The Dreaded Sherman’s!

At some point in time most people have had or gone through a period of the Sherman Tanks (Shanks)! The most destructive shot in golf and the hardest to cure for us as coaches due to the psychological effect it has on the player.

The shank is caused by the club moving to far forward on the down swing and the ball connecting with the hosel on the club, unfortunately there are many ways a shank can be caused but don’t despair here are a few drills to help cure this awful problem.

Cure No 1: This drill seems to be the one that does the trick, take your normal set up position with the ball set in the middle of the club, make a swing at the ball except on the downswing miss the ball on the inside i.e. your arms are closer to your body through impact, do this a few times then hit the ball as normal, the more you practice this move the easier it becomes to rid yourself of the shank. A technically good swing will have the player’s arms close to their body on the downswing (connected) the opposite move that contributes to a shank where the arms disconnect from the body and move too far forward.

Cure No 2: Very similar to Cure no 1 but more visual, place a ball down on the ground with a tee roughly ½” outside the ball, make your normal swing at the ball except try and miss the tee when you hit the ball as before this encourages the arms to move closer to your body, practice this for a while before removing the tee.

Both of the drills encourage a more connected swing i.e. the arms swinging more in unison with the lower half of the body, if you’re prone to shanking you should practice both these drills as part of your practice routine!