You Can Hit the Golf Ball Straight

▷▷▷You Can Hit the Golf Ball Straight

Golfers know that hitting the ball straight is the most difficult skill to acquire. They also know that it is the most important skill they can have. By following the steps below, you can teach yourself how to get it.

The ball goes straight only when the geometry of the strike meets these simple requirements: the clubface is square to the target and the clubhead's path is directly at the target. The complete description of contact would include the clubhead's trajectory as it meets the ball, but that contributes to getting the ball into the air, not to the direction the ball takes in flight.

Golf swing instruction attempts to direct the golfer through movements that will not take the clubhead out of a "slot" that returns the club in line, and at the same time keeps the clubface square at all times to the path the club is traveling both away from and back toward the ball.

This is, unfortunately, getting the cart before the horse. Teaching the swing in this way reduces accurate contact to trial-and-error. When poor contact is made, the reason must be a flaw in the swing to be corrected, and we will try again.

What must be learned is the impact position. A golfer must learn what that position feels like so a swing that passes through that position can be built. By "feels like," I mean the position of the feet, legs, hips, torso, arms, hand, and head -- where these all are in relation to each other when the correct impact geometry of the clubhead is met.

For experienced golfers, here is how to teach yourself how to attain that position. Beginners must use a different method which I will not go into here.

Take a full swing, slow enough so you can stop the clubhead when it gets to where a ball would be sitting. Stop the swing and freeze your body. Very likely, the clubface will not be square to your target. This is the critical part now, and you must proceed carefully.

The clubface is not square because some part of your body has forced it out of square. Relax your body so that the clubface settles into a square orientation. Don't move the body, or the arms, or the legs. Just relax whatever you feel is keeping the club from being square so that the club falls into "squareness."

For example, I tend to close the clubface because my right elbow juts out. Try this and you, too, will find that this closes the face. All I have to do to is to relax my right elbow so that it falls closer to my right side. Not only does this feel more comfortable, but I am now lined up to hit the ball straight at the target.

Club path errors get corrected in the same way. You will feel an exaggerated body position creating tension. If your swing goes too far from the inside to out, your left hip might feel like it is sticking out too far. Golfers who swing from the outside to in might feel tension in their right shoulder. In either case, relaxing the body gets rid of these odd feeling and puts the body into the correct impact position.

From there, the golfer can build a swing in slow motion, beginning with short swings and working up to longer ones, which are all centered around the impact position known to be correct. Swing slowly and always stop at the ball to see that this is the case. This lined-up swing won't be learned in a week, or a month. It will take dedicated practice to develop a golf swing that undoubtedly feels quite different, but which you know is correct, because it consistently gets you the right results.

Golf Instruction Book

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