Add Lead Hand to Putting Stroke
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Once you've got a good feel for putting with the trail hand only, you're probably wondering what you do to get that lead hand to play nicely with your great new putting stroke and how this is going to help you with your full swing. This video will tie those pieces together for you.
Now you may be wondering at this stage, what on earth does working on one-handed putts have anything to do to help me with my ball striking?
The answer is quite simple.
The way that Tiger releases the putter face is the exact same way he releases the driver in every other club in the back.
Now it may sound crazy at first, but what you're going to learn is that every single fundamental that you're learning right here, right now in the putting stroke, is going to apply directly to the driver.
Not just your posture and setup, the forward press, the release of the club, the way that your body moves, the timing and synchronization of it is all learned right here with these miniature strokes.
And doesn't that make sense?
I mean, that's actually how Earl taught Tiger how to play the game.
He didn't step him up to the driving range with a driver and say, swing away, kid.
He made him learn how to putt first.
And the reason for that is so important because golf is not just a game of power, but it's a game of precision and control.
And learning how to control the club face is the most important part of the game.
If you don't know where that club face is pointing, you have no chance of playing good golf.
And learning it with smaller, simpler strokes, like what we're doing now, is the reason that Earl taught him to play the game from the green backwards.
Because you learn that sensitivity, that touch, that control, the finesse, the true control of that club face with the smaller strokes.
And then we're going to build into chipping, pitching, bunker play, wedge play, iron play, and the driver.
And as you keep adding one more step on there, you're going to realize that you now know where that club face is pointing on every shot.
And by the time you get to the driver, it's not going to be a problem to learn how to control where that ball is going.
But if you don't learn it here with the smaller, simpler strokes, when things are moving at a much more controllable pace compared to a driver, you're going to really struggle when we start advancing to the next steps.
That's why this is so important.
In a trail side pattern, controlling the club face with your trail hand is of vital importance.
And you've got to learn it with the simpler strokes first.
And what you're going to learn today, as we add the lead hand back in, is how this starts to emulate and fall over into a full golf swing.
It may not seem like it at first when you're just doing trail hand.
That's to teach you club face control and getting your body to work together with his trail hand to control the face.
Once you get your lead arm back on there, you're going to see that the body now has to work in sync.
And that's what we're going to learn now.
So what you're going to do after you've had a couple hours at least of doing the T drill where you can make your putting stroke and hit, you know, make five putts in a row with one handed from four or five feet.
You've got a good sense of that club face.
You're not whacking it all over the place and missing to the left, missing to the right.
You're getting a feel where you can do the same thing over and over again.
Now you're ready to start putting that lead hand back on there.
At first, you may find that this lead hand doesn't like you very much.
It feels like, wait a second, I've got all this great control with my trail hand and I put this lead hand back on there and now I can't control the club face anymore.
What's going on?
That's a great indicator to you of how your body is kind of struggling to learn how to move together.
And that's the importance.
And that's the other critical thing about learning the swing from the green back is you have to learn how to coordinate your body as a whole.
A lot of times we try, I want to isolate something and say, well, just tell me the one thing I should feel during the takeaway.
Well, there isn't just one thing.
The whole body is working.
When you understand how the fascia is all connected throughout the entire body, when you move your heel, It is actually pulling on the base of your skull because these fascial lines run up to the back of your body, and it's connected everywhere.
And that's the trick to golf is not trying to isolate things, but learning how to move everything together.
And that is true in the putting stroke.
As I mentioned, Tiger releases the putter in the same way that he does the driver, but he also swings the club in the same way.
And what I mean by that is the way that the body moves, the way that the swing starts, what you feel is the exact same.
It's just smaller.
The putting stroke is a miniature driver swing.
You're going to have a little bit of weight shift, a little bit of hip turn, a little bit of shoulder rotation, a little bit of arm swing, a little bit of wrist set.
It's all the same thing happening in very much the same way.
So now once you start to add the lead arm on there, you're going to start to really feel how the body has to move together.
And that's what I want you to start to get a feel for.
So what you're going to find at first, when you're going trail arm only, It's pretty easy to kind of get where your arm is just kind of moving by itself, and you're controlling the club face with just the arm and hand.
But once you put the lead hand on there, now your whole body is forced to start to move because you can't move the arm independent.
If you pull the right arm away, the left arm's coming with it.
