I’ve seen momentary flashes of where I’m going and I like it, but it’s a lot to digest and a lot to change so it’s slow going. Because of that, I started taking notes at the conclusion of each lesson so that I can help myself to remember what we talked about and to review before each range session so that I have an idea of what I want to work on.

I thought it might be useful if I shared my lesson notes with you, both so you can see what I’m working on, but also because you might find that taking notes after your own lessons has benefit as time goes on. A few times now, I’ve reviewed my notes and have realized I actually forgot key pieces of teaching. This helps me to make sure I stay on plan and don’t drift away from the important stuff.

The lists for each day are my raw notes as I took them at the conclusion of each lesson (I put them on my iPhone right at the range before I left). Following, in italics, are any explanations that I added for this post to give context to my thoughts. Some of them will seem nonsensical without a frame of reference.

May 7, 2011

• Straight back, hinge, miss Mike. [To keep me from yanking the club to the inside, Mike (my pro) stood off to my right side and told me that the club should not hit him as I take it back and hinge my wrists]
• Stand farther from the ball. [My previous pro liked me to stand closer to the ball. My current pro wants me to be further away, which gives me more room to swing my arms]
• Width at the top, elbow not so close.
• Finish with left knee straight, club handle pointed left. [We're trying to fix a bit of a lazy finish position]

May 14, 2011

• Straight back, make it go up. [This key is a continuation of the "miss Mike" thought from the first lesson and is possibly the most significant change I'm making. I'm taking my hands straight back, hinging the club earlier, and taking it straight up, not pulling it around behind me]
• Don’t get hands away from body. [I tend to take them back away from me on the back swing and then get them too far in front of me on the down swing.]
• Keep hands closer going back and get them inside (behind) coming down, not starting outward.
• Finish with hands higher, chest turned left, right foot more on toe.
• Grip with left thumb on top, not on the side. [My grip had become faulty, probably in a subconscious effort to make it stronger to help me flip the face square at the bottom]
• Do drills for takeaway, and coming down.
• Stop watching club on takeaway. [This is an awful habit I've developed, initially in a simple effort to check back swing positioning. Now, I'm having trouble stopping and when I let my head move to watch the ball, it throws me off. I'm getting better, but not there yet.]

May 27, 2011

• Fat shots come from flipping through impact. [In my case, I tend to open the club face at the top of the back swing, forcing me to need to flip it closed to have a chance at hitting a decent shot. Sometimes, this leads to fat shots when my timing is off.]
• Stop opening up the club face. Keep it square. [Cupping my wrist at the top was opening up the club face and causing me to have to manipulate it and rely on timing to get it square. This is one of the biggest causes of my inconsistency.]
• Hands straight back, closer to right thigh.
• Don’t take club head back inside. Practice against a wall. Club head should only gradually come away from the wall on takeaway.
• Don’t get arms so far away from body on the down swing.
• Don’t let left wrist cup on the way down or at the top.
• When coming back down to parallel, right wrist should be pretty bent (with lag). Club face should be square (what looks like closed from my view). Definitely not with the toe pointing straight up. [More on this in a subsequent post, but when I was learning the game, it was popular to teach that when the club shaft is parallel to the ground on the takeaway, that the toe should point straight up. Now, many people say that the club face should be square to the swing plane, or facing the ground somewhere out toward the target line.]

June 4, 2011

• Keep left wrist flat at impact. [My flipping action at the bottom leads my right hand to dominate and let my left wrist break down. This is one of the things that makes me hit the ball so high. I'm actually adding loft to every club.]
• Let club face keep closing past impact. [This is a key to help me keep from wanting to open the club face at the top and keep it open past impact.]
• Keep working on straight back and club moving up.
• Stop cupping left wrist and opening the face on the way down.
• Hit little half shots to work on left wrist. [It's tough to get this move at full speed. Hitting half shots is a good way to feel it.]
• At the top, work on dropping right elbow instead of starting with shoulders and hands moving out. [This leads to me coming over the top and pulling the ball left, something I've been fighting for a long time.]
• Lead with left wrist coming into impact but don’t stop turning.

