Curing The Shanks: Part 1

BY Peter Croker

As a lead into this anxious area, I would like to share a story from my time when I was on the Australian PGA Tour back in the 1970’s.

I had the experience of playing alongside many of the great Aussie players including Norman Von Nida, Peter Thomson, Kel Nagle, Billy Dunk, Greg Norman and more. There is one experience that I won’t forget. It happened while playing with Ted Ball when I witnessed him shank three shots in succession. He told me after the game about why he quit the US Tour and came back home to Australia. His shanking had become so bad that he could not complete a tournament round and he was forced to withdraw. His confidence at that time had hit rock bottom and he was the victim of the dreaded shank.

After coming home he worked out a solution, however there were still times when he would have a “shank attack” and I had witnessed one of them. Looking back I can see that Ted Ball’s short and fast backswing, where he occasionally pulled the clubhead away first and inside, was a major factor in causing his shanks. I decided I’d better understand what caused such a shot and how to avoid the shank in my own game. I’m happy to say I have had very few shanks over the years. No one is exempted from occasionally hitting such a shot when least expected but we can minimise the chances with the correct techniques.

The main causes and fixes are broken into 3 sections, two of which are below. Read on and work out which may be your bad apple to be culled from the tree.

So what technically is a shank? A shank is a shot that makes contact with the hosel (neck) of the iron, as show in Figure 1, and flies off at an acute angle to the clubface, out of control. The sweet spot is small on the hosel. So let’s look at the main causes of the dreaded shank.

Fault: Standing too close at Address

Standing too close to the ball at address is illustrated in Fig 2 can result in the downswing returning on a path that is more distant from the golfer than when addressing the ball. Watching Ted Ball hit his iron shots gave me the impression that he was often a little cramped over the ball.

Correction

1. Standing straight with your weight resting on your left leg, let your left hand hang down beside your left hip. Take the grip of the club in your left hand as shown in Fig 3.

2. With your left hand, push and swing the club up in front of you with the club shaft horizontal and opposite your hips which I demonstrate in Fig 4.

3. Taking this Stance your weight is centered on your left foot and from the position just described you now position your right foot as pictured just behind the ball. Next, move your weight over onto your right foot.

With your weight primarily balanced on your right foot bend from the hips, unlock the right knee and lower the club head to touch the ground gently and directly behind the ball. With the ball positioned slightly toe side of centre to the clubface is illustrated in Figure. The ball is now correctly positioned on the clubface and with the bottom leading edge of the clubface aimed at the ball’s target. You will now consistently set up at the correct distance from the ball.

This is a very valuable step also for establishing the correct posture and hip alignment. This hip alignment will lessen the strain on the lower back and make it easier to turn your hips both back and through.

This is something that is needed to build the correct hip action to avoid the shank and this is covered in detail in Part 2. Figure 6 shows the correct roomy posture needed for any golf stroke.

Fault: The Incorrect Takeaway

Starting on a backswing path where the club head moves too much inside its correct backswing path. This look is shown in Fig 7.

Having made a major inside move, it than has to loop to an “outside – in” downswing path. This sends the clubhead down outside its intended impact location. Following a stance that is the correct distance from the ball, a golfer can still get a condition of shanking.

In this situation most shanks start right from the takeaway. The golfer pulls the club away – clubhead first. This has the clubhead moving abruptly to the “inside” of the correct backswing path, pulling the arms across the chest and this spells disaster for the shot.

Creating such a backswing path causes the arms to rebound off the body at the change of direction. On the downswing the arms swing out and around the body delivering the club head to strike the ball on the hosel section of the club. You then have a shank in full flight.

Correction

Start the backswing with a “club head last/handle first” takeaway as shown in Figure 8. This allows the club head to start back straight while the hands, arms and club can swing up more in front of the body and not across the chest.

The need is to feel that hands are moving the shaft rather than flicking the clubhead inside. I drag the clubhead away with the hands, this in turn allows the clubhead to swing down and out through the ball on the correct path without the body interference to throw the clubhead to the outside of its correct down and out path through the ball as shown in Figure 9.

We have seen that set up is very important as it allows the room to maneuver correctly to the ball. Get that right and the machine is set to go.

The Initial motions over the pivot outlined above will help keep the machine on plane and in the slot better for you.

In Part 2 we will have a look at the Faulty Pivots role in a shank.