10/06/2015

Hitting a High Draw in Golf:  Understanding the Relationship Between Club Path & Club Face

One of the most elusive shots for many amateur golfers is a nice high draw, mostly because they don’t understand what is happening to the ball at impact.  In this segment of teaching technology, PGA Professional Todd Kolb breaks down the relationship between the club path and the club face, and helps us get on track to hitting a nice high draw.

Hey golfers, PGA Teaching Professional Todd Kolb with another segment of Teaching with Technology, and today we’re going to talk about the most desired shot in golf for most amateur golfers, and that is the nice high draw; and how things like technology and Flightscope can help me as an instructor really diagnose and understand what is going on at the moment of impact.

Now the first thing that you need to know is that there is one key relationship that dictates any curve in the golf ball, assuming we’re hitting the golf ball in the center of the club face, and that is the relationship between the path—which is basically the direction the club is swinging at the moment of impact; which we’re going to represent here today by the hula hoop—and also the club face.  What is the club face doing?  Where is it pointed at that moment of impact?

Now let me first of all say this, that there’s a multitude of things that can really impact the club face position and the path position; and those are things that you’re going to want to work with your instructor on.  But today’s purpose is to help us understand what is that key relationship?  Now if you want to hit a nice high draw, the first thing you’ve got to do—for a right-handed golfer—is we’ve got to get a path—the hula hoop here, the direction the club is swinging—slightly to the right.

Now, most of the time when I’m looking at my Flightscope, the best players I have—if they’re hitting a nice high draw—they’ve got a path, a direction that’s swinging anywhere from 2 to 4 or 5 degrees to the right.  They combine that with a club face that is slightly open to the target line.  So the club face might be one or two degrees open or to the right.  So when we look at that relationship, we have a path that’s let’s say 4 degrees to the right, we have a club face that’s 2 degrees to the right, the difference between those is roughly two degrees.  That means that we’re going to get a shot that starts to the right of the target and draws back to the target.

So when we’re looking at curve, we’re looking at the relationship between the path and the club face.  Now the beauty with technology and using my Flightscope is that there is no guessing.  You cannot, as an instructor, look at a swing and diagnose right down to basically the degree or direction the club is travelling.  But with Flightscope and technology, there is no guessing.  So if I’ve got a golfer, and they’re not drawing the ball, I immediately know is it a path issue or is it a face issue; and then as an instructor, I can go in and dive into their golf swing, and make the necessary changes that we need to.

So the purpose of today and what I want you to take away is if you want to draw the golf ball, you want a path that’s to the right, you want a face that’s slightly to the right; things like technology can allow us to diagnose that and know exactly what it is.  And you want to work with your instructor to figure out the best way to do that.