June 11, 2011

• Coming down, feel as if someone is standing in front of me, pushing my hands back behind me (to the inside).
• Don’t let the face open coming down.
• Keep working on straight back, let it come up. [This is the same takeaway key from day one. I've made great strides there, but sometimes I lapse back into old habits.]
• Don’t slide hips right. Practice with bag off my right side and don’t bump into my head cover. [Sliding to the right keeps me from getting a good hip turn and subsequently prevents a full shoulder turn.]
• Stop watching the club go back. [After 5 weeks, this change is proving to be the most difficult]
• Stop cheating on the finish. Get all the way through. Turn the hips past the target. Let head come up.
• Rehearse the move from the top at home and before every shot. Don’t flip the club at the bottom. Try to keep the back of the left hand facing the target past impact.

There you have it. Five lessons worth of notes. This is everything I’m working on, and I have the blisters to prove it.

I’m curious to know if you take notes from your own lessons or even just from your own practice sessions. Drop a comment and let me know.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Lesson Notes

Now 85, Jacobs was an accomplished tournament player in his younger days, having won a couple of times in the 1950′s. But, he points out that his talent turned out to be teaching.

Admittedly, I only know of Jacobs by name, but reading those few pages of random thoughts gave me the sense that Jacobs is my kind of teacher. He’s a different kind of teacher, much like Harvey Penick was. He focuses on keeping things simple. In this era of video analysis and launch monitors and swing planes and angles, that kind of philosophy is like a beacon in the dense fog of golf instruction for me.

One thing he said really gave me pause and led me to write this post. He wrote:

In my first book, Golf by John Jacobs, I remember that the first thing I wrote down on paper was, “Golf is what the ball does.” That was my breakthrough as a teacher. I look at what the ball’s doing, and then I ask, “Why?”

If you stop and think about it for a second, that’s an extremely profound idea. It’s so simple that you’re probably tempted to not pay it much mind.

Many of you are like me in that you like to digest a lot of instructional material. These days, so much of it is about achieving positions in the swing with the idea that if you get all the positions right, then the ball will fly well.

The golf swing, however, is nothing but a means to an end. That’s not to say that you can just do whatever you want with your swing and that you’ll be a successful golfer. On the contrary, there are any number of things that can go wrong to destroy distance or consistency.

How many of us spend an inordinate amount of time achieving certain positions in our golf swing? We try to make sure we have enough lag. We make sure our weight shifts right then left, or not at all, depending on which swing we’re talking about. We try to stay on plane. We make certain not to swing past parallel. We try to maintain spine angle.

I could go on all day listing things like that.

Jacobs goes on to add:

The golf swing has only one purpose: to deliver the head of the club to the ball correctly, and to achieve such impact repeatedly. Many unorthodox players achieve correct impact — so long as it’s repeatable, it’s OK. If golf were about getting into correct positions throughout the swing, then the greatest players in the world have had it wrong. The only position that matters is the club’s at impact, which is determined by the clubface alignment (the most important factor), the path of the swing, the angle of attack and the speed of the clubhead. The biggest step in becoming a good player is understanding how the flight of the ball teaches the correct geometry of impact.

None of this is ground-breaking. Well, it might have been at the time, but by now, many of us have heard similar things. Especially the idea that the only position that matters is the club’s at impact. I’ve heard famous teachers before saying that one common trait that many, many great players share is similar positions at impact.

The real takeaway from this is that it’s kind of the opposite of how many of us try to improve our games. We work on swing positions with the assumption that once we get them all locked in, then the ball will start doing what we expect.

The problem with that philosophy is that we end up chasing a white whale. We could spend the rest of our lives trying to perfect dozens of swing positions and checkpoints and see little or no improvement in our games because the number of variables is just too great. Plus, as we’ve heard, impact is all that really matters. Jim Furyk is proof of that.

What Jacobs is saying, is, look at the flight of the ball and work backward from there. “Golf is what the ball does.” Can it get any more simple than that?

I really identify with that philosophy. Over the years, I’ve kind of naturally gravitated that way. Not completely, though. I certainly find myself looking at geometry in the swing and things like that.

I definitely make it a point to understand the flight of each and every shot I hit. I’ve gotten to the point where I can feel where on the club face I’ve mis-hit the shot and I can also tell, at times, how my swing went wrong by looking at the ball flight.

