How to Prevent Casting by Moving the Handle Up and In | Titleist

Understanding club dynamics and your swing path with your hands, probably one of the more important things that I help players with who are hitting it poorly with irons. Tremendous amount of torque force out of the ground. Push away from the ball through your front foot. That's probably the magic move right there. The idea of casting has been talked a lot about in the golf swing, and to me, casting is really simple. It's when I see a player who has a massive extension of the mass of the club away from their body, and the shaft lines up with their lead arm too soon. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about your body moving into the lead side and your hands lowering. The angle between my lead arm and the shaft hasn't changed, but the stopping part, when I put the brakes on my lead leg and my hands no longer pull forward, is what allows the club with the right timing and placement to release. So many players I meet are so afraid of feeling the club head rotate and release past their arms and hands that they've almost become frozen or locked with their hand path into the golf swing. And this shaft lean idea that we're always supposed to keep pulling the handle ahead of the golf club all the way through impact is something that gets players into this very extended release position. What I submit is that when you do this motion correctly, when your body shifts and the club changes directions, you're simply trying to get your hands down to your thighs and stop here. And this stopping motion is what creates that releasing effect of the club. It allows the head to speed past the handle. Again, if I were trying to create a very anti-casting move with the golf club here, I'd always want my body going first and my hands coming down. But from here, I'm stopping this direction. This allows the club to rotate and release. And when I do this properly, I can move the handle closer to my body in this direction. When we're talking about this really important feature in the downswing, it's an important measurement that we see how the hands are curving. And I want to share a really important aspect of the direction that the golf club has to swing to prevent casting, to prevent an early release, and to help you maximize where you're really going to flush a golf ball. Now, when we talk about club dynamics, I think a really important understanding is that the handle and the club head don't always travel on the same plane together. Sometimes the handle begins working on a different direction to keep the club head on a collision course for the golf ball. I'll submit to you that when the golf club is about parallel to the ground and hopefully pointed in a direction towards the target, at this point, we've got some important decisions to make about where this part of the golf club is going to go. If I need the club head to go to the ground, well, I can make it go to the ground if I simply lowered the golf club, but that's not correct. In order to make the club go to the ground, you notice that the handle begins to actually work a little bit up. Now, that's one direction we've solved, but I've got another one. The club has to get out to the golf ball, and now the grip end of the golf club actually starts to work in. So, the direction the club works is both up and inward towards impact, and that helps bring the club head on path to the back of the golf ball. So, again, many players that I teach are trying to swing their hands towards the golf ball. They're swinging the butt of the club out at the golf ball, and what this is doing is it's changing a lot of the forces of the golf club, and it's very difficult for them to line up the club head at impact. Ultimately, we want to have the golf club, when it gets down to the ground, curving upwards, inwards, and the handle working around the lead hip. This on-plane position really helps get that click and smash of the club head into the golf ball. I've known for years as a coach, when I see a player coming into me with their golf swing who's driving the club, the butt of the club at the ball, usually turning a little bit over the top, then they're trying to swing down the line and the face of the club is left wide open. The classic pull slice player. The reality is you want to feel as your hands are working downward and inward that this provides you the ultimate impact position here. Anytime that we see a player's handle push out and shoulders begin to turn, they're in a state of recovery, and they're trying to make the club head meet up with the golf ball. If you have divots that track hard to the left, you may be struggling with this concept of trying to drive the handle of the club towards the golf ball. The reality is you're allowing your hands to work inwards and up so that you can release the head of the club past the handle correctly. In doing so, you've learned how a golf club is made. For many players I meet who are former hockey players, they have a really good idea of how to hit a golf ball. They're used to a split grip with their trail hand down, and they can really curve the top of a stick up and around, and this allows them to really smash a golf ball. It's a great concept on how the dynamics of the club work. We're never driving the top of that hockey stick over the puck. It's working up and in so they can hit with the face. So whenever I try to get a handle to work up and in, it's okay to feel how close it finishes around your lead hip to get compression. So casting is not bringing the hands down. Casting is when the shaft lines up with your lead arm too early in the downswing, and that's not what we're doing with the club. We're not casting the mass of the club away from our shoulder. We're actually letting it fall with our pressure into the lead side. When I massively stop my hands from here, it releases the club up and in, and I can finish in a very powerful position towards the target. So don't ever try to keep driving the club at the ball. Allow the handle to work both up and in, and from here you'll start flushing your irons.