Practice These Shots For Better Impact
One of the biggest problems in golf is not being able to control your impact quality and when this occurs you will hit the ball unsolid, off-line, and shorter than you would like. Impact quality control can be measured by many different facets but most commonly the ones most people struggle with are Low Point, Arc Depth, and Dynamic Loft.
Your Low Point deals with where the club bottoms out during your downswing – it can be before, at, or after the golf ball and this low point will influence many factors regarding impact but most importantly it controls how solidly you hit the ball.
The Depth of your Arc explains where the Low Point should be located – it can be above the ball, at the ball, or below the ball. This Arc Depth also influences how solidly you hit the ball.
Dynamic Loft deals with the amount of loft you deliver to the ball with your club and it is one of the main factors that determines distance output with everything else being equal.
Low Point – in order to work on your low point you should draw a line in the grass and practice making divots that start on and work in front of the line. One of the biggest problems with amateur golfers is that they have faulty pivots (how you twist and turn and displace weight) and this causes the club to bottom out in the wrong area. Whenever you make a divot behind the line you are not getting forward early enough and if you make the divot way out in front of the line you are tending to slide and get forward too early. The proper blend of shift and rotation will cause the club to bottom out where it should – on the line and forward.
Arc Depth – as stated Arc Depth refers to where the low point occurs on a vertical axis. You can bottom out above the ball and miss it or top it, at the ball and hit it solid, or below the ball and hit it fat. The best way to control your arc depth is not changing your forward bending in the downswing … if you get taller the low point will bottom out too high on the ball and you will hit it thin. If you get shorter than the low point bottoms out below the ball and you will hit the ball fat.
The best way to control your arc depth is to pitch tees off of a tight lie trying to maintain your posture height. If you can clip the tees off the ground consistently then you will have no problem hitting a golf ball because it’s a much bigger target.
Dynamic Loft – the amount of loft you deliver to the ball can simply be influenced by “backing the shaft up” or “leaning the shaft forward at impact” which will cause the loft of the club to change at impact. Whenever you deloft the club at impact by leaning the shaft forward you will find that you have more compression and you will hit stronger shots. Whenever you back the shaft up you will deliver too much loft to the ball and it will come out high and spinny and thus it will not feel as solid nor will it go as far as you would like.
The key to working on controlling your dynamic loft is to hit punch shots as low as possible with partial swings; this will help you to feel that you are reducing your dynamic loft at impact. This reduction in loft will have you hitting the ball longer and more effectively than before.