This is not to say that it’s easy to look at the flight of a shot and suddenly know that you swung past parallel or something like that. But understanding the flight of the ball can certainly help to narrow down the problems as well as the number of changes that need to be made to fix them.

The moral of the story is, maybe we all ought to stop trying to be golf swing mathematicians and just pay closer attention to the flight of the ball when we want to understand what’s going wrong in our golf games.

I recommend checking out the article at Golf Digest for more wisdom from John Jacobs. It mentions that Jacobs has written several books. I may add one or more of them to my pile and report back to you at a later date.

In case you’re wondering what other great teachers think of John Jacobs’ teaching style, there’s a quote from Butch Harmon about Jacobs on his World Golf Hall of Fame profile. Harmon said, “John Jacobs wrote the book on coaching. There is not a teacher out here who does not owe him something.”

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Learning from Ball Flight

Think about how on one hand, the golf swing seems so simple. Just pick up a club and hit a ball with it. Easy. It truly is that simple.

On the other hand, if you want to optimize the power and control of that swing so that you can maximize your distance and fly the ball at the desired height, at the desired spin rate, and with as much or as little curve as desired, now we’re talking about an extremely complex machine.

So, how do problems and symptoms relate to that? I thought you’d never ask. Actually, I thought you would, but that’s just a figure of speech. Technically, it was me asking, though. Having fun yet?

Not only is the golf swing a complex machine, but it happens in a well-defined sequence. What that means is, we could also call the machine, a “chain of events”, where a mistake early on can easily carry all the way through the entire swing.

How many times have you heard the importance of a proper finish in the golf swing? Certainly, the point of that is not so that you can look good, though, I wonder with some people. What that means is, it’s important to get to a proper finish because it probably means we’ve done things right along the way.

At the same time, if we’ve mangled up the whole swing, but have a great finish (which we probably wouldn’t, but let’s pretend), then what have we achieved?

That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about as a symptom and not the problem. Concentrating on fixing that symptom might not address the real problem.

Don’t get me wrong – that’s just an example and working on a better finish may very well help you fix the actual problem. But the finish happens well after the ball is in the air, relatively speaking. So, the odds are that something went wrong earlier that led to a poor finish.

If you have an infection, you could take some aspirin to help your aches fell better and maybe your fever will go down some. You might take some decongestant to help with the sniffles. But you still haven’t addressed the infection itself.

That’s at the heart of what I’m talking about. You need to make sure your swing is getting antibiotics, or your problems will just linger.

Back to the idea of the swing as a machine, or as a chain of events. If you’ve read Life in the Rough regularly, you know that the takeaway is something I’ve had to work a lot on over the last couple of years. In fact, I find that even when I have it fixed, I need to keep an eye on it periodically because for reasons I can’t explain, over time, I will tend to start to take the club back slightly to the outside of the target line instead of in a nice arc slightly to the inside.

From there, several things can happen, but for example, it might set this possible chain of events into motion: I re-route the club too far inside, it gets too vertical over the plane, it’s too steep coming down, I come over the top, and I pull the ball left.

That chain of events is set into motion by the simple fact that I start the club back to the outside the line. Put another way, all those things are really symptoms, not the actual problem.

That’s hard to grasp because we’re kind of wrestling over semantics. Sure, coming down too steep is a problem.  But it’s not the problem.

Until I realized this, I caused myself a lot of anguish and wasted time.

I like to look at my swing on video occasionally. Last year some time, I recorded some swings and I looked at the video. Lo and behold, what was I doing but getting too steep in my down swing. It was easy for even me to see. A few instructional books and some episodes of The Golf Fix and even I’m qualified to diagnose that problem, er, I mean,symptom.

Or, am I?

I set out to fix that steepness by resolving to make my back swing flatter. I’ll spare you the gory details. The point is, I couldn’t do it.  After a few weeks, I was a wreck.

The reason I couldn’t do it was because I didn’t know enough to set out to fix the problem. I didn’t really understand why the club was getting steep. It’s not like I was purposely hoisting it straight up in the air.

