A nasty case of the shanks!

[dbleber]

dbleber:
Last Wednesday after a great front nine I started shanking all my irons on the back nine. Now I was hoping that this problem would just go away as fast as it appeared but after working with my inside approach and trrying to analize my swing to death I can't get this nasty little problem to dispurse. I had a similiar problem last year with the "pulls" that got me so frustrated that I stopped playing for the rest of the season. Now I don't want to stop this year again but if I can't shake these soon I fear for my clubs lifes as going from low 80's to high 90's makes me a little :reallymad .
Any advice?
Denny

[BC MIST]

dbleber:
Last Wednesday after a great front nine I started shanking all my irons on the back nine. Now I was hoping that this problem would just go away as fast as it appeared but after working with my inside approach and trrying to analize my swing to death I can't get this nasty little problem to dispurse. I had a similiar problem last year with the "pulls" that got me so frustrated that I stopped playing for the rest of the season. Now I don't want to stop this year again but if I can't shake these soon I fear for my clubs lifes as going from low 80's to high 90's makes me a little :reallymad .
Any advice?
Denny

Don't quit now. Take two weeks off and then quit.

Seriously, most shanks are caused by an over the top move of the arms, where instead of them coming down a little first and then out to the ball, they move out first and the hosel rocket happens. Now, the cause of the arms moving out is the right shoulder, again rolling out first towards the ball, instead of down and under.

Go to the top of the backswing and stop dead. Very, very slowly, to get the feel of the correct motion, lower your arms until the right elbow touches your right hip. The right elbow may want to move down so that it comes in front of the right hip, but for now, make sure it touches the right hip.

After doing this many times, try a half swing with a wedge, trying to duplicate the downward motion of the arms, instead of out to the ball. Gradually increase the length and speed of the swing. The important drill is the slow motion drop of the arms.

If you hit off mats you may want to place a piece of duct tape about 18" to 24" long on an inside path to the ball of about 30 degrees. As you swing try to have the club head travel over this path. To do so you must start the downswing with a downward motion of the arms or keeping the right shoulder back, instead of the out.

The above in not a cure for the shanks but a fundamental motion of a good golf swing. Achieving this and you will never shank again.

I do sympathize with you. I have hit 6 shanks in 43 years of playing golf - 5 of them this year. It is scary and doing one usually leads to doing several more, but focusing on doing something positive versus worrying about the results will help eliminate the problem.

[Andru]

That's great advice BC. Here's another approach that works.

Forget about full shots. Hit 30-50 yard pitch shots. This will get your timing and sequence back. I know it's hard to trust this but the pitch shot is a mini golf swing and will give you an opportunity to build some confidence in your clubhead to ball contact.

Take a breath. I know you probably spent an hour at the range poundung ball after ball hoping this would go away. All the time getting more tense and more frustrated. Bad combination for golf. Start with the basics you'll be back to where you were in one bucket.

Cheers and enjoy the game.

[Thom Panikorn]

I went through 2 &1/2 months of shanking my irons, especially short irons. Everyone at my club made fun of me. I didn't have problem with my woods or long irons. I would hit my tee shots very well and stand in the middle of the fairways with wedges in my hands and felt hopeless. I would lay up off the tees so that I could hit long irons or fairway woods to the green. I tried so many things.....My handicap moved from 2 in early May to 6 now. AND...YESTERDAY I THINK I FIGUREED IT OUT WHY AND HOW TO CURE IT.
BC Micth is right about the right shoulder coming in fast on the down swing because i rush the swing. But the cure is on the left(front) shoulder! At the range yesterday, I realized that I didn't turn my left shoulder under my chin but i did turn the right shoulder! I worried about my right side and forgot about the left.
I was so excited after I figured it out at the range and I wanted to try it out on the course so I went straight to my course and played about 25 holes. It works! Standing with a LW in my hand and thinking how close i would put it!...8 feet! I hit so many "pure" iron shots that I didn't care about the putts! I still made an eagle and few birdies though!
GO OUT TO THE RANGE AND PRACTICE TURNING THE SHOULDERS TOGETHER WHILE KEEPING EVERYTHING ELSE FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND AND YOU WOULD GET RID OF THE SHANK. Believe me i was thinking about quiting as well, many times. But i didn't and I determined to figure it out myself so that i know what to do next time it happens!