And that's what I'm talking about, how the body has to work together.
Everything is moving together.
So, Let's take a look at Tiger's putting stroke to give you a better view of how everything is moving in the putting stroke, just like in the driver's swing.
Once you begin to look at the putting stroke as a miniature golf swing, The entire thing will start to make so much more sense to you that your putting stroke is really just ingraining the good habits that you need for your full swing.
Now we're going to take a look at Tiger here, and I'm going to draw your attention to a couple different things.
The first thing we're going to look at is during the forward press, I want you to watch just his left knee.
Now right now you can't actually see his left knee.
Right there it is.
So I realize that's pretty subtle here.
It's difficult with dark pants, but you can see the outline of his leg there as he starts his forward press, it disappears.
And you see that right where the arrow is, his left knee disappears.
And then as he, cause he's rotating back to the left a little bit to give you a little bit of momentum, which we're going to talk about more in a moment at the end of this video with the forward press.
And then he's going to rock everything back.
Now watch that left knee.
Look at how much it's moved during the stroke.
This is Tiger hitting a pretty long putt here.
Let's call it 30, 40 feet.
I'm not exactly sure, but you can see his whole body is moving.
Now, if we draw your attention up here, you can see in his pocket, his right hip pocket, you're going to again, see a lot of movement.
He's actually going to sit back into his hips a little bit more, back into his feet a little bit more.
And then that pocket's going to rotate again.
The putting stroke is a miniature golf swing.
Everything is moving all together.
And you can see, if you watch, if we draw your attention back down to his knees here, you're going to see the same thing.
Then moving back, he's actually got weight shift here.
He's got hip rotation.
He's got shoulder rotation.
It's the same movements that you would do in a full swing.
So everything is moving.
So don't let your putting stroke get really static and dynamic.
Again, at the end of this video, I'm going to talk about the importance of the forward press and what it really is, what you're really doing.
We're right.
Let me erase these lines here.
Right about here's where Tiger's forward press starts.
He typically starts it as he's, he's got to look, he's looking at the hole.
His last look, as he starts to look back, he actually starts the forward press as his head is turning back to the ball.
And that's what gets everything starting to flow nice and freely.
That's what you're looking for in your putting stroke.
When we look at the top putting stroke from face on, if I play it at full speed, probably not going to notice a whole lot, but once we slow it down, you're going to see a lot of things happen.
The first thing, let's take a look at the hands.
So here you can see the Tiger's fingers up on top of the shaft, and that thumb kind of pointing more toward the right shoulder, the thumb line.
He's got a stronger grip.
And now as he takes, gets ready to start, notice that forward press.
He's taking the shaft and leaning it toward the target.
And you can see that pretty significantly here.
You can see how much of his pant leg appears behind that shaft as he starts to set it forward, get that forward press.
And then as he takes it back, it's more of a hinging of the trail hand shoulders, rocking body rocking.
And then as he's coming through, it's more of a hinge and hold pattern.
He's not fully releasing that trail hand.
He's obviously got more shaft lean at impact than he had at address.
You can see the club shaft still leaning very, very much toward the target.
And then as it releases, as we're going to talk about in a moment, that putter face is going to have the feeling of that toe never turning over.
So you can see here, the putter face is pointing off to the left of the target, but it's not that much, even with this long of a stroke, he has still maintained control of that putter face with that trail hand.
And he has more of a feeling of holding off the release than letting that toe turn over.
So once you have the lead arm on there, now the whole body has to work together as a whole unit, not just one thing or the other.
So what you're going to find first, What I want you to practice first is getting a feel for the release of the putter, with the lead hand back on there.
So right now your lead hand, it's not going to do anything.
It's going to help you feel a little bit more control.
And that's really what the left hand, the lead hand does, is it helps take some of the load off the trail hand.
When you're swinging trail hand only, truly trail hand only, then obviously the weight of the putter, the swinging, the motion, all of it, the controlling of the release, it's all done with just your lead hand or your trail hand.
Once you put the lead hand back on there, you've got some help.
And that's how you should think about the lead hand.
It's helping take some of the weight out of your trail hand, because then your trail hand doesn't have to be quite as tight.
And so that you can get a feel for the putter head flowing and swinging.
And as far as grip pressure grows, Tiger used to grip the club very, very, very, very tightly.