One lesson and my pro pointed out that my takeaway was a problem. I worked hard on that and wouldn’t you know, I was cured of that affliction.

Even after that, the idea of fixing problems and not symptoms didn’t really stick. It was very recently that it actually sunk in. My most notable problems of late have been not getting a full shoulder turn and getting away from my natural tempo to start the down swing. I have a tendency to try and hit the ball hard, but if I’m not careful, I get ahead of myself and get out of sequence, which causes several other issues, most notably with me coming over the top and pulling the ball left (most of us that do that will slice the ball, but I happen to pull it left and hook it, usually).

As I fell apart again and went in for a lesson and we worked on the same issue of tempo yet again (it’s been a common theme for the last 3 years), it finally started to hit me.

When I fix the actual problems, then the rest just works itself out. I started to hit the ball like you wouldn’t believe.

I’m not trying to say my work is done, but it’s a start. I have to work on making that good tempo more ingrained, along with that solid takeaway and along with that full shoulder turn. It’s not there yet when I’m on the course under pressure, but it’s there on the range. Some sessions are better than others, but I’m getting there.

My point is not to try and boil down everyone’s golf swing into those three things. Certainly, they’re important for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that any of those things is your problem.

At the same time, I know a lot of you are like me and like to tinker and look at swings on video and read instructional books and learn how the golf swing works. That’s all great and believe me, I’m here to walk that path with you all.

Unfortunately, many of us, me especially, have been given just enough rope to hang ourselves. Ultimately, the best thing I’ve done is work with a teacher that is adept at recognizing the problems and not just the symptoms. And even though he was telling me as much, it didn’t really sink in completely until I had a lot of time to think about it and agonize over my swing issues and to try and fail at various things.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago, I was in one of my lowest low points when all this hit me. I scheduled a lesson and was waiting for the day to arrive when I kind of woke up to all this. I went to the range on my own and resolved to fix the problems and not the symptoms and I did it.

I fixed it on my own. By the time I showed up at my lesson, I was hitting the ball as well as ever.  On the practice range, anyway.

Please don’t take this as a warning not to learn and tinker and try to dissect the swing on your own. While I do recommend working with a professional, it’s not that any of us cannot improve on our own. What I will say is, make sure you’re fixing problems and not just symptoms or you might find yourself spending a lot of time on a fruitless endeavor, or even worse, you might even compound the problem, just like I did.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Addressing Problems, Not Symptoms

I want to make sure we’re on the same page when we talk about angle of attack.  Remember that the swing is an arc.  From the top, the club head moves down the arc and then gets to the lowest point, and then starts going back up the other side of the arc.  In the simplest terms, if you hit the ball before the club head hits its lowest point, you have a negative angle of attack and are making a descending blow.  If you hit the ball after that point, you have a positive angle of attack and are making an ascending blow.  If you hit the ball right at the low point, you’re making a level hit and have an angle of attack of zero degrees.

Hopefully, this puts an end to the debate once and for all.  I believe Golf Magazine has proven convincingly that if you do not have a positive angle of attack with your drives, you are robbing yourself of precious distance.

The Numbers

Golf Magazine’s research has shown that an optimal angle of attack for drives is somewhere between +4 and +6 degrees, regardless of swing speed.  For a zero degree angle of attack (a level hit), the ball flies about 14 yards less for a 90 mph swing speed.  For a -5 degree angle of attack (hitting down on the ball), expect to lose about 30 yards.  Additionally, you’d need a 15 degree driver to achieve the optimal spin rate of 3,100 rpm and the optimal launch angle of 10 degrees.

Golf Magazine includes a particularly interesting table (p. 83) that shows the actual (as opposed to theoretical) results of players of varying abilities who had their initial angle of attack measured and then received instruction from top-100 teacher Bruce Patterson on how to increase that angle of attack to achieve optimal launch conditions.  Then, they were tested again to see what kind of improvements they made.

Among those tested were a Tour pro and players with handicaps of 0, 9, 14, and 23.  Every one of the players increased his angle of attack and achieved a remarkable increase in distance.  The higher handicap players actually ended up increasing their swing speeds and gained between 15 and 23 yards.  The Tour pro and scratch player, however, maintained the exact same swing speeds but both still increased driving distance.  The Tour pro increased his angle of attack by 3.2 degrees and gained 21 yards and the scratch player increased his angle of attack by 2.2 degrees and also gained 21 yards.

