself] and have found enormous success allowing the clubface to rotate and the hands to release the club even on delicate shots around the green.
We tried a number of simple drills to check that the club swings ‘on-plane’ back and through, and experimented by holding the club handle beyond the end cap keeping just two fingers of the gloved hand on the handle! Everyone was really surprised at the success pitching with such a loose grip and keen to try out this feeling out on the course.
Even more challenging was a demonstration of a drill from PGA Instructor Fred Shoemaker [read Extraordinary Golf] wherby we experiment with the results literally letting go of the club handle as we hit the ball! Expect some danger if trying this at home, by the way. I actually lost Lulu’s 7 iron demonstrating typical mistakes here and had to fetch a ladder to find it on the roof of our greenkeeper’s shed!!! Oops!
