Experimenting with trigger points will help you find your golf groove

posted 07:49 AM 07/11
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Over the years, experimenting with trigger points for both the short game and the full swing has landed me on two pretty good finds. I would like to share one of these today.

All players certainly need to learn to create the natural planes of the swing, both back and forward. I say natural because a decent set-up will have already established a decent angle of shaft at address, and one must wonder why it seems so elusive to continue that decent angle throughout the swing.

To do that, I have found over the years that a great tool is already in your hands: the club’s weight as it rests against that middle joint of the right index finger for right-handed players.

Where the grip falls across that second knuckle’s crease — I call that the trigger finger — and the pressure created by this location is what we need to feel on the backswing as we load the club to the top and once again as we hold that load, (lag) on the forward swing.

You will find that many strong ball-strikers sport a little callous in that crease area.

Initiating this in the short game on shots from about 30 – 50 yards is a lot easier to feel this weight at first, so try starting right there.

As you take the club back and start the necessary wrist setting, feel the weight of the club against that right forefinger. If it loads into that crease of the second knuckle you’re likely to be on a decent plane going up. But if you feel the weight through that grip against the pad near the palm crease of that finger, then you’re too flat and you will likely get the club trapped behind you which will cause fat shots that tend to go right.

Loading against that crease of the finger and on the simple vertical shaft up-plane that was created at address is the ticket.

Next, on the downswing once again feel that weight ever so lightly against that crease, holding the shaft/grip pressure from pushing against it a long while as you change directions.

If that weight is pushed against that crease too early then you will cast the club head and lose not only that valuable angle achieved during the backswing, but also the most important path that creates the consistent ball flight we all desire. This also causes fat and thin shots especially in the short game.

So try this weight trigger on some shorter shots and if you can start to feel it, then graduate into something a little longer until you can feel it in your full shots.

Send me a note and let me know how this trigger works for you.

Olympia golf instructor Joe Thiel’s golf tips column will appear regularly in The Olympian. Ask Thiel a golf question at joethiel@comcast.net or view his Web site at www.joethiel.com.

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