Many years ago I heard of a study that had been carried out by the golf club manufacturers into the average golfer’s ball striking characteristics. It found that the strike was generally off the toe end of the club. I immediately disagreed as my experience with golfers had mainly been that they hit the ball, especially with irons, towards the heel. In fact, so much so that they often hit a ball that they deemed to be topped or sliced when it had actually come from the heel or hosel of the club.
A surprising number of players have no knowledge or feeling for which part of the club has been in contact with the ball on any given shot, especially a shank. In France, a shank is called a ‘socket’” French players often hit a shank and, in a rather Latin manner, raise their arms in disbelief and horror whilst shouting out loud “SOCKET!”
Other than the fact that the ball shoots off to the right, there is also a particular feel and sound to these shots that most golfers are in complete ignorance of.
There is no doubt that a tendency to strike the ball even slightly towards the low part of the heel is one of the things that erodes a golfer’s confidence in minutes. Here you will see the club in the sort of position that any coach who uses video will have seen many, many times:
From this position it is entirely possible to strike the ball from the middle of the club but another false belief or false instruction, often plays a part in turning this shot into a disaster. That is the idea that the club must go from inside to outside through the impact area.
I was coaching a player in France who had been to the States a few months previously and had taken a 10-day course with a female teacher. As a result of her teaching his short game was in a dreadful state. He literally couldn’t trike a ball properly with any short shot. He showed me a video of his short game lesson and two things struck me. Firstly, this woman never stopped talking.
Secondly, he started off hitting some nice chips from about 15 yards admittedly with a slightly out to in swing path. She identified this and asked him to go more in to out.
Suddenly he went from hitting some good shots to being incapable of anything other than a shank. Having reviewed this video together, he left our session understanding that she had caused his shanking and that it hadn’t been his fault!
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The truth about shanking is simple as it happens when the club is tracking too far away from the body and gets outside the line. Placing a second ball as per the photo below and attempting to hit the white ball without touching the yellow one soon gets rid of the problem. It is also a great way of improving someone’s ball striking as our confidence disappears at an alarming rate as soon as we strike the ball towards the heel.
Centrifugal force will always throw the shaft away from the body in the downswing. It just can’t do the opposite because the body is in the way. This next photo shows the real effect of the shaft getting away from the body.
Notice how the shaft moves not only away from the player but also in an upward direction. Heeled, shanked shots tend to be hit low on the clubface for this reason. A pure shank, i.e. one completely off the hosel and not even touching the face of the club, doesn’t go up in the air due to there being no loft applied to the ball. Many topped shots by beginners and new golfers are caused by this not, as will not surprise you, the old saying ‘you lifted your head.’
I agree that you can hit a shank coming from the inside. It suffices only to keep the clubface very open as per the photo below. The more a player has an open face, the more he is likely to shank.
I want to give you my thoughts on the way iron club design has changed over the years and to give you some insight into an effect of these modifications that even the manufacturers themselves seem not to have noticed. Take a look at this photo of my 9-iron after a practice session in which I struck the ball particularly well.
In the next photo you will see how iron design has changed over the years. The hosel of the modern club has shortened considerably, the weighting has become peripheral and the toe is much heavier. This has not only moved the sweet spot away from the heel towards the middle and made it bigger but it has also helped to create the capability to hit well-struck shots towards the toe. Being a flat surface, even shots well off the toe can give acceptable results whereas shots towards the heel cannot.
I believe that 2 aspects combine to produce the shank; 1/ the centrifugal force mentioned earlier and 2/ the fear of missing the ball altogether (i.e. missing it on the inside). I don’t believe that many golfers, especially beginners, are worried about missing it on the outside.
Anyone who has taught the game of golf will know that analysing the swing of someone who is cursed with the shanks is the most difficult of all situations we face. Generally, when we shank we start to move less. Fear takes hold and we don’t turn or transfer our weight going back. Encouraging people to move more at this time can be tricky. However, the 2BX really does work without having to go down the dark tunnel of swing analysis. I recommend it to you most highly.
