No matter how good a car looks, it will only perform as well as the engine that drives it. The same could be said for the golf swing, and while you look on the range and see so many people working on how the golf swing looks, at the end of the day the most important thing is how it performs on the back 9 of a tournament. These days golf instruction can often seem like you need a biomechanics degree to even take a lesson from your local golf pro, but to me this most certainly should not be the case. To me the one place almost every golfer should be more aware of is what their ball flight is doing, and what is happening at impact to cause that ball flight. Too often people jump ahead of the important things in the swing and rush to change things that may not necessarily need to change.
Never under estimate the club face
The most common issue people have with their game is poor direction, but when direction is talked about the first thing that seems to come up is the path of the golf club. The path of the golf club only accounts for approximately 15%-20% of the direction that the ball travels, yet face accounts for about 80% of it, so why is the the club face underestimated? The most likely reason is the club face is not sexy, its simple. The problem with simple is that its not “sexy” but remember if you are looking for performance over style, who cares about sexy. If you want to improve your direction in a short space of time you need to change the club face in some way to bring it closer to the path of the golf club. This will help you produce a more controllable shape that will finish closer to target.
Tip: Use two alignment sticks to create a “Goal”. If you can start the golf ball consistently between the sticks you are creating a relatively “square” club face at impact. If the ball moves to the right after the ball has passed the gate, ensure the gate is just left of target so the ball can finish on the target line. The opposite can be said if the ball curves to the left after the gate.
Contact is key
The second most overlooked area of improving your ball striking is the impact location on the club face. Creating a centred strike will help you achieve two things:
- Create a more predictable ball flight
- Produce a higher ball speed and increase distance as a result
Despite the club face being such an important part to both direction and distance, how often would you see somebody practicing or checking where they strike the ball on the club face. In my opinion I would say almost never, again maybe because it is not a “sexy” move or maybe its because most people simply don’t know how to practice it.
Tip: Use a whiteboard marker to colour in your club face. Split the club face into 3 sections, middle, heel and toe. Try to strike one ball off each area and then see how many in a row you can strike off the middle of the face. This will help you create club face awareness and feel during your swing.
