Hold your finish
This one goes out to you juniors trying to get to the big show…
“Hold your finish.” If there was one thing I remember my dad telling me as a junior golfer, it was, “Hold your finish.” Did I listen to him? Not really. Maybe it’s that father-son dynamic, or maybe I just didn’t believe it was important, because I certainly didn’t think about it much when I practiced. Tiger’s one-handed twirl finish on errant drives or even letting go of the club completely comes to mind. Besides, the finish happens after the ball is struck and well on its way to the target so how important can it be?
One thing I do know is that if you walk up and down the range at a tour event, you will see different tempos, different P4s, different body shapes, etc, but every player seems to hold their finish. Consequently, everyone’s finish looks a little different, too, but they all get there, hold it, and watch the ball land.
Think about this: at what points in the swing do you have the most positional control? Your setup and your finish. The setup “sets up” the chain of events that occur right after, but once the club gets moving, its hard to control what your P3-P7 will look like. In fact, if you try to control it, you’ll probably hit it worse. Now, what if you only focused on getting to your perfect finish? Whatever perfect is to you. Straight up and down, nice balance, etc. But WAIT! I’m talking positions and trying to get into a position is bad! Well, you’re not moving much anymore so it’s a lot easier. For instance, your setup can be perfect every single time, because you haven’t started moving the club back so in theory, you can do your setup perfectly just about every single time. As for your finish, what if you just held a finish and only concentrated on having 90% of your weight on your left leg? If you get there, it means a proper sequence occurred that allowed you to get there. That’s a lot simpler than trying to control where the club will be halfway down and moving super fast.
I see a lot of value in holding your finish and I try to instill that in my students because maybe the drive that came to rest two yards out of bounds would have ended up in play… if you would have just held that finish. Or that low ball into the wind penetrated a bit better and covered the front bunker instead of plugging in the lip. Or, what if that college coach that was watching you from a distance saw you one-hand twirl a finish and instantly had a poor impression of you. I assure you, if you held your finish on every single shot, your bad shots will be a little less bad and golf will be a little bit easier.