A beginner golf lesson ...

.....Learn to swing with two fingers and two thumbs!

The first time I saw this drill, which I have found to be an ideal beginner golf lesson, was on a coaching video by golf guru, Greg McHatton. He was just showing everyone how dynamic the golf club is without exerting too much force from the hands or arms.

What I didn't realise at the time was how easy it was to actually hit a dynamic shot with this grip. I remember watching the video and Greg explaining that it was difficult to influence the club's gravity and swing path with this grip.

As this was a video, I was only able to see the swing he made and not what happened to the ball. All he said regarding this was, "It's quite surprising how far and straight that ball has actually flown." Read this page for important beginner tips.

I thought no more about this beginner golf lesson because Greg had only dropped it in to let his audience know that it helped people experience the feeling in the hands for the much-desired 'late hit'. (‘Late hit’ is the term used for a late uncocking of the wrists prior to impact).

Shortly after my first viewing of his video about four years ago, I tried the four-finger grip myself and although I did manage to hit the ball, I was quite negative about my initial results and how it felt and gave up on it.

I combined this with my readings about ‘true gravity’ (Golf in the Kingdom, by Michael Murphy). Both passages busy themselves with the theory that the more we interfere with the natural force of gravity, the more we hinder its natural acceleration.

For this beginner golf lesson, a little understanding of gravity at this point helps. For example, if you were to drop a golf ball from a height of 10m (33 feet), it would take one second to hit the ground. That’s a speed of 22mph. Not that fast.

However if you dropped that ball from 60m, it wouldn’t take six seconds to hit the ground but three seconds as gravitational speed increases by another 10mps every subsequent second. Now achieving 44mph at impact. From 150m height, five seconds and 66mph. 360m, eight seconds and 99mph and so on.

I hope you’re still with me. That was the simple version of Newton’s law. Now comes the good part. ‘True gravity’ or Bobby Jones’s 5-10mph added ‘effect’ work a little differently. Instead of just dropping the ball, you’ll impart Jones’s 5-10mph extra help and you see Newton’s speed figures double and treble.

However the golf swing moves into a completely different level by using centrifugal force. That’s like when you spin a weight at the end of a length of string, it picks up great speed with little movement of the hand. OK, we’re almost there, stay with me just a little longer.

Golf’s centrifugal force works like this: if the hips turn at a speed of 2mph, this projects the shoulders to 12mph, hands to 24mph, and the club head reaches 100mph at impact.

Increase the hip turn by ½mph and the shoulders go to 15, hands to 30 and club head to 120. As a matter of fact, the normal force of gravity generates the 2mph hip turn and the force of ‘true gravity’ generates 2½mph.

Is the penny beginning to drop? This is where Jones’s 5-10mph comes in. He was talking about the increased hand speed, which is explained above as 6mph faster. But how can this be applied.

This brings us back to the four-finger grip. You will learn how to add this 5-10mph using this 'beginner golf lesson' and achieve power you never thought possible.

But there is a snag, if you increase your hand speed by 20mph, which most people do when attempting to increase power, the figures don’t work because the hips and the core muscles slow down .