If you’ve ever had the dreaded experience of having the shanks in golf, you know how difficult they can be to recover from.
More than just the errant shots, the shanks cause you to lose confidence in yourself, which can lead to a decrease in mental strength anytime you’ve got a golf club in your hads. You fidget with everything, try to rework your swing fundamentals, read and watch all sorts of tips from GOLF.com, and, generally, feel like you’ve lost the ability to hit a golf ball.
As someone who had this happen to him last summer, I can tell you it’s no quick-fix.
But before driving yourself crazy by digesting all sorts of tips and trying everything you can to recover, first take a look at the video above — which comes from Peter Kostis and Gary McCord’s “Off Their Rockers” podcast, a GOLF Production — where Kostis walks through a great drill to help you get over the shanks for good.
Do this drill to finally eliminate infuriating shanks
To the delight of the small group in the video, Kostis grabs a bottle of vodka, saying it’s one way to help cure the shanks.
“This is a bottle of vodka, and a sip or two might not hurt [to alleviate the shanks],” Kostis quips. “But imagine this is a [wooden] 2×4 or a box that new golf balls come in.”
Kostis places the bottle on the ground, resting it just to the outside of his ball.
“There’s two different ways to shank the ball,” Kostis explains. “You can come so much from the inside, that the hosel gets [to the ball] first, or you can come so much from the outside that the hosel gets [to the ball] first — with both leading to the same result — so it’s a path problem in 90 percent of the cases.”
He then explains why something like a vodka bottle can help lead to a better club path — thus improving your ball-striking.
“If you get a 2×4 down here [or, in this case, an empty bottle of vodka], and your shank comes from inside too much, you’re going to hit the board after impact — which won’t feel good. So you’ll gradually learn to swing down the line,” Kostis adds.
“If you have the over-the-top or outside-to-in shank, you’re going to hit the back of the [bottle or board], and that hurts even worse — and you don’t even hit the ball, because the club’s going to bounce right over it.”
Whether it’s an empty bottle of vodka, a wooden board, or a cardboard box, Kostis says that visualizing the club path as you come to impact will help cure the shanks, leading to improved contact.
“Get [something that teaches you] to learn how to swing inside, to on the line, to inside,” Kostis says.
To hear more from Kostis and McCord, you can watch to the entire episode below.
