Hit The Ball Then The Ground Every Time (Instant Results)

Hitting the ball on turf is a skill we all want to do consistently and if I'm honest I need to take more divot off the golf ball. Even though I hit down in the golf ball and I strike the ball good enough, I would like to have that kind of real pressured strike and have that divot go flying off the golf ball. Now when I teach most players we don't get that divot off the ball, we get the divot around the ball or before the ball when we're really not in a good place. So today I want to share with you the real reasons why that happens and also what we need to do to ensure that ball and turf contact every time. So what we're looking at with a typical mid-iron is we're looking to hit down in the golf ball about four degrees, which means this club is descending and our low point should be somewhere around about our lead armpit, so just inside our lead foot if you like. That's where the low point of the swing should be and then basically the ball would be hit before that. So with a 7-iron generally the ball would be in the centre of the shaft because people have the move of ball position, so the low point would be up here, so we'd be hitting the ball then going into the ground and then continuing to go into the ground for a little bit longer. So about three to four inches past the golf ball is where the lowest point should be. Now if we're not doing that it can be caused by a few things. One of the things can be we're not getting forward enough laterally with our whole body, one could be that we're not getting our wrists into that flex state and that shaft lean to produce that kind of club that's descending and three we obviously can be lagging the club the wrong way, casting the club if you like as opposed to lagging it. So what we tend to see with a lot of golfers is they tend to be a little bit the weight moving back and the body standing up so the radius of the club comes off the ground then we're not able to strike the ball correctly even if we are hitting down on the golf ball. If we look at my swing and I use the swing coach app, the coach app here to help me look at my golf swing even though I'm pretty aware of what I do but this app is unreal. I placed it face on, hit some shots and it said to me that my lead shoulder was too far back of contact. That's the big thing I saw from it. I looked at my shaft lean, it had some present perhaps not as much as I'd wanted compared to a tall player. I'm about five degrees compared to a tall player about 11 degrees but the big thing was that my shoulder wasn't forward enough. Now the key thing I wanted to do from a golf perspective is I don't want the shoulder to be ahead of the hit. That's going to give you incorrect path and issues in terms of coming over the top. So what we want to do from the top of the swing is feel that the lower half would move laterally followed by the upper half moving laterally and this shoulder is going to kind of move down and forward initially before then it moves up and round. So in my swing's case the shoulder wasn't moving forward and down enough and in the back swing my head was a little bit too moving off the ball and a little too high so the radius of the swing is a bit high and also the shoulder wasn't returning far enough forward. Now those two things combined meant that my club bottom is off the ground but also it's not forward enough to create that ball into contact. So what I'm going to do now is set up with some alignment sticks here just as a few little pointers to try and help me focus on those things in my swing. So if I take my setup now with a 7x9, I've got this rod in the center of my stance and the ball in center and I've got a rod just outside my left foot about one club head width. Now the goal is to try and feel that when I'm swinging down I'm trying to get my lead hip to this outside rod and I'm trying to get my lead shoulder at the point of contact to be somewhere around about my lead foot. In terms of the back swing to just work on that a little bit as well subtly I'm trying to feel I stay a little bit more centered and I feel like I tilt a little bit more and that helps me get the radius of my swing right. I know from looking at my swing my lag element as I start down is good so I don't need to worry about that. I do throw it a bit but I'm throwing it a bit generally because my body's back and not forward enough. So if I can get my body forward then I should start to get more pure contact that we're looking for. Using the app will help you decipher what part of the swing you need to work on to help you with what elements you want to change in your golf swing. For me it's that ball into contact and when I teach people contact consistency and pressure on the golf ball is something that comes up a lot so I thought this would really resonate with a lot of you golfers out there. So we're really going to try now and feel that we shift that way in my downswing but trying to make sure always that the upper body's behind the lower body. So again we can go with stamp and shift to feel it in that sequence but I'm just really trying to feel can I get my lower and upper body working better in the downswing and that one there I've got a great bit of divot there just after the golf ball really like that that's exactly what I'm looking for. So let's just confirm everything we've said there so the keys to getting volunteer contact is we need to be hitting down on the golf ball we need to be transporting that club forward in my case through my lead shoulder but also making sure the hips move that lateral so in the downswing these hips should be moving about six inches laterally as we start down and then the shoulders should fall behind it and then once we've got the shoulder moved forward as we get down to this last bit of delivery position then the shoulder will start to work up as I extend and then the club unloads and throws itself towards target. The other elements we'd want to look at is again from a radius perspective are we staying tilted as we turned moving a rib cage down I guess a radius nice and low and then we start to push up off the ground. So the last bit that we haven't mentioned there would be the lag element and that's really how we control this wrist angle as we come down now this is always unloading but the key is we never constantly try and unload it so we're trying to feel like our thumbs point up keep our thumbs pointing up as the club goes down as we move laterally with our body units. Now if we're moving laterally and rotating we haven't mentioned rotation at all the lag should take care of itself but when we have the intent hit the ball towards a target the rotation tends to happen for free. So let's just go through that again take our setup swing back slide shoulder unload again a nice meaty divot there exactly what I'm looking for getting that radius control right and getting the low point in the right spot to make great contact. Have a go using the app to see what part of the swing you need to work on most but also just have a think about this sequence moving the lower half first followed by the upper half to peel your irons every time.