Hand Position at Address

Fred had a question about arm extension and hand position after viewing Greg MacDonell's video about ball position. As you probably know, Greg is my head instructor. In Greg'€™s video he said the hands should be below your mouth and the butt end of the club should be over the toe line. Fred had a hard time seeing how that related to my explanation about the rock at the end of the string visual I use to describe centrifugal force '€“ the rock being the clubhead and the string the shaft, hands and arms '€“ in the swing. Fred felt the arms should be fully extended at setup.

Well, the arms are hanging straight down and fully extended, but not yet in dynamic motion. They hang down naturally in an athletically ready position. The butt end of the club is pretty much on the toe line. If you draw a straight line up from my top hand, it will hit somewhere between my nose and my mouth. So the arms are extended, but not extended out, away from the body, reaching for the ball.

On the downswing, the arms become stretched out even more because they are in dynamic motion, with the weight of the clubhead (the rock) pulling them straight as I near impact.

The Surge!