And to give you an example of how tight he used to grip it, Butch Harmon gave him a device that when he squeezed it too tight, it would beep and it drove him nuts because he scripted it so tight.
And as he settled down, he said he gripped the club at about a five and a half or six.
So he was probably gripping it like an eight, nine or 10 before that.
So what that helps you understand is that A, the putter, you don't have to hold it super sloppy soft and Tiger doesn't.
A six is a pretty firm grip.
And that's going to help you control the club face.
And that's what I want you to feel.
With the lead hand back on, there is controlling the release of the face.
What you want to feel is that that putter face coming through, you have absolute control over it and that the face is releasing, but not the toe.
And that's another thing that Butch Harmon told Tiger is that release the putter face all you want, just not the toe.
He didn't want the club face rotating through.
And as your hands and wrists are soft, if they get extra soft, so you're gripping it like a two, well, that putter face is naturally going to want to rotate on you.
So when the lead hands on there, that would be a really awkward stroke.
But once you get the proper grip pressure, so I say I'm going to grip it at about a six here.
And as I come through, I can control the release of the putter face, I want it to be feeling like it's releasing, my wrist is releasing, but not rotating.
That's going to make it very difficult to hit those same shots over and over again, where you're hitting these little four footers and hitting them right in the center of the cup.
If you find that you're missing a little bit to the left, that's a lot of face rotation.
If you find that you're missing them to the right, it could be something else.
So you're not releasing the putter face enough.
But if you look at Tiger's stroke, as it releases through, you can see that he's holding the face very square to that line.
Now, of course, because it's working on an arc, there is going to be some rotation, but you're not going to feel a lot.
You're not going to feel like the face is doing this through the strike.
That's impossible to time and control.
And it's not just impossible in time to control with the putter.
When we get to the longer clubs, if your driver face is doing this through every shot, good luck hitting a lot of fairways.
So what you're going to feel with the lead hand is that it's going to help the putter face stay what feels very square.
Now, as I'm looking at it right now, my putter face is pointing to the left of the target, but I feel that I've held that club face off.
I've held the release of the toe off.
I'm letting my wrist rehinge, but that's keeping the putter face very square to the arc.
And that's going to be critical as we start getting into these longer strokes, especially chipping coming up next, that you're able to control that club face and keep the toe from turning over.
That's how you're going to start hitting the ball very, very straight and very square and flush.
So with the lead hand back on there, The first thing you're trying to feel is that your lead hand is not impeding what your trail hand was doing.
You've taken the time to get a feel for this stroke and getting control of that putter face.
You don't want the lead hand to go in there and start pushing the club back or pulling it through.
It's there to help take, it's like a helping hand for the right hand, a literal helping hand, if you will.
And that's going to take some burden off of this.
So now if I got, once I got my lead hand on there, I can grip it a little bit lighter with my trail hand.
And that allows me to have a little bit more sensitivity, a little more feel, a little bit more touch, which is critical for delicate putts or fast greens.
You really need to have a sense of touch and control with your fingers.
If you're gripping it deathly tight because you've got to feel control with the trail hand only, once you get the lead hand on there, it's going to be able to tone that down a little bit.
The other thing is now my whole body has to rock.
If I just, if I take my lead hand off, I could make the stroke with just my right arm without moving my shoulders much.
Of course, we don't want to do that.
We want to have a little bit of rocking back and forth.
And then once you have that lead hand on there, now it's forcing it to happen.
So now you can see my shoulders have to rock.
The big thing that you want to make sure that your lead hand is doing is allowing the club face to still release.
Again, not the toe closing down, but the putter face feeling like it's doing this.
So it's staying square to the arc the whole time in the stroke.
So what I want to feel is that as I'm doing that, this lead wrist has to break down a little bit.
That's an okay thing.
A lot of people are trying to kind of hold that wrist firm and flat.
You can putt that way too.
And you can still have more of a hinge and hold feel with your lead hand on here, putting like tiger, because that's actually a lot of what he does.
He he's keeping that club face from doing this.
He's really driving it down the line.
And the lead hand can help hold that face pretty square while letting the wrist still break down.
And so that's what you're trying to feel at this stage.
So you can do the same T-drill.
So you can put the, you know, set up your T-drill that you're doing with just your trail hand only.
