"For one thing," I answered, "you have a death grip on the club with your left hand. This grip, plus the fact that you raise the club on the backswing with your left hand and left arm, causes you to roll the clubface away from the ball on the backswing, and from this roll away action the club falls into an open position at the top of the swing. From here you pull sharply across the ball so that you produce high pop up shots, or you push the ball away off to the right, or you slice your shots badly.

"Now, from this same open face position of the club at the top of the swing, you might suddenly start doing the very reverse. Instead of bringing the clubhead into the ball with this dragging, cross-cut, lagging action of the club, you suddenly start lashing out with the right hand at the top of the swing. The club, with this 'too early hit' action of the right hand, is thrown outside the point of impact. Often this 'too early hit' with the right hand causes the clubface to turn over, to toe in as the ball is met and a series of topped shots, smothered hook shots or shots that go off to the left result." (This is a common fault with beginners and is the reason why they get so many white paint marks on the top part of their wood clubs.)

So, I explained to D.M. that while his footwork and body action were good, this faulty hand action caused his shots to stray to the right or fall off to the left; in other words, they went any place but down the middle.

"You certainly hit the nail on the head," said D.M. "That is exactly my problem. I have no trouble hitting them but I don't know where they are going. What do we do about it?"

I then proceeded to show D.M. that after making the forward press, which was his first move, he then made move two, a reverse press (changing knee positions and thereby shifting his balance onto his right leg and right foot), that he then made move three (raised the club to the top of the swing) and then move four (brought the club down into and through the ball).

I told him that was the natural sequence of motion in a golf shot and that golf champions such as Harry Var-don, Bobby Jones, Leo Diegel, Jimmy Demaret, Jackie Burke, Paul Runyon, Lawson Little, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, George Bayer, Mike Souchak, Jay Hebert, and countless others, all had or have this one, two, three and four rhythm in their golf swing.

I pointed out to D.M. that because of the tense death grip with his left hand, he kept raising the club with his left hand and left arm and throwing or rolling the club into open position at the top of the swing.

Try as I might, I couldn't seem to get the idea across to D.M.—that his clubhead ought to be closed on the backswing. When I asked him to keep the club closed on the backswing I was only asking him to keep the club square with the line of flight as he took it back.

D.M. complained that his fingers were short, that his hands were thick and fat, and that it was impossible for him to take the club back as I suggested.

"D.M.," I pleaded, "I'm not asking you to perform a miracle. I'm only asking you to keep the club in position as you swing it up and down. This is something that you must do with your hands. Your number three motion, instead of being started with the left hand, which rolls the club away from the ball, should be actually started with the right hand; then your left hand instead of pronating (described in Chapter 6) could do the reverse, supinate, and the club face would be kept closed or square through the swing.

"In fact," I urged, "if you will do this on the back-swing, when you reach the top of the swing you will have control of the club with your left hand as you ought to. Then and only then will you be able to come through with the left arm and the left side, and only then will you meet the ball squarely and drive it down the middle."

But.......

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