Let me know whether it work for you.

TP

[el tigre]

I went through 2 &1/2 months of shanking my irons, especially short irons. Everyone at my club made fun of me. I didn't have problem with my woods or long irons. I would hit my tee shots very well and stand in the middle of the fairways with wedges in my hands and felt hopeless.

Man, you've just described my game in the last two weeks perfectly. I'm not having a case of the "hosel rockets" but most of my iron and wedge shots are thin. I've been hitting beautiful shots to the green from 180 yards with a 7-wood and absolutely dreadful ones from 80 yards with a gap wedge.

GO OUT TO THE RANGE AND PRACTICE TURNING THE SHOULDERS TOGETHER WHILE KEEPING EVERYTHING ELSE FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND AND YOU WOULD GET RID OF THE SHANK.

Hmmm, this sounds very familiar to advice I got from my instructor when I had a bad case of "lateral pitch outs". He told me to concentrate on simply rotating my shoulders around a constant spine angle. I have a tendency to let the shaft plane get too "flat" - he stated it should be more vertical with short irons/wedges than with fairways woods because it is more vertical at setup with these clubs. Now you've got me thinking I should work on my shoulder turn/spine angle for MY short iron problems...

[Agent99]

Any advice?
Denny

I wonder if your shanks might be caused by “jumping” on the ball. I forget who said it but, “Where your feet go, your hands will follow.” The way I see it, if we want to build a sound and reliable swing we need to start with a sound and reliable foundation, or rather “quiet feet”.

I try to avoid springing my heels upwards in my backswing so I don’t lose any energy going up when I need it all to sweep through the side of the ball. I also think ‘heels down’ so I don’t miss the sweet spot possibly overcompensating going up a bit too high by coming back down a bit too low and consequently catching the ball with the hosel, or shank, of the club. So far, so good, knock wood.

BTW, I looked up “shank” in The Oxford Reference Dictionary I have here…shank n. 1. the leg; the lower part of the leg; a shin-bone. 2. a shaft or stem; the long narrow part of an implement etc.

Hope this helps. Good luck Denny.

99

[dbleber]

dbleber:
Well I would like to thank al of you for your advise and I am proud to say thatthe shanks are gone!

Here is the break down of my problem and what I did to fix it. First let me thank BCMist, his drill of slowly bringing your elbow down to your hip is something that I will add to my list of drills. Once I felt this motion it was if my body and brain joined together and said there it is dumbass! I had the proper feeling of getting my club into the slot again and half the battle was over. The main problem was getting my club to the top of my back swing where I could bring it into the slot properly. My take away was going out away from the body and causing me to have to drop my right shoulder to over compensate. There is a great drill from Butch Harmon on the Golf channels website just on the take away, I have used it for about a year and went back to it to fine tune this problem. The last thing I did was, I noticed my right hand was sitting on the club very weak and my palm was almost facing the sky. I turn it over and wamo great contact was back. Most of this I think is from me getting lazy. I haven't been practicing as much and my desire on the course as not been there. I am in the middle of being posted to Ottawa and have just had to much on my mind I guess. I did notice that once i fixed my shanks an old problem of mine with alignment came back and everything was going left. It took me until the 17 hole to notice that my hips were aiming to the left and I was leaving them open. Once I turned the in square at address everything was groovy.
Gotta love this game, very rarely do you go out and have everything clicking. It's like buying an old house or car, there is always something to fix and once you fix it something else breaks!
Thanks
Denny