The Fundamentals of Hogan - David Leadbetter

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wanted his grip to be secure, comfortable and alive, and tension free. A good grip allows the player to maintain control of the club and to hit the variety of shots—high and low shots, draws and fades—that are necessary if one is to become a complete player. Hogan advised golfers to work constantly on their grip to ensure it was perfect in every detail.

      Left thumb fits in cavity of right hand.

      The little finger of the right hand fits in the groove between the first and second fingers of the left hand.

      The middle fingers supply the pressure.

      Hogan suggests a drill in which you swing the club with the thumb and finger off the shaft.

      Hogan had unusually flexible wrists and thumbs.

      Hogan liked the V between thumb and forefinger of the right hand to point to the chin. The knuckle above the index finger helped provide pressure.

      Checking grip pressure in the last three fingers of the left hand and middle two of the right.

      My View Hogan’s grip looked immaculate. It was as if his hands were molded to the golf club. He wanted, as he indicated, a secure, alive, and comfortable grip—a grip that would offer the most effective means for him to control the ball. He never wanted his hands to come apart or separate from the club, so he worked long and hard at perfecting his grip, making a few changes to it over the years. The grip changes were an integral part of the much-discussed Hogan “secret.” In his early years he had a severe problem with a wild hook, so naturally he built his swing around incorporating an anti-hook move. He was quoted as saying, “I hate a hook. It nauseates me. I could vomit when I see one.” It’s not surprising, then, that Hogan’s “secret” was based on his finally being able to eliminate the hook from his game. I will discuss his “secret” in due course.

      In my opinion most golfers run into big problems when they employ an ultra-palmy left-hand grip in the Hogan mode. You can see in the photograph of him taken down the line that the club sits extremely high in his palm. The problems are magnified when the palmy left-hand grip is combined with placing the club purely in the fingers of the right hand. Such a grip will, for most golfers, accentuate or even produce a slice; they will be unable to generate any real clubhead speed or to square the clubface in the impact area. Hogan, however, was able to master this method of gripping the club; in my opinion, not many players are able to handle it.

      Club sits high in palm of Hogan’s left hand.

      You see, Hogan was an exceptional athlete who had superb dynamics in his swing, meaning that he transferred collected energy to his clubhead in an astonishing, powerful fashion. He had strong, fast hands and his action was very much like cracking a bullwhip. His swing tempo was upbeat and he had tremendous overall flexibility, especially in the wrist/thumb area; the result was that he could swing the club back beyond parallel—far beyond parallel—at the top. Look at the curvature in his thumbs (see page 16); the way they bowed backward was extraordinary, and along with the flexibility in his wrists was a major part of the reason that he had so much wrist cock and clubhead lag in his swing. I first became aware of the flexibility in his thumb and wrist area after looking at still pictures of Hogan on his downswing when I was a kid, and I then tried to recreate the angles and the lag that he had coming down into the ball. That was considered a power position and I wanted to get into it. But I, along with just about every golfer I have encountered, had no chance of doing that. We don’t have that flexibility in our wrist/thumb area.

      So much flexibility and lag can also cause problems. A clubface even slightly closed when combined with tremendous lag and hand speed can lead to problems at impact, as it did at times for Hogan. With the longer clubs, especially the driver and fairway woods, and under the pressure of tournament play early in his career, a severe hook would show up. Hogan had to find a way to stop this shot and to pacify his hands so that he could gain more control. Distance was never a problem, but control and timing were. Hogan thought that by changing his grip he would solve his directional problems—his strategy certainly went some way toward doing so.

      Hogan made a couple of changes to his grip to cure his hook, and although he regarded these changes as minor, I feel they were major. He made the first change in 1945, when he shifted his left thumb up the shaft into what is considered a “short thumb” position. The “long thumb” (that is, where the thumb is stretched down the shaft as much as possible) encourages wrist cock, and so when Hogan shortened it he was able to firm up and restrict his wrist cock. This, in turn, had the effect of making his swing considerably shorter and keeping his club more under control at the top. By firming up his wrist cock he was also able to reduce the excessive amount of lag coming down. This greater control helped him improve his timing.

      Having shortened the thumb up, Hogan’s next step in his grip change was to move his left hand around in a counterclockwise direction (more to the left on the shaft), showing just one knuckle when he looked down on it; this placed his “short” left thumb over to the center as opposed to the right of the shaft. In conjunction with moving his left hand to the left he placed his right-hand grip more in his fingers and on top of the shaft, so that, I assume, each hand would match the other.

      Long thumb

      Short thumb–short swing.

      Short thumb

      Long thumb–long swing.

      David Duval’s strong left–hand grip.

      Consequently, his grip was now “weakened,” to use a popular golfing term (though this does not mean it was weakened in strength). He felt the changes helped get the clubface more open; he could now hit hard with his right hand, without as much fear of the face closing and producing a hook. At the point of impact he could keep his left hand or lead hand firm and under control, and in turn have more control over the face. He had nearly achieved his goal of eliminating his hook. One more little key would solve the puzzle and eliminate the disastrous hooks that plagued him. That was his secret, which, as I have said, I will examine later.

      Hogan felt that the changes he made were simply modifications to a sound grip and were particularly beneficial for him. It was no surprise, however, that many players copied Hogan’s grip exactly, whether or not they had problems with hooking the ball. Many were unsuccessful in adopting his grip. Most golfers today, even tour players, can profitably adopt a slightly stronger grip with the hands (especially the left hand—showing two to three knuckles when you look down at it) turned in a more clockwise fashion to the right on the club; and they can

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