- Well hello Adam Bazalgette here,
founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
I'm here at the beautiful Club at Mediterra
in Naples, Florida.
Today's key's a really good one,
today's subject, How to Square the Club
Consistently at Impact.
I'll show you three things
I think you really have to do,
I'm gonna give you some special little hints
and drills associated with each one.
(dramatic instrumental music)
Well before we jump in with How to Square the Club Face
Consistently at Impact,
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Key number one,
you must be pretty much in control
of the shaft at impact,
it has to be fairly stable.
Here's Lydia Ko,
we'll give the ladies a look.
Now she's certainly releasing it, she's got some speed
there, but watch this club at impact,
it's pretty stable for at least six, eight inches.
John Rahm there,
again he's got control of that club
for a split second there.
So that's key number one,
if you have no control of the shaft,
if it's bouncing around,
you're gonna hit wild shots.
(air whooshing)
Well before we get into key number one,
which we'll do momentarily,
and I don't want to rain on your parade here,
but the the clubface control isn't totally isolated.
Gonna give you some good keys,
but just remember,
your subconscious mind is doing
who knows how many thousands of things
in this one or two seconds,
and the more free has the more the less it's devoted
to certain things,
the more it can manage the clubface and direction.
What I mean by that, the simpler your golf swing is.
If your body angles are changing
and your balance isn't very good,
if your club's moving around a lot
and you're having to correct for it subconsciously,
you are not gonna be able to devote
as much of your attention in that split second
to squaring the club face up,
and frankly the more unstable everything
is the less likely you are to control it anyway.
So it doesn't happen in a vacuum.
We're gonna have a very, very, quick look
at how a great player does that.
A very quick look,
then we'll jump out we'll start working
on that stable shaft key one.
Let's have a look at Justin Thomas,
super successful player.
Watch his body there against the trees,
and the lake, and the tee.
Just use those as a reference,
and you look he's moving dynamically and freely,
but you look how steady that torso is in terms of its angle.
He has a fairly upright plane,
but that club is really consistent,
on a consistent, stable, loop,
there's no real shenanigans going on with a golf club there.
And you'll hit the ball solidly,
as well as control the clubface if you do this.
By the way we have a free course,
three parts, detailed video course on Solid Strike Formula.
Just go out down into the description box
to pick up your free copy.
All right, before we move to key number two,
which is a really important one,
let's have a little look at fleshing out key number one,
that's stability of shaft.
Hey listen, you've gotta practice
it on a small scale to get it.
Here's the drill I would recommend,
trying to hit little punch shots with some speed
and then hold quickly.
And here's the feeling you've gotta have
in your wrist,
at least here's what has to happen,
you have to feel it, how you have to feel it.
Your lead wrist has to be forward
and your trail wrist hand has to be applying pressure.
So you gotta practice that feeling,
I do a couple little ones and we'll give you some variables.
Right there, so I felt like I could really bring the club
to a stop,
that involves using your core,
that involves transferring energy to the club,
but stability in those arms, firming up to hold the shaft.
You know people say about even grip pressure
throughout the swing,
I don't believe that at all.
If you don't firm up a little bit,
we're not talking a sudden drastic squeeze of the hands,
but if you don't firm up a bit, squeeze a bit,
that club's to heavy to control,
and the feeling I really had there that I liked so much
was the feeling that I felt the pressure in the back wrist
and the bowing of the front wrist there.
One more of these,
get a nice solid shot.
You're gonna have to camp out with this a little bit,
don't just jump into full swings
if you haven't reasonably mastered this already.
You still need a bit of release and a bit of pop,
but it's got to firm up at the bottom.
Okay key number two,
if you're gonna square that clubface up consistently,
you have to have a grip that works for you.
Now certainly we have videos on the grip here
at the channel,
it must be down towards the fingers,
kind of diagonally across it, under that pad,
but let's look at the rotation
of this lead on because that's so, so important.
Because where you begin has quite a determination
on how easily you can square the clubface.
So here's a little drill,
get in the athletic position
like you're guarding someone at basketball or whatever,
and just get set,
and just see how your leader arm looks.
