Dear James,
In my experience with novice golfers, the main task is to get them to SLOW DOWN. Way down! Everyone thinks you have to whack the ball or it won't move -- children and adults alike.
It seems that the brain is naturally set on "Overkill" or "Smithereens!" instead of merely "Stun." Only part of this excess exuberance to smash the golf ball on the green is attributable to what is called "naive physics notions." The bulk of the excess seems to be hardwired as a matter of insuring brute survival at the cost of artistry. The first thing I usually show a novice on the green is gentleness, and then I show them that calmness and gentleness are commrades, and that calmness and gentleness together can successfully climb Mount Accuracy.
A few things I do to help this along: First, I start the novice out close to the hole, so any overkill is immediately seen as not helpful and not needed. Second, I show the image of a baby elephant standing in the hot savannah in the shadow of its giant mother, lazily swinging its trunk from side to side across the grass, demonstrating this by moving my shoulder frame and head together and letting my putter serve as the trunk. Then, I back the novice off the hole a bit (about 7-10 feet) and ask him or her to putt the ball ONLY to the front lip and not to let it go in the hole. Then I draw a line in front of the hole six inches from the front lip and challenge the novice to STOP as many balls out of ten between the line and the front lip. The usual experience is that the novice then sends only about 2 balls long, about 2-3 balls short, and 3-4 balls into the hole, and only 1-3 balls in the target region at the lip. Repeating this exercise, the golfer then starts sinking the great majority of putts and has difficulty getting the ball to cross the line but also stop short. Meanwhile, all concerns for line are just subsumed in the task focus, and line is not much of a problem at all.
Every novice is really different, though. Each brings a certain level of physical and neurological and emotional development to the learning situation.
Small children, for example, have a great desire to please and do well, but little stock of well-learned movement experiences to build upon and little cognitive capacity to pay attention and comprehend verbal instruction. They have a pell-mell approach to experience in general. Older children enjoy "games" and "competition," and have a stronger sense of identity, a greater store of physical experience, and are more experienced and methodical in translating adult verbal instruction in a useful way. But, again, they are simply too exuberant. Novice golfers who are adults bring a wealth of physical experience and cognitive skills, but are a bit like secret illiterates in the workplace -- very concerned with not letting on about their difficulty. At the same time and for the same reason, adults are too quick to try to demonstrate an ability to participate in the learning by showing what they think is helpful, based on something they heard from someone once or on something they might think about how to do it, when instead they should simply be more receptive and patient.
In all these situations, the teacher has to assess the experience and capacity for learning of the novice, but above all to keep the learning "inviting." The novice has to be comfortable, welcomed, and encouraged to express whatever impulses this welcoming might call forth.
After I show the novice the usefulness of slowing down, then it depends on the capacity of the golfer whether I show them something complicated like putting two balls exactly the same distance with exactly the same movement of the body. Kids at about age 9-12 can just start to learn something useful about this. Occasionally, a younger kid gets this, but only if he or she already has a store of rich experience on the green.
If the novices can take in the notion of tempo in the stroke, then I elaborate on distance control in terms of core putt, no-hit strokes, uphill/downhill, green speed differences, and long lags.
After a basic introduction to distance control, really without respect to getting the ball into a hole, then I teach how to putt straight. I demonstrate how the putter face aims at address and then show the novice that a "straight putt" is defined as one that rolls the ball the same way the putter face is aimed at address. Then I draw a line on the green with my finger away from the putter sweetspot straight down the line the putter face is aimed for about 6 inches, put a ball in front of the putter face, and ask the novice to roll the ball down the line. next, I draw a box with my finger, about three inches wide and eight inches long, with a "back" line where the putter face is aimed, and open on the other end. This boxlike "chute" establishes the aim of the putter face, so I place a ball an inch or two inside the chute in front of the back line, and invite the novice to putt straight out of the box. Then I put a second ball in the chute and ask the golfer to putt straight a second time, and then watch to see if the second ball joins up with the first ball like a railroad freight car getting added to a train. If all goes well, then I add the notion that the golfer is really making a casual stroke away from and back to the back line of the chute with the face staying "square," and that so long as the golfer does this with good timing and accuracy, the putter face will naturally rise a little past the line into the back of the ball and roll it straight. Then I have the novice putt some more out of the chute, focusing on putting the line, not the ball. If all is still going well, then I set up a string line aimed into a hole about 10 feet off (having established a straight-uphill line first), and then invite the golfer to draw a back line beneath the string and then putt balls straight into the hole by putting the line.