Interestingly, none of the players tested actually achieved the optimal angle of attack of five degrees, but they all increased angle of attack by somewhere between 1.7 and 5.3 degrees.

Tiger versus J.B. Holmes

One of the most interesting comparisons made in the study is between Tiger Woods and J.B. Holmes.  Tiger can certainly bomb the ball, but J.B. is known for hitting the ball really long.  Using Shotlink data from the PGA Tour, they found that both players have very similar stats at impact.

A look at driver loft, club speed, and ball speed shows that both players are virtually identical at impact.  The differences end there, though, as Holmes has about a +3 degree angle of attack, while Tiger has about a -3 degree angle of attack.  This gives Tiger almost 1,000 rpm more spin than J.B. Holmes.  The result?  J.B. Holmes hits the ball nearly 20 yards further than Tiger for the same swing speed.

Another Case Study

Golf Magazine presents another interesting case study for increasing your angle of attack when driving.  PGA Tour player Jeff Sluman changed his swing to achieve a positive angle of attack and added 20-plus yards.  He also adds, “You’ll be taken aback by how simple this change is.”

What to Do

Simple:  increase your angle of attack!  OK, I know you probably want a little more than that.

The answer could be as simple as playing the ball just a little further forward in your stance.  Bruce Patterson recommends finding the bottom of your swing arc and teeing the ball three or four inches in front of that.  You’ll want to make sure your hands are more over your left thigh and your spine angle will tilt a little more to the right.

In addition to the research findings, there are several good pieces in the article with additional instruction on increasing your angle of attack.

I recommend checking out the article.  It’s depressing that I’m stuck in the middle of winter, because I’d really like to get out to the range to give these things a try.

Without a doubt, the findings confirm that, in golf, it’s not always about how hard you swing.  Optimal distance is a combination of a number of optimal launch conditions.  It’s very possibly for you to make a big jump in distance without having to commit to a big swing change.  It may be worth visiting a facility with one of those sophisticated launch monitors to see how close your swing comes to creating optimal launch conditions.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Hitting Up with the Driver, Yet Again

Hopefully, you decide to make wholesale changes with the help of a pro. That will make life so much easier. But what if you decide to tackle it yourself, as I’ve been doing? I’m planning on resuming my lessons shortly, but it’s true that I did start the process myself.

The best piece of advice I can give is to make the changes incrementally. Your golf pro would probably have the same philosophy with modifications to your swing.

Let’s consider my own swing. This winter, I decided to make a switch to a one-plane swing, specifically the version that Jim Hardy teaches. I read his Plane Truth for Golfers book and his Plane Truth for Golfers Master Class books.

After digesting all the information in there, I compared it to my swing and concluded that I needed to change the following:

• Widen my stance slightly at address
• Bend over a bit further at address
• Get used to a flatter back swing
• Have a much flatter left wrist during the back swing
• Get used to turning hard with the upper body through impact
• Get used to keeping my weight more centered through the back swing and down swing, with no right tilt to keep me behind the ball
• Have much more passive hands (that’s something I needed to improve in my old swing too)
• Get used to pulling my left arm across my chest in the back swing to keep me on one plane

And that’s just the big stuff!

Imagine if I showed up at the range and tried to start doing all that right out of the gates. It would be impossible to make any progress.

The better plan is to attack those changes incrementally. In my case, I decided to attack the big movements first.

At each range session or round, I decided to focus on one of the big changes. First, it was getting used to the flatter plane. Then, it was the flat left wrist in the back swing. Then it was keeping the weight centered. Then it was turning hard with the upper body. I would choose one thing and concentrate on that, while keeping the other things in mind.

To do this effectively, you have to be willing to accept poor shots while you’re adapting. Anyone who has ever had a series of lessons has probably had a pro ask that a drill be performed repeatedly without focusing on the outcome of each individual shot. The point is to commit the change to muscle memory, not to start hitting good golf shots right off the bat.