Some people look a lot more like this,
some people more like that, something in between.
If you're close to that, that's my recommendation.
Now listen, you could play with almost any kind
of a rotation and grip,
if you can make that work for you, that's okay,
but it's easiest if it's more of a natural position.
So find that spot, relax your hand,
let it get in the fingers a little bit there,
and just see if you feel more or less
that same sense in your leader forearm.
The more neutral for your physiology
that position is, the more easily I think you can manipulate
the club and kind of get it square for yourself.
One other little tip before we move on here as well,
don't forget squaring the clubface,
let me come to the camera,
is not this, if you're trying to close it.
It's turning the face towards the ground.
Again, that firms up that wrist.
Practice that one time,
do that, look down there,
push your hips a bit
and you've got a square clubface
with a handle forward a little bit
when you do that.
And you may say well, "Geez when I look at the Tour Pros
"I see a lot of release over here,"
try it one time,
turn the face down,
turn your shoulders through,
your trunk through a little bit,
let the club release slightly.
You see how you don't see those knuckles,
most people slashing at it, the left hand just cups,
it doesn't turn the face down.
Okay let's move on.
(air whooshing)
Well three number key you guessed it, it's skill.
Listen, you can let's say balance for example,
you can read about balance,
but until you let's say a bicycle too, you get on there
and work at it you're not gonna be able
to balance on a bike,
so you have to play around a little bit
to develop skill.
Get something like this six iron,
you recommend people practice things
as wedges and nine arms on this particular skill.
The reason is, when you have less loft on the club
a little variance in the clubface will produce
a bigger spread in direction.
Now here's what we're gonna do,
you decide on your own scale,
but I would start on a small scale.
And by the way,
let's say a little child learning to walk,
do they get it right first time?
Of course they don't, they make big mistakes,
but they make big mistakes on both sides.
Falling over being the big mistake.
So you've got to do it on a wide scale
vary this thing,
before you can begin to do it on a narrow scale.
So here's what I'm gonna suggest,
get the six iron, or a five,
or something like that, get just a moderate-sized backswing.
Very key that you obey to features though
when you vary the right and the left.
Let me hit one, I'm gonna make this ball go right,
you can see that ball shoot off to the right.
When you hit it to the right,
don't do it by fanning the face open so much,
do it with the feeling that the heel of the club
is ahead of the toe a little bit.
And I realize that more or less means an open face,
but it's different to just twisting the club like that.
Do it in this sense so you have control over the shaft,
and when you do it to the left, same thing,
but turn the shaft as we said earlier.
So we're not getting into a wildly handsy feel,
it's just a sense of where the face is.
A difference to be sure,
but with that nice forward lean of the shaft.
So let's try another one here,
this time I'm setting up square,
and make this ball go to the left,
I do a little bit bigger scale there,
huge low hook.
Now you will be able to do it at a medium scale
where you can really move it each side.
Until you can do that, you're not ready for fine tuning.
And again, this whole process teaches the brain
where neutral is, that's the key.
Plus it helps your shape shots.
Another thought for this,
if you're, let's say you tend to hit the ball to the left,
but you become adept at least on the driving range,
at medium speed,
make your ball go to the right with clubface control,
when you get out on the golf course
and you don't have a whole bucket to recover with,
you start struggling, hit a few balls to the left,
you'll know roughly
what feel to grab onto to try to recover.
You can make a quick recovery
back out there on the golf course.
So build skill, do this,
and remember of course if you start to get on solid contact,
if you lose control of the club,
go back to one and two,
make sure it's stable,
check your grip a little bit again,
then cycle back.
You can have some fun with this,
you can solve it and learn to control the clubface,
hit straight shots consistently.
Well I hope you found that helpful
with how to square the clubface consistently at impact.
Please hit the thumbs up button if you liked the video,
again helps us build some momentum at the channel.
We appreciate you watching,
and I'm telling you just the last word of encouragement,
you can learn to do this if you cycle through these things,
and you're patient, you enjoy the process,
and you take time to work at it a little bit.
You can build skill
and become much better at squaring the clubface at impact.
Thanks again.
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