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– HELPFUL GOLF TIP –
Are you ready for impact?
by Brad Myers, PGA, CCM
Director of Golf, Hammock Dunes Club
You want the key to good golf? Well, there
are a lot of keys to good golf. One of them undoubtedly is “hard work”. Additionally, another
key is hard work practicing the correct fundamentals of the swing. So, what are those?
Everyone, from accomplished teacher of tour
players to your amateur armchair Harvey Penick,
has a list of what they consider the most important fundamentals of the swing. Like many I consider swinging on
the correct plane for your body to be of the upmost importance. The
best plane allows the clubface to be square to the target at impact,
allows for a long path through impact that is on the target line and
allows for the proper angle of approach down and through the ball at
the impact point.
Once on the proper plane, proper use of the hands, wrists, and
forearms is probably the next most important item on my list. I believe
it vital that the wrist on your target side arm is flat through impact. This
flat wrist can only be accomplished if it isn’t dominated by your non
target side hand to hit the ball. In other words, for a right handed player
it is very important that their right hand doesn’t flip and break down
the flat left wrist position at impact. The result of a broken down left
wrist angle can be a clubface position that is either open or shut.
Additionally, a broken left wrist can cause impacts that are behind
the ball or on the equator of the ball.
For a right handed player it is vital that the left wrist reaches the
position of the ball prior to the club head. This is the key to accuracy
and speed once on the proper plane. How do you train your hands to
do this? The answer is to “drill them.”
Gaining the proper feel in the left wrist. Drill: Tap the nail (golf
tee) into the wall. Place a tee into the ground at a 25 to 30 degree
angle. Using only your left hand on a club (for a right handed player)
very slowly attempt to tap the tee into the ground. You will notice that
it works better for you to lean the shaft forward so the face of the club
is at an angle that it will hit the flat top part of the tee flush. You do
not want to hit up on the tee or knock it up and out of the ground as
you would making a flipping motion. Do this often in practice until it
becomes part of your swing.
Gaining the proper feel in the right hand. Drill: Mop the floor.
We know that we do not want the right hand to flip the left through
impact so we need to train it. The feeling is similar to the feel of dragging a heavy wet mop through impact. You want to feel the forward
lean of the shaft. You also want – and this is very important – to feel
a lot of pressure in the crook of your index finger of your right hand
and you want to feel it directly pushing through the shaft and into the
back of the ball. In other words, you do not want to feel pressure on
top of the shaft or under the shaft as that will
artificially close or open the face.
Hope this helps. Good luck and don’t get
frustrated. Contact a PGA Professional.
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