Welcome to Play Smarta regular GOLF.com game improvement column that will help you become a smarter and better golfer.
Recreational players often ask about the same thing: spin. They watch the pros every weekend putting English on the ball around the greens and can’t wait to take it out themselves. The problem is, they have no idea where to start.
Spin is a great tool if you know how to use it. This allows you to hit a wide variety of different shots and gives you a lot of control over your ball. When you can manipulate your ball with spin, you unlock a whole new level in your short game.
Now, there are a lot of ingredients needed to hit a shot with tons of spin, and it would take an entire dissertation to break it all down in depth. However, if you’re looking for a quick trick that will help you generate more spins, you’re in luck. In the following video, GOLF Top 100 Teachers Jeff Smith explains how doing a little grip tweaking can give you boatloads of backspin.
A grip tweak for great rotation
A multi-roll shot is a “specialty” shot, so your setup must have special features. Throw all your “stock” configuration tools out the window. For this shot, that means taking a slightly different approach to how you hold the club.
“You have to use a specialty grip for a specialty shot,” Smith says.
Most golfers use either an interlocking or overlapping grip, but for this shot, Smith suggests using a reverse overlap. This means gripping the stick with all the fingers of the trail hand on the stick and then overlapping the index finger of the lead hand over the pinky of the trail hand.
“Now what’s going to happen is you’re going to have a lot more control over this club,” Smith says. “You can control how steep the ball goes (and) you can control how hard you hit it.”
With your trail hand gripping the club so prominently, it becomes much easier to generate speed through the hitting zone, which is a key component to generating spin. All you have to do from there is open the clubface a little and focus on hitting the ball.
If you do this, your ball will come out with more spin than you’ve ever seen before.
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