fanning open

My absulute biggest problem is fanning open the club in the backswing..... it changes me from scratch player accuracy to 50+hdcp accuracy. i always hit a fade or a striat but i never know which one it will be and i can't hit a draw or hook to save my life. and if i try to close my club at adress i still reach impact open face. i am just so used to how the wieght of the club feels open it is ingrained. so if i do have a closed face at adress i will fan it open even more.

a fade might be alright for my irons but i want distance with my driver and a fade hits higher and shorter and i don't want that with my driver.

does anyone know any drills or anything i can do to help stop my fanning open of the club?

I just created a post where I was asking how many left knuckles I am supposed to see at the halfway mark of my backswing

The drill I listed in Simmons thread on knuckles would work in this case too. But more then likely, your fanning issues are caused by overuse of the hands and arms in the swing and not enough rotation.

Another simple drill, and you can hit balls with this one, (pick a time on the range when there are not too many people, cause your gonna look stupid, lol) setup at address, then without turning simply lift your hands and club up over your right should keeping the left arm fairly straight (not stiff, just extended) correctly done the club will be 90 degrees to the ball target line, and parallel to the ground, now turn your body so your back is facing the target, now the club will parallel the ball target line. The only difference between this and a normal swing is doing them together. The hands, arms, club and body all work the same. Separating these actions seems to give most people a better understanding of what is going on, may help. Usually people who fan or layoff have a disconnect between body and arms, usually the hands/arms moving faster then the body can keep up, which causes the arms to cross over the chest, and the body just quits turning. Let me know if this helps.

thanks navy, sounds like some good advice, i have tried it on my pratice swing, but not on the range yet, but it looks a lot more square at impact when i go in slow motion.

well i went to the range today, and it somewhat worked..... turns out i my backswing was really wrong and now you have corrected it with that drill. i used to be way open at the top, but not anymore, now it is nice and square at the top..... but even when i squared it or closed it at the top i would still hold it open at impact. the cupping of my right hand would open the face a bit so i just moved my right hand a bit stronger so that when i cup my hand it stays square and doesn't open.

Put a dot towards the heel of the club, and work on taking back the heel first.

this makes no snce to me, but i find that if i had the club closed or square at the top i would still hit a fade..... but i read that "iam confeusd" post and tried it, and for me if i cup my left wrist and have th club open at the top i hit it perfectly strait. but if i square it at the top with left wrist cupped i draw it. but if i don't have that cup i seem to always fade it, so with me, i found that fanning a club open is bad, but having a club open through other methods (left hand cup) can be good (for me anyway).

Try and feel you take the clubback alot more with the back of your right hand pointing pointing straight behind you for as long as possible. The feeling you should have by doing that feels like you have a slight right elbow chicken wing, but trust me it wont be quacking!

Skywalker, that does sound a bit strange. If I am not wrong, it should be working opposite as your described. The open clubface should favor a fade more and the closed face should favor the draw. That's what I thought, but I could be wrong.

If I dare suggest, it might be a result of previous habits of manipulating the clubhead at impact to get the desired impact. I know that's definitely my problem. For all the swing faults I have, I am still hitting very straight and accurate shots. That only tells me that if I correct something now, I will have to undo a corresponding act of manipulation in my current swing :P

You guys have given some very good tips regarding this topic! msklar - I don't think I will be putting any dots on my club, but just the little tip of trying to take the heel leading back is already going to help tonnes I'm sure! Thanks!

an open club face will favor a fade if it is open at impact, it doesn't matter where it is at the top. though i think most people will say you should be square at the top to make it eaisr to sqare it at impact. i think becuase even though i am opening it via left hand cup, i am still keeping it square when i release that cup, but if i fan it open, i then have to return it back to square and have trouble doing that from a fannes open postion vs a cupped open postion. not saying it is correct, but it is what happens to work for me.

i am "compensating" for the open face by closing it at impact, but that is how you get that homerun vs check swing. AJ said it has to be open to hit a home run, i think it is easier for me to cup (open it) ans uncup (and square it) then it is to fan it open and twist it back square to hit a homerun. the cup uncup in the left is still going open to square, but it os not twisting to get it there.

Yep, AJ's video had a very enlightening fact. He pulled the club shaft along the grip until the clubhead was in the left palm and showed that the palm does not represent the club face as we might naturally assume - it is actually rotated something like 90 degrees. Based on that fact, the correct way to 'close' the clubhead was to rotate your forearms up to down, rather than what most amateurs would assume from right to left.

skywalker,
pros very greatly on how much they fan the club face. Go look at some pictures of pros at the top and some of the club faces will hang straight down while some may point almost straight up at the sky. if you fan it too much your body may react by unwinding your shoulders and pulling across the ball. your body will react to your arms and club face. if you are fanning it too much go to the www.newgolfswing.com website and work on their wrst break move.

on your back swing imagine that someone is standing to your right and looking down the target line (or you can use a mirror)
Now you want to make sure that from this view point the club head doesnt get closer to your body than the grip does until your hands are at 6o clock.
I find this helps me (got it from an old Hale Irwin book)