#108 Web TV: How To Stop Shanking In Golf

How to Stop Shanking in Golf.

Guess what we are going to be looking at today?

I hear and I get a lot of messages from people with regards to shanking their golf shots.

We are actually going to look at shanking and how it happens and also how you can fix it. We are going to be doing this more from a chipping angle today. I will be showing you in the future with regards to a full swing but right now we are going to be looking at a chipping action and you can also apply this to your pitching, but we want to make sure we are getting rid of the shanks.

When I tell you this you are going to go, oh man that is so simple.

So what causes a shank?

A shank is usually caused by when the club comes through it usually hits the hosel (where the head connects to the shaft) and scoots off. That means that the club hasn’t come back down to make contact with the ball in the sense of the ball being in the centre of the actual club face. It has come through and hit the edge (the hosel) and then it has scooted off.

Why does that occur?

It usually happens for a few different reasons and I am going to share with you today one major reason of what happens with shanking.

Basically, I’ll show you from a different angle, what happens is that when you go to play a shot, whether a chip shot or even a pitch shot, when you go to play the shot you will tend to come around your body. When the club comes around and you come through to hit, you come through at a different angle. It could be over the top or it could be inwards but what then happens is that it hits the hosel area, which will cause a shank. It doesn’t always, you could hit off the toe as well. When a shank occurs it is because it hits the hosel.

How do we fix it?

I’m going to give you a really easy way to fix it. All you have to do is work on taking your club straight back and straight through. The problem that you have been having, most likely, is that you have actually been coming around the body. You can see how much the club is coming around and it is causing too much movement. We want to get rid of the wristiness and we also want to get rid of swinging around the body.

So, we are going to go straight back and through. I know that you are saying "Tiff, that sounds so simple!" But it is that simple. We want to make sure that the club comes straight back to the ball.

If we go straight back and straight through the club will automatically come straight back to the ball. If I was to do a straight back and through action. Back and through, you will see the ball go nice and straight, that’s how simple it is, very, very simple.

All you have to do is work on going straight back and straight through. Not around the body, never around the body. Just work straight back, straight through so you can really consolidate those shots so that they are way more consistent and that you are reducing the amount of shanks that you are actually having when you are playing.

Have an absolutely awesome day, take care, and remember; tee it high and let it fly.