The touch system for better golf / 2005: the secret to a better golf swing is in your hands

Golf Digest, June, 2005 by Bob Toski, Matthew Rudy

MANY PEOPLE HAVE A BAD GRIP, AND THEY HOLD the club way too tightly. They end up with a golf swing that really can't even be called a swing. For those people, a golf swing isn't a natural move. They don't have any idea how a good swing should feel, and the game offers them nothing but frustration. Does this sound like you?

I understand your frustration. I've been teaching more than 50 years, and the players I'm describing make up more than 90 percent of the folks I teach. The good news is that golf doesn't have to be that hard. I wrote my book, The Touch System For Better Golf, back in 1971 so players at all levels could understand that you can learn to feel what a good golf swing is like. You can use that feel to produce copy after copy of a good swing. I know it's possible, because feel and rhythm is the only way a guy my size, 5-feet-7 and 135 pounds, could consistently hit the ball 265 yards and beat players like Sam Snead and Ben Hogan in the 1950s.

How can you make it work for you, too? It's simple, really. By developing sensitivity in your hands-by learning to feel what the hands are supposed to do during the swing-you'll get better far more quickly than you would trying to copy mechanical swing positions. I've seen so much golf instruction that focuses on what the body is supposed to do (like turn, shift and pivot) that I'm afraid players are going to forget how important the hands are. After all, they're the only things attached to the club.

The same ideas apply to putting and the short game. The goal is to put yourself in position to receive the feedback--the feel-your hands give you, and you'll be on your way to lowering your handicap dramatically.

The original Touch System

Bob Toski's book The Touch System for Better Golf was originally published by Golf Digest in 1971. It was one of the first instruction books that focused on teaching how a good golf swing feels, instead of how it looks. It is full of feel images like the one shown here of a swing superimposed over a canoe heading toward a waterfall. Toski still teaches the book's principles six days a week at his learning center in Boca Raton, Fla. M.R.

visualization

On the tee, a tour player is thinking about this ...

A good player already knows how to control the force of the swing. When he's on the tee with a driver in his hand, he's just thinking about what direction he wants that force to go.

That's easy for a good player to say, you're probably thinking to yourself right now. But you can learn something from how a tour player approaches his next shot. Good players practice technique at the range, then concentrate on the target on the course.

... while the amateur is thinking about this

The poor player tries to figure out how to make the next swing--from taking his grip to a position-by-position run-down of the mechanics he's been trying to learn from his teacher--while he's over the shot he's trying to hit. That shouldn't be happening. All those swing thoughts create tension, and tension is an absolute killer in the golf swing.

If you're a beginner, you're far better off concentrating on your target and aligning yourself to take into account your natural ball flight than you are aiming straight down the middle and trying to think yourself into hitting a straight shot.

If you're a better player who gets the urge to work the ball left or right, take my advice: Don't, unless you really have to. A straight ball will almost always work, and it gives you more room to make a mistake.

grip and takeaway

start neutral to hit it square

I'm sorry to say that in more than 50 years of teaching, I've seen far more of the first two examples on this page-strong grips and inside takeaways and weak grips and outside takeaways--than I have of good, grips and on-line takeaways. The more neutral the hands, the more chance they have of coming back to impact neutral. Square contact comes when you hit the ball in the middle of the clubface with the club in a neutral position. A strong grip forces the club to come inside on the takeaway; a weak grip forces it to do the opposite. Great players produce less curvature in either direction, and they make consistent, solid contact because they don't have to manipulate the club to get it back to square. They also understand a ball hit with an open or closed face is hit with a glancing blow.

Another benefit of the neutral grip shown here is that it lets the club release fully and transmit all the power from the wrists into the ball. With a strong or weak grip, you're restricting the release of the club and losing out on a big power accumulator.

The hands work together

One of my favorite feel images from the Touch System book is of a pair of dancers superimposed over the hands in the backswing. It's a great way to think about your grip. Your hands should be like a good dance team--close to each other and moving together without any separation. The left hand leads, while the right responds.

I tried it

Name: Tom Cooke

Residence: Naples, Fla. Handicap: 22