Martin Hall Remembers Manuel de la Torre (Video)

One of my favorite golf teachers is the late Manuel de la Torre, who taught many pros like LPGA legend Carol Mann (who died just a week or so ago). However, he devoted most of his life to teaching amateurs and is best known for the simplicity of his teaching methods.

Martin Hall did this short video focusing on just one of de la Torre's many teachings about the golf swing, and this one may help many of you hit better shots with very little practice.



"Leave it alone." It's deceptively simple advice that few players consciously work on these days.

When you tighten your grip on the club during your swing, you change the position of the clubface and sometimes even your swing plane... and you do it without ever consciously trying to. If you don't understand why, just sit down in an armchair, rest your elbow and forearm on the chair's arm and make a loose fist. Then rhythmically tighten and loosen that fist -- your forearm will bounce up and down on the chair arm like you're having convulsions!

While tightening and loosening your grip during your swing won't have quite as dramatic a result, it will cause unintended changes in clubface angles. To battle this, you MUST CONSCIOUSLY try to keep a nice, even grip and forearm tension throughout your swing. I can tell you from personal experience that it helps to try and relax all of your upper body muscles -- shoulders, neck, back and even jaw muscles -- as you swing.

As Martin says, you won't be able to keep that tension perfectly the same all the way through your swing. But your goal is to minimize the changes. It will not only improve your ball contact (and as a result, your distance and accuracy), but it will improve your rhythm, the smoothness of your change of direction at the top of your swing, and even help minimize the stress on your back.

And once you get good at it, you'll find that you can make a faster swing without losing control of the club. Sounds crazy, I know, but it's true. Proper rhythm does that for you.

So give it a try. You might be surprised at the results.