Incremental changes don’t just mean changing one piece of the golf swing at a time. It also means that you might make incremental changes to each of those pieces, so that no single change is too radical. You might find that you start to revert slightly in some areas, so you might need to make the same change several times before it sticks.

For instance, consider my situation with keeping my left wrist flatter in the back swing. When I set out to do that, I made a change, but it wasn’t the change. It was a move in the right direction. I’m going to have to visit each of the fundamentals multiple times so that the changes aren’t too drastic. Each time, I’ll get closer and closer to the final product.

In my case, I’m about 30-50% of the way there. I’m starting to make the movements, but often I have to use conscious thought. My swing thoughts are usually whatever key I want to work on that day, whether at the range or on the course. That helps me keep the fundamentals in mind without getting overly mechanical.

I’m going to continue isolating and working on individual pieces of the one-plane swing. Now that spring is here, I should be able to practice a lot more, and I hope that the changes will come much more quickly.

If you’re going to the trouble of making big changes in your swing and are set in the idea of doing it alone, then do yourself a favor and break down the changes and make them incrementally.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Incremental Swing Changes

The premise is extremely simple: a well known professional teams up with two amateurs of varying skill levels and they all hit the course for a playing lesson.

To me, the usefulness of the instruction goes way beyond what Playing Lessons from the Pros gives us, where we get to see a tour pro playing a round. With that program, we get a look into his/her routine and style, learning how players of that level manage the course and hit specific shots. As much as I love it, amateur players face a different set of challenges and problems.

That’s where Personal Lessons shines.

By teaming up the pro with two amateurs, we see examples of the good and bad shots that most of us hit round after round, except we also get to see a professional helping players to correct those mistakes on the course.

We see things like poor decision making, chili-dips, slices, hooks, and flaws in the mental game, followed by some coaching from the pro. I know I’ve found myself watching and thinking, “Hey, I’ve made that mistake too!”

It’s a valuable tool to see an average player talk through the thought process prior to a shot, only to have it turn out poorly, at which point the pro offers up an alternate approach that works out better when the player drops a second ball and tries again.

The pros featured in the show are some big names that include Tony Jacklin, Jim Thorpe, Rocco Mediate among others.

I recommend checking out the show. I think you’ll find it both interesting and instructional. Kudos to The Golf Channel for offering up another great instructional series.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Personal Lessons

You might recall that I objected to the idea, given that it’s not widely accepted as a a good driving fundamental. Plus, video evidence shows that prominent PGA Tour professionals don’t seem to be doing that.

When I opened up this month’s Golf Digest (March 2008), I was interested to see that there was a reader’s letter asking about the idea, with concerns that everything the reader had ever been taught is counter to what Clampett suggests.

I was also interested to see a response from Clampett. He points out that a more comprehensive discussion is needed on the subject (as he does in his book, The Impact Zone), but that to him, “…the most convincing evidence of the downward arc at impact is the forward lean of the driver shaft, which can be seen under stop-action, high-speed photography.”

I agree that in some cases, at impact the driver shaft is leaning slightly forward, when seen in high speed photography. However, I believe this is due to shaft flex, not that the driver is moving in a downward arc.

At impact, the club head is still accelerating, with the hands pulling the driver into position. As such, it makes sense that the club head is lagging behind slightly and that the shaft leans forward slightly as the club head is catching up with the hands.

The most convincing evidence is apparent in the videos I linked in the previous post (click here). It’s clearly apparent when looking at a high-speed swings of Tiger Woods and Trevor Immelman (specifically closeups of the club head), that the club head itself is moving level to slightly ascending through impact.

Bobby Clampett suggested that the topic needs a little more in-depth exploration than what can be accomplished in the reader letters section of Golf Digest, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt until I’ve had a chance to review his book and understand in detail what he is proposing. At this time, however, I’m doubtful that what he’s suggesting is what’s actually happening and I’m not sure that it makes sense for players to try and do.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Hitting Down With the Driver – Revisited

In this month’s Breaking 100/90/80/70 section, Bobby Clampett sings the praises of hitting down on the ball. In his estimation, the bottom of the swing arc should be about four inches in front of the ball, meaning that when the club makes contact with the ball, it is still moving downward.

