A free beginner lesson...

....The four finger grip!

I went to the range and gave it a go with quite miserable results. I quickly gave up on it and thought at the time that it was another of Greg's talented tricks.

About 2 years later, 2004, I was watching the same McHatton video and that particular clip quite a few times over and over again. Sometimes in slow motion, at normal speed, and then freezing it to be sure he wasn't regripping anywhere.

Sure enough, he was only using the four fingers and the fingertips at that. As he himself mentioned, the beauty of this grip is the natural late hit it enables. This free beginner golf lesson follows this theme.

Off I went once more to the range to give this another go. I gripped the club just like Greg and began swinging the club back and forth and swished the grass a few times. At first it is difficult to get the club swinging as the fingers are unable to support the club's weight, so a start where the hands move first and let the club follow is required.

The club then freewheels to the top of the swing where I have improvised a little for this free beginner lesson and used my right pinky to gently stop the club when it is parallel to the ground. Without the right pinky the shaft was hitting my back and it was all a little too jerky.

At first my club face was quite open at impact and I was hitting week pushes about 70 yds to the right with my 9 iron. Then I remembered the main reason for this grip was to take the hands out of the shot. I realised that I was trying to manipulate the club at impact and therefore using my hands.

Somehow with my practice swing the club was swiping nicely along the grass but with the ball something was different. The difference was, I was reacting to the ball.

But how?

I took a few more swings and suddenly realised that I was squeezing hard with these fingers at impact and this was the interference that wasn't happening with the practice swing.

OK, don't squeeze at impact!

Easier said than done. Will the club not fly out of my fingers with such a soft hold?

Well it doesn't with the practice swing. In fact there's a very free-flowing control. Let's see what happens with the ball under the same conditions.

Wow!

Now that was better. Dead straight, soft as butter, much higher than any 9 iron I've ever hit and you know what I actually think it landed 20yds over the 100yd marker. It couldn't have, that's only 10 yds short of my normal length with this club.

Let's try that again, oops the club nearly slipped out of my hands this time, but again something similar happened and this time I watched carefully as it landed 120yds out.

I hit another 20 balls like this and they were mostly the same except when I was squeezing at impact. As a matter of fact it only took me about 10 shots before I realised this was why I had given up on this 2 years earlier.

Later that day I hit another 20 shots with the same grip but this time I had a glove on both hands to allow me to hold it even softer without the fear of losing the club. I then started popping them out to about 130yds and decided there and then that I was going to adapt the dynamics of this into my own swing.

... And so the free beginner lesson was born!!!

Go try it and come back to me with your results.

For you hard hitters out there you're gonna have to get a little looser a impact and for those who swing like a pro already, you're gonna get this right away. Within 10 balls, I guarantee it.

As I say, this free beginner lesson is like having your own coach telling you how to do it all better. Click Here!

A final thanks must go to Greg McHatton, without whom, I would never had adapted to a much better late hit which most people believe can't be taught and I would never have shot my recent 67 (5 under), the best at our course in over a decade.

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free beginner lesson