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- Well, hi Adam Bazalgette here,
founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's subject, how to square
the club face consistently at impact,
obviously a critical skill,
if you can't do that,
you're not gonna be a particularity a good player.
We'll talk about that,
it's pretty obvious what it is,
but I'll show you two things
that I think of very, very much under taught
or certainly under emphasized in the whole process of that.
And of course we'll look at a couple of pros
and give you drills as well.
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(ball swooshing)
All right let's talk about squaring this club face then.
Well listen everybody knows,
that's aimed left and that's aimed right,
and to be honest with you most people struggle,
let's talk right handed golfers
with the open face and hitting it right,
so we'll camp on that a little bit today.
But if you are going to square the club face up quickly,
to me number one pitfall of these two,
the first thing people conceptualize wrongly
is they think they gotta really whip the club,
to get it closed especially
if they have been struggling to get it closed,
and you don't.
Now, we'll get into that a little bit more
as the video goes along.
But let me just tell you,
if can't keep the club pretty stable right through impact,
if that club is active and flipping around
I don't care what you do,
you will not be consistent squaring the club face up.
So let's have a look at a pro,
and then we'll get back out here
and we'll try to solve this.
- [Adam] So, I'll picked two players,
Dustin Johnson on the left, and John Rahm on the right.
That certainly accentuates this
and give it a good visualize,
but there's no disputing this is the way to hit the ball.
So in they come and look at that,
let's go maybe there's the ball right about there.
I mean you just look how stable
that lead on club shaft relationship is
and just how solid the back of that lead hand is,
you are gonna hit of repeatable shots if you do that.
John Rahm of course having a lot of success.
Wonderful right there.
For a good several inches past the ball,
that club shaft is rock solid, okay.
So let's camp on this for just a moment,
then we'll talk about the other pitfall
and how I think you have effectively
can square the club face up.
Well listen, take something short like a Niner
and that's what I have here,
and hit some little shots,
and as you come into impact,
yeah this club's moving with a lot of speed,
it's not gonna stay stable all by itself.
I mean I'm a believer in reasonable grip pressure,
but if you don't firm up some at impact,
you're not gonna control that club shaft
certainly, hey, there's other factors,
the way you use your body,
but try this drill,
and I think this will help ya.
So press with your right arm,
your trail arm,
push until you feel some stability in your arms,
in other words,
you couldn't have your arms pulled apart easily,
and you can feel some forward pressure in your club shaft,
just hit a little shot like that.
(ball swooshing)
I hit that fat,
but I liked the way that felt with arms
and cut through the ball.
Interestingly enough,
I tell people to do that often in golf lessons.
You hit us a little shot, I'll demonstrate it,
let's have the arms nice and stable,
and the club right here,
just a little punt shot.
Almost invariably that player wacks one,
the club's just totally out of control
up by their shirt collar.
Rarely, do they even notice that,
that's how much people get enticed by the golf ball,
all they're doing is looking at the shot.
Now say, here what'd you think about your finish?
Uh, they don't even know about it.
So pay attention, if you're gonna do this drill,
you do one more, try not to hit this one fat.
(ball swooshing)
There ya go.
Pay attention to your finish,
do you have control over the club?
If you have control over it there,
you've probably done it correctly at impact.
So getting back to our purposes here of squaring the club,
and again I said at the beginning
most people tend to leave it open and leave slices,
you don't want that.
And by the way if I come near the camera,
when you start getting the shaft firm
and the hands forward
that can even open the club face more.
So the simple cure is turn the face, like that,
don't whip the face.
Try it yourself, push the hands forward,
you can do it right up here in front of you.
Turn the face to the ground more.
Now grip can make a difference,
there are some grips
that probably feel more comfortable for you
when you do this, that's again a separate issue,
you can fiddle with that.
But play with it a little bit like that,
that's how you square the club face up.
Let's have a look at a great player in action,
then we'll get up, get back out here and try that drill.
So let's look at Tiger from a couple of angles.
Diagonal I really like this angle,
you'll see how the back of that glove
will really turn down
as he's getting ready to hit this ball,
really delofting it there.
And again that tilts the loft off the face,
but it effectively squares the club face up
while still staying nice and stable through impact.
Watch it from here.
And the camera's wobbling around a bit,
but watch that lead wrist, watch it turn down,
see it's less lofted effectively at impact,
then it would've been in at address.
I want to show quickly,
even though the shaft is super stable,
watch how quickly or early if you're liking,
begin to see knuckles of his gloves
under that right forearm, without a big flip of the club.
That's because he's twisting it under
and twisting the loft of the golf club off
as he goes through impact.
By the way, I have a free course,
three part video course,
absolutely free on solid strike formula,
you get a lot of details about these things,
it's just down there in the description box
feel free to go down and pick it up.
All right so here's our drill,
we basically set it up right before
we went to that piece with the pro there.
And that is,
if you're gonna feel something
you gotta be familiar with what it's like
and create a feel from it.
So do this right in front of you,
push the handle forward,
there it's stable and turn the face in there
and then you got the feel.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna come over here,
we're gonna hit a couple of little shots first,
or one little shot I'll hit,
and I'm gonna preset and turn the face,
the loft will be less on the club.
Little tiny backswing and punch one out there,
frontage of club caught on the ground a little bit,
because it wasn't a great swing,
but because I had the face turned in
and play around with that idea for a little bit.
Stage two of the drill, start from a,
familiarize yourself with the feel,
then start from a neutral position
then try to recreate that feel of impact.
Now two things when you work on this drill
or these drills in general,
that I would start to play around with
once you feel like you got reasonable consistency with them,
in other words dial it in to what you really want.
Number one,
club face.
So I would hit some shots,
let's say I graduated to the point I got a normal setup,
and I'm kind of delofting the club at impact,
I would hit a few shots, I'll hit one here.
(ball swooshing)
Now that shot there, nice firm club,
that had a little low draw on it there.
I deliberately over did it a little bit,
don't make the mistake
of always trying to hit a neutral shot,
trying to hit a perfect shot
thinking that gets you good.
Skill is what makes you good,
develop it by mixing and matching.
So overdo the hook a little bit,
do a few where you don't quite turn the face as much,
and see if you can discover a feel that works for you,
so that you can basically be good at this variable.
The other thing you wanna do,
the other thing I think I'd vary a little bit,
I have a tendency in my swing
to get a little bit to rigid and stiff with my arm,
so this is, this set of drills here
is really agitating that, if you'd like.
But hey listen, you don't have to be a wooden solider,
and stiff address, you don't wanna be too stiff there,
you do want a little bit of loading of the golf club.
It's down here where that club's moving at it's quickest,
it's interacting with the ball and the turf,
that's where you gotta firm up.
So play around with it,
until you feel like you can get a
manageable amount of pressure
but firm it up a little bit at impact.
If you can stabilize the club and you know how to square it,
and you earn it by playing around on the range
till you've got that skill,
you will never have a great problem being reasonably good,
being consistent at squaring the club face at impact.
Hope that helps you with how to square
the club face consistently at impact.
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Hope this is helpful to you, it's not rocket science,
you can learn to do it,
just hearing about it may not make you skilled player,
but get out there play with these two principles.
I believe that you can square that up
pretty consistently at impact if you do these things.
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