I can buy that. In fact, I just covered it in my post about the general misunderstanding of what hitting down on the ball means. What I’m a little surprised about is his point that the driver should be included in that category.

In the article, he says:

I’m blown away that so many reputable golf teachers instruct their students to strike the driver on the upswing. Regardless of whether a ball is on a tee or on a ground, the swing bottom must consistently be four inches in front of the ball. And swinging slightly down on the ball with the driver goes a long way toward ensuring that.

He goes on to give a couple of reasons why hitting down with a driver is important, including helping to keep the left wrist flat at impact.

He’s blown away? I’m blown away.

I can’t say that I’ve ever heard a pro or read an instruction book that said to hit down on the ball with the driver. Every piece of advice I’ve ever been exposed to says that the driver should strike the ball with a level to slightly ascending blow.

Sure, it’s probably been said somewhere. You can probably find someone recommending just about anything with the golf swing.

As you know, I like to talk about the swing but I’m not a pro (yet). So, I’m left wondering what to think. Listen to everything I’ve ever read and heard about hitting the driver, or listen to Bobby Clampett? That may have sounded sarcastic, but it wasn’t. After the Stack and Tilt phenomenon, I’m not discounting anything out of hand anymore.

The only option at this point is to check out some video.

Here’s a slow motion look at Tiger Woods hitting the driver. Pay special attention to the close-up of impact near the end of the video.

Now, just for the sake of not putting all our eggs in the Tiger basket, let’s have a look at Trevor Immelman. Again, pay close attention to the close-up of impact near the end.

Trevor Immelman on YouTube (sorry, I can’t embed that particular video here).

In both cases, it looks to me as if the club head is imparting a level hit on the ball. I’m not seeing any descending blow, though it’s not easy to tell on video sometimes. I will say with confidence that it doesn’t seem like either of those players was bottoming out four inches in front of the ball.

I watched a few other videos trying to find any evidence that I could that anyone was hitting drivers with an downward blow. I found a couple on YouTube (search for “swing vision”) where it looked like club head did dip right after impact, but it seems like maybe it’s more from the force of impact.

Here’s Phil Mickelson:

To me, it looks more like the force of impact makes the back of the club dip toward the ground, not so much that he’s hitting the ball with a descending blow. Pay close attention to the leading edge at the bottom of the club face.

One thing is certain: this advice is definitely in opposition to conventional wisdom.

And, I’ll also say this: whether Clampett is right or wrong, hitting the driver with a slightly descending blow should only result in a few less yards of carry and a slightly higher ball flight, due to increased spin. At the same time, if a descending blow somehow leads to better ball striking (say, with more crispness or consistency, for instance), then it could be worth it.

What do you think? Have you ever heard mainstream advice that recommended hitting down with the driver? Do you do it yourself (on purpose)?

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Hit Down With the Driver?

One of the big offenders in this category is the idea of hitting down on the ball with irons. We might say “hit down on the ball” or “the club makes a descending blow”. Unfortunately, some players may get two wrapped up in that idea and take it too literally.

Let’s step back for a second.

Think about the arc of the golf swing. Obviously, the club head starts behind the ball. It moves in an arc back and up to the top of the swing then back down in a similar (though not necessarily the same) arc, through the ball and then up into the follow through.

By definition, that arc will have an absolute low point, where the club is closest to (or under) ground level. Once the downswing starts, the club head is getting lower and lower as it approaches that low point, then it immediately starts moving higher into the follow through.

When we talk about hitting down on the ball, we’re simply talking about striking the ball before the club head gets to that low point. In other words, the club is moving down and still has even further to go.

Let’s have a look at K. J. Choi hitting a 6-iron:

[Update: Oops! The video was removed from YouTube since this post was written. You'll have to take my word for it.]

As you can see would have seen there, especially in the close up, the club is still moving downward well after contact.

Now, back to the misunderstanding. Some players believe there is some kind of action they need to take to properly hit down on the ball. Unfortunately, this just leads to a steep angle of attack and the club head getting stuffed into the turf and huge divots that expose rare mineral deposits.

Try this experiment: go to the driving range with a 7-iron and hit a few balls (or even just do swings with no ball), paying careful attention to the divot and to the location of your feet. I hope I don’t need to say that astroturf mats are inappropriate for this experiment.