Now put your lead hand on there, shake it out, get it nice and relaxed so that you still feel that you're making a trail hand only stroke.
But now once your lead hands on there, you just let the club release.
Oh, you're not going to make every single one.
That's okay.
I wasn't even looking at the hole.
It's hard to do this when you're talking.
As I mentioned, a lot of this is a concentration drill.
Golf is a game of precision and power, And you've got to learn to control that face and pay attention to what your hands are doing with that club face.
Because they have the most immediate impact.
So again, trail hand only feel.
My lead hand is not doing much at all.
I'm actually going to look at the hole this time.
Let a little forward press and release.
Now, the club face again is pointing left to the target, but it's not really shut down that much.
It's more because the club is working on an arc.
I am trying to maintain that squareness to the arc.
And what I feel in my stroke is that it feels like it's going straight back and straight through and releasing like this.
Of course it's not, but that's the feeling that I'm trying to replicate versus going way inside and way around.
That's a very active putter face through the stroke.
I want to feel this and this, and I'm trying to feel that as I'm releasing my trail hand this way, I am getting that club face to feel like it's always pointing at the target as long as humanly possible.
Again, it won't because of the arc, but it's going to feel that way.
So you want to feel that your release is more this way and this way, because as we get to the full swings, That's exactly what you're going to feel at full speed with the driver, with every other club in the bag.
One thing I want to talk about is how to get the swing triggered once you start getting that lead hand back on there.
Because now, as I mentioned, the whole body has to work together now.
And one of the keys to getting that flow and that fluidity in your swing and getting everything to want to naturally work together as a whole unit, all the muscles in the body as one, is this forward press.
Now the forward press is not just pushing your hands forward.
What you're really trying to do is create tension in the body so that the body naturally wants to move and sink.
And what I mean by that is if you're starting here with your wrists, you know, neutral and you just try and pull the club back, it's going to be very typical for your arms and hands to kind of want to take over.
And so they're going to kind of get out ahead of your body.
The body's not going to really turn very much.
And so you're going to have this putting stroke that's really kind of armsy and handsy and difficult to time.
It's going to cause you to want to take the club to the outside and then kind of wipe back across it.
What you want to feel is that your shoulders and your whole body are helping move this putter face.
And so the best way to do that is getting a little bit of shoulder turn toward the target to start.
And as we get into the chipping stroke, you'll see this even more.
It's not just shoulder turn.
It's arm swing.
It's wrist set.
It's pressure shift.
There's a little bit of weight shift in the putting stroke.
There's a little bit of hip turn in the putting stroke.
Obviously the longer putting stroke, the more.
But what you want to feel is that you're actually kind of driving everything forward.
So I'm going to exaggerate this so it's easy to see, but it is a very subtle move.
Just a little bit of chest or shoulder rotation, a little bit of pressure shift to the left.
Even my knees are moving a little bit.
My hips are moving a little bit.
And what that does is it kind of preloads everything to then want to rebound the other way.
Because if I take my body this way, There's a natural movement of the body and the fascia to want to rebound and start to swing back in the other direction.
And that gives you kind of a free energy start to your swing instead of setting up there frozen and static and then trying to start it with your arms and hands.
That's a death move.
So as you're doing this forward press, get a feel for getting everything to kind of move this way toward the target.
And then it rebounds back.
And then you've got a nice free flow to your stroke.
As we get into the longer clubs, You're going to see this exact same forward press in every single aspect of Tiger's game, from his putting stroke to his chipping stroke, his wedge game, his driver, it's all the same.
And that's why it's so important to learn with the small strokes.
If we're trying to learn this at full speed with a driver, we've got so many things going on and happening so quickly, it makes golf very, very difficult.
But if you learn it from this stage back, then it makes it so much easier.
So as you're practicing, Get a feel for not just sitting up your static and frozen and then trying to get the club to start back, start forward and then go back.
So on these little strokes like this where I'm, you know, four feet back, it's a really small move.
I'm not going to make some big stroke, but as I go to say a longer stroke, what you're going to find is there's going to be more forward press, more rocking everything.
And you can see even here, as I'm exaggerating my putting stroke, if it was a long putting stroke, I would have more of a full follow through.
My foot would even come up off the ground exactly the same as you would in a full swing.
So as you go to a longer stroke, it's going to be more and more, more forward press, more movement, more body flow to get everything triggering that swing together.
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