The overall frame is that there are only four things to learn: distance control, putting straight, aiming the putter face and body (setting up square to the putter face as aimed) at a target, and picking an effective target for the line and distance to start the ball off so that the ball will actually end up inside the hole. Distance control is the most important of these, followed closely by putting straight. With novices, I don't worry to much too soon about aiming or reading putts / selecting targets, but concentrate on sound fundamentals of distance control and putting straight. I mix in some successful straight putts, or pick the target for them and maybe help aim for breaking putts, so the novice actually sinks some interesting and challenging putts, but this is more a form of making the experience fun and inviting than it is focusing on aiming and putt reading. The idea is that aiming and putt reading don't mean much until the novice can control distance and putt straight, and getting into this too quickly can be overwhelming and frustrating.
Two Pistoleros grip.
This picture shows a grip similar to mine.
My grip is a little more compact, with not as much offset between the left and right hands (the right thumb is not as much lower than the left thumb as in the picture -- mine is only a thumbnail or so lower). Basically, my grip is a neutral left-hand palm's lifeline fitted to the edge of the putter handle, with the index finger not deliberately extanded straight down the side of the shaft but resting the right side of the index fingertip slightly beneath the handle in a relaxed way -- the left thumb is oriented straight on the top of the handle, flat thumb to flat surface. If you removed the handle from my left hand's shape, it would look like using the hand to make a pointing pistol. The right hand is the same basic shape. I open the last three fingers of the right hand and move the hand over top of the left's last three fingers, shifted one-half a finger width down the handle so that the right pinkie fits on top in the valley formed by the left's pinkie and ring fingers. The other two fingers of the right hand are similarly offset one-half a finger lower down the handle on top of the left's fingers. This results in the right thumb riding on the back of the left thum, with the right thumb being lower by a tip. The right index is similarly resting against the side of the handle, not extended straight down the side of the shaft.
Here's a picture of Harold Swash showing how the putter fits into the lifeline:
He has his left index pointed straight, which I don't recommend because I think it draws too much attention to itself and away from how the shoulder motion controls the stroke.
The main point is that the LEFT hand is the one more intimately in contact with the putter handle, as I believe (like Harvey Penick and Billy Casper) that it is the non-dominant hand that best controls the stroke (left hand for a right handed golfer). As Casper says: "Left hand! Left hand!" In contrast, the standard "reverse overlap" grip has the right hand mostly in contact with the handle and the left sitting on top.
My grip is sort of a "left-hand low" grip without the "low." I prefer the shoulders level at the beginning, as I emphasize putting the line right at the bottom of the stroke (in the middle of the stance or slightly ahead of that, depending on putter design and setup), which should be reached in the downstroke right when the shoulders return to level. My grip COULD be offset with the right fingers HIGHER up the handle on top of the left. I'll try this out and see what difference, if any, it seems to make.
One subtle feature of my grip form is that the left middle finger sits perfectly in a depression in my right palm that runs up from the base of the right hand's middle finger to the butt of the palm where the lifeline of the right palm runs to the wrist. This sense of "fit" of the left middle finger into this pocket of the right palm indicates to me that my grip is as it should be.
My grip pressure is about 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being a death grip. It's about the same as a casual handshake with a nice lady. Once set, the grip pressure does not change during the stroke.
Padraig Harrington's grip.
I think Padraig's grip is formed with placing the right hand on first and then with the left hand on top and a little lower than the right and with the left index finger extended down the shaft as in the Swash example above.
Here are two photos, showing Harrington placing first the right hand, then the left.
Here are some photos of Harrington in action, with zooms in to his grip:
5 December 2004
Deutsche Bank SAP 2004
It looks to me like his left hand's last three fingers sit atop the last three fingers of the right hand, left hand offset LOWER on the handle by one-half a finger or perhaps offset two fingers lower. This makes his left thumb tip sit lower by half a thumb and a little off to the side of the top. Only the right thumb is straight down the flat top of the handle. So Harrington's grip is really a "left-hand (not too) low" grip, with the left index pointed down the shaft.
Thanks for asking!
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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