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What is a shank?

Have you ever watched Tin Cup? I know its a movie, but there is a scene when Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy (Kevin Costner) is at the practice range, and he is hitting shank after shank.

How did he do that?

Well Roy did the same thing that I did and every other golfer does when they shank the ball and that is when you hit the ball with the hosel of your club. The hosel is the rounded bit between the shaft of the club and the club face. This part of the club has a rounded surface, and so the ball shoots off to the right at an amazing angle (to the right for a right handed player and to the left for a left handed player). Basically you are hitting the ball too close to the heel of the club, rather than the center of the clubface. Most likely your shot will fly off as a line drive directly away from your body.

5 Common faults that will cause a shank

Reason # 1 You are transferring the weight from your heels to your toes

Weight transfers to the toes at impact making you lean forward When you set up to hit the ball, you may find that you feel more pressure in your heels than in your toes. This occurs because you are basically leaning or sitting back. As a result you may be compensating for this imbalance during your swing. This will have the effect of leaning slightly forward and thereby moving the club head forward. Remember looking at the photo of a shanked shot, all it takes is inch of forward movement from transferring the weight from your heels to your toes and you will get a shank! An uneven weight distribution between the back and the front of your feet during your swing may be causing you to shank the ball.

Reason #2 You are standing too close to the ball at setup

If you are standing too close to the ball at setup, your natural tendency will be to adjust your downswing to a more comfortable and natural swing path. The effect will be that the club head will move away from you, and as we have found out, even inch will cause the dreaded shank to appear into your game. Simply standing too close could be the reason that your are shanking the ball!

Reason #3 Your natural swing aim is flawed

When you are hitting the ball, you are most probably aiming at the middle of the ball, and expecting the middle of the club face to make contact with the ball. The cause of your shanks could be as simple as a slightly incorrect aim!

Reason #4 - Your arms move away from your body

When you are making your downswing, do your arms drift away from your body? If they do, the effects can be disastrous! one of the effects is the club head moves away from the correct swing path and so the club connects the ball with the hosel, and you get a shank.

Reason #5 - You have an incomplete shoulder turn

If you are not getting a good or complete shoulder turn, then your swing will become too narrow and steep. Your left shoulder should rotate to a position above your right knee. If you are not getting to this position, the result is that you are likely to be swinging on a very narrow arc. Having a narrow swing due to an incomplete shoulder turn may be causing you to fall into your shots during your downswing, and by leaning forward by inch will cause a shank. The cause of shanking could be due to an incomplete shoulder turn.

How do you cure a shank?

The main reason I cured the shanks was because I found a solid and reliable swing that was easy to learn and easy to repeat

Visit my website to see My Review of the Simple Golf Swing

If you want to discover the simple set up routine that I used, simply go to my web site and See my review of The Simple Golf Swing Review

# posted by 78867 @ 6:47 PM 0 comments

Such liberalisation comes the risk of these new entrants conducting less than ethical business practises that were impossible for a state controlled monopoly; and so with liberalisation comes a new wave of regulation.

A fact of the telecom's industry is that all new entrants have had to resell all or part of the incumbent monopolys infrastructure. However, by using the Internet and the unbundled local broadband loop, VoIP is a technology that will allow a new breed of telecom operator that has no recall to the incumbent monopoly other than to interconnect with it to pass traffic between each other.

VoIP, therefore has attracted the attention of regulators, and from a European-wide perspective, the issue is that this attention varies from country to country. Each National Regulatory Authority has a different view. According to a recent survey conducted by networking technology company Spirent Communications, the international Engineering Consortium and Total telecom magazine, twenty per cent of European telecoms executives said that government regulation is the biggest threat to VoIP, meanwhile 84 per cent believe the technology is ready for widespread deployment.

According to a Gartner report in January 2006, no common approach has so far been adopted among National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) for the delivery of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) across Europe. In some countries, the service is treated as being equivalent to a regular circuit-switched telephone connection, while in others, it is considered more as a data service. Until a common approach is implemented, VoIP service providers will be unable to deliver common service platforms across multiple countries, removing one of the key opportunities enabled by the underlying technology that of cross-national competition.

The survey found that NRAs have resisted developing specific policies or regulations concerning VoIP. While no one has an appetite to aggressively regulate this technology, changes will need to happen to accommodate the rapid move in consumer and business use patterns. Gartner believes that with VoIP and other IP-enabled or electronic communications service (ECS) maturing, end users are often unaware that protection and statutory rights are not the same with VoIP services as for switched voice.

Therefore, Gartner concludes, VoIP will force broad regulatory changes, because voice telephony is being redefined. IP not only affects the pricing of voice services, but also changes the way voice services and features are ordered, provisioned, delivered, marketed and regulated. As a result, the inevitable regulatory changes will add cost to the provisioning of IP-enabled services, thus closing the end-user price advantage currently enjoyed by VoIP services.

As regards the UK market specifically, under the Communications Act of 2003 Ofcoms primary regulatory control on the VoIP market is to police a code of conduct for providers of a pubic telephony service over whatever technology to consumers and small business. (As for big business, caveat emptor.) This code of practise deals with the business process as opposed to the underlying technology and, as far as the consumer is concerned, is all that is required.

To quote from Clause 52 of The Act itself:

(2) Those matters are-
(a) the handling of complaints made to public communications providers by any of their domestic and small business customers;
(b) the resolution of disputes between such providers and any of their domestic and small business customers;
(c) the provision of remedies and redress in respect of matters that form the subject-matter of such complaints or disputes;
(d) the information about service standards and about the rights of domestic and small business customers that is to be made available to those customers by public communications providers;
(e) any other matter appearing to OFCOM to be necessary for securing effective protection for the domestic and small business customers of such providers.

VegaStreams position regarding regulating the VoIP industry is similar to that of OfComs. The application is straightforward the ability to enable people to talk to each other over a telecommunications network. With VegaStream gateways this network can contain both IP and TDM elements and that fact is completely transparent to the end. Regulators should therefore continue to refine their ability to protect the consumer against bad business practise and ensure that the innovators within the VoIP industry can bring the full benefits of this technology to business and consumers alike.

Formed in 1998, VegaStream is one of the most experienced players in the industrial VoIP market. The company supplies gateway CPE to both traditional telecommunications carriers and the new generation of Internet telephony service providers. VegaStream also serves the enterprise market through a global network of distributors and resellers supported by regional offices in the UK, USA and Australia. VegaStream is a non-listed UK company. Investors include the management team, Pace Micro Technology PLC and MTI Partners. http://www.vegastream.com

# posted by 78867 @ 3:14 PM 0 comments