SHARPEN YOUR
Most Golfers struggle to hit the easy shot with their clubs. That
is very normal as we have spent hours and hours practicing our
full shots. The body is used to a tempo and rhythm and also a
certain length of the backswing with each club.
The problem arises on the golf course when most of the shots
that we come up against (except for the driver) are in between
yardages and a player thus has to alter his shot to play a shot
which is usually less than the full shot.
Choke down full swing
Varying the speed of the club at impact
is what I am going to address in this
article and leave the spin rate for a later
time since that requires a higher level of
precision and prowess.
The speed of the club is directly
proportional to the length of the shaft /
handle and also to the distance that the
club travels from top of the backswing to
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To resolve this problem we must fi rst understand the basic of
the strike and understand what factors determine the length to
which each of our clubs take us.
If we strike the ball solid, the two main factors that affect the
distance are:
1. Speed of the club at impact
2. Spin rate
Choke down 3/4 swing
impact OR in other words length of the
backswing.
In order to become a good player we must
fi rst work on getting our main scoring
clubs i.e. the wedges in our control.
They are the shortest clubs and easiest to
control and practice and thus obviously
the demand on precision from these clubs
is the maximum.
GolfPlus Junior November-December 2018
Choke down half swing
The simplest way to reduce speed of a
club at impact is by shortening the lever
that is the length of the shaft. So for
example: if your full sand wedge goes
100 yards, then by choking down on the
shaft and making the same swing the ball
shall travel a few yards less. The amount
that the ball travels less varies from player
to player.