As the club is entering the turf (at the back of the divot) it is still moving downward. As it comes back up and leaves the turf it is moving upward. Therefore, the low point of the swing is somewhere in the divot.

Now that you know where your divots start and end, you have all the information you need to hit down on the ball. Simply play the ball just a fraction behind where your divot starts. Then, you’ll strike the ball with a descending blow without any kind of conscious effort to hit down.

Eliminating a conscious effort to hit down on the ball will help you make more consistent contact and avoid fat shots. Playing the ball in the proper location relative to the low point of your swing will improve your ball striking as well.

It’s as easy as that!

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Misunderstood Advice: Hitting Down on the Ball

Finding a pro can be as simple as a trip to your local golf course or driving range. But, much like buying a suit off the rack, for the best results you really need to find someone tailored to you. There are lots of factors to consider.

Personality

It’s important to work with a pro who matches your own personality and makes you feel comfortable. If you find yourself in a situation where you just aren’t connecting well, you need to start searching for another pro. Lessons are costly and you should be taking as much from them as you can. There too many fish in the sea to stay with a teacher who you don’t feel totally comfortable with.

Style

One of the most important aspects is the teaching style. For instance, does the pro teach a system or does he/she try and make the most of what the student brings to the table? Butch Harmon is well known for not believing in teaching a system or a single set of fundamentals to all players, and he’s recognized as the top teacher in the world. I tend to favor that approach.

At the same time, maybe you want to learn a specific set of fundamentals, like the Stack and Tilt, for instance. If your current teacher won’t or can’t teach it, then find someone who can and will. Ultimately you’re responsible for your own development. While you need to be able to absorb and process what the teacher is trying to provide, you also need to understand what direction you want to go.

Goals

It’s important to find a teacher who acknowledges and helps you work toward your goals. This is something that should be hammered out in the first lesson.

If your intent is to take a single lesson and get a few tweaks to help you out in the near-term, then a teacher trying to tear down and rebuild your swing is unacceptable. Conversely, if your desire is to become a golf pro, then you need to find a teacher who will do everything possible to help you reach that goal.

When you visit a teacher for the first time (preferably before scheduling a lesson, if possible), spend a few minutes discussing what you hope to achieve. If the teacher is not receptive to you, then you have to cut the relationship off right there. You and you alone are the author of your own goals and dreams. Your teacher is part of your supporting cast and must help you work toward those goals.

Experience

You should always consider the experience a teacher has. Did he ever play tournament golf? How long has she been a professional? How long has she been teaching?

This is not to say that you should discount younger teachers. After all, everyone starts somewhere. There are some really good young teachers out there without a ton of experience, but who have a great knack for the game and for teaching it.

In general though, someone who is a little more experienced has that much more seasoning and knowledge to help you be the best you can be, especially if you’re a beginner.

Credentials

When selecting a teacher, you might want to inquire about whether he belongs to any professional golf organizations, such as the PGA. The PGA of America is the leading golf professional organization present in the United States. It has various programs to train professionals and teachers. A certified PGA teaching professional will have gone through a top notch program including an apprenticeship where she will have learned how to teach the game.

There are certainly many good teachers who aren’t PGA professionals out there, so it’s not the end of the world if you find a teacher you like but who isn’t a PGA professional. The bottom line is: buyer beware. Without some sort of affiliation, then you don’t have a lot to consider when making your decision. This also doesn’t mean that there are no bad PGA-certified teachers. It’s certainly something to consider, though.

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Ultimately, the selection of a pro is something that falls on your shoulders. You might have to try on a few before you find the best fit. That’s OK.

Lay out all your goals and expectations up front and if your pro isn’t the person for the job, then just move on. He’ll understand.

There are too many people who say, “I took lessons a couple of years ago, but…” Following the “but…” comes a list of reasons why they stopped. Many times that list of reasons would shrink if time was spent finding the right pro.

Do your homework and find a good match and you’ll be happy you took the time. Your game and the enjoyment you get out of learning and playing will make it all worth while.

© 2007-2011 Life in the Rough. All Rights Reserved.

Selecting a Golf Pro