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In this content video, we're going to take a look at how you square the club face.

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Specifically, we're going to look at a case study where we look at the difference between

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shaft rotation and in-plane movement to square the club face.

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This is a really important concept for most golfers to understand, but tends to have big

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impacts on the middle to higher handicap golfers.

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If you have a ball flight where the ball tends to start straight and then curves a bunch,

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it usually means that your face to path relationship is off and you are using your swing

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in order to accommodate for that poor relationship.

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In this video, we're going to take a look at how learning to close the club face a little

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bit differently can have a domino effect that's very positive for most people's golf swings.

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This student came to me primarily to help him with slicing the ball off the tee.

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I always ask why a person feels that they're doing what they're doing.

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He felt when he slices the ball that he gets over the top of it, which is a very common phrase

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to use to describe slicing the ball.

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You can see through transition, it doesn't really get over the top of it.

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You can see that the plane or the path is actually quite good or more draw biased.

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Now what he does during the release is very much over the top or steepening movement.

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But this could be one of those cases where a golfer feels like he's doing one thing.

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And the descriptions that his buddies or other coaches may be giving him might not resonate

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with what's in his brain.

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But either way, if you've watched my high level of the slice video, you understand that

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there's two different things you got to do.

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You got to square the club face with more rotation and you got to get the path a little bit more

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in-out.

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This is a clear case of when going for the face is going to be much easier.

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So when we look at this position, we can see that the club face is pointing above the horizon line.

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So if this was straight up and down, then if he just flipped and got the club vertical

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with the club upside it up or pointed straight up and down or perpendicular like that,

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then the club would be pointed relatively in the direction of the target.

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But again with the shaft vertical.

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If you want to have shaft lean, then you need to get the club face on the other side

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of vertical by the time you get to impact.

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Now this is a great or a very clear case study on this shaft movement because he doesn't

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appear to have very much shaft rotation and because the club face is exaggeratedly open,

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it's actually more open than vertical.

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What you'll see is he's able to hit balls that start online, but they do tend to slice

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when his club face is square and they start online.

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You can see the reason why if the club is not at least perpendicular there, then he has to

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actually get the grip behind the club head in order to get that to point at the target.

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And so that's what he's able to do, but as a result, you can see that his path is very

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much low to high, it gets narrow very quickly and it tends to move to the left.

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So we'll see that whole combination through here.

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This is happening, this club face is rotating towards the golf ball purely by straightening

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the arms and the grip kind of freezing in space, but then because of the movements and the

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momentum of the club, you'll see it finish very low and around his body.

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Now what we'll do is we'll take a look at the drill that we used and the after effects

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and then compare it to a pro who closes the face in a slightly different way.

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Now if your member is path was pretty good, so we weren't doing a ton of path work, but

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we did use a little bit of path feedback down at the bottom to work on, I think we used

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the real or track, so the four square, but one of the visuals to kind of help just clarify

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where the path was coming, but you can see that he's definitely using the motorcycle

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and getting the club face into more of a closed position and learning to move the club

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face in space with that closed or what I would really call square club face position.

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You can see that as a result, he's already having a bit more body rotation and staining

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his posture a little bit better.

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Now here's his attempt at a live ball.

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This was about the third ball after doing the drills and playing around with it a little

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bit.

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You can see that it's much closer, so now it's to vertical, which means if he has a scoop

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and gets the shaft vertical, he's at least going to hit it straight.

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And then gets a little bit, it's still a little steep for my liking with the arm movement,

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but I know he's been working on that and he's been making good progress, but compared

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to the golf ball, it doesn't get nearly as outside to in.

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So this ball is actually going to fly fairly straight and draw a little bit because of the

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toe contact.

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But we can see that there's a dramatic difference in his body position here in the follow

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through.

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So now a quick side by side comparison is going to show some pretty big difference on

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the club delivery.

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And again, all we really worked on was club face rotation.

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You'll see the exit pattern that we didn't really talk about.

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It happened somewhat naturally.

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You can see a much better shoulder tilt, much better spine angle, the exit path of the club

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instead of working more almost around the belly button is now working around the shoulders.

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There are lots of positive changes.

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This golfer went from shooting, having a low score above a hundred to after about six

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weeks of practicing this and a couple other concepts was able to break 90 with his low

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score of 85.

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So it can happen really quickly.

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This was a really fun case study to see some pretty big improvement just by clarifying

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a key concept of understanding how to square the face with shaft rotation.

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There are a handful of tour pros who have later club face rotation.

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This is an example that I know pretty clearly.

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Roy Sabatini.

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You could also look at Phil Nicholson or possibly John Senden, Charles Howell III's earlier

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stuff.

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There are a number of golfers who close the club face a little bit later.

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So you can see that we're not quite at that same point where the case study was, but

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you can see that the club face compared to parallel.

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It's a little bit above it, but the club faces in a more open position.

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So from there, he could either use the strategy of casting the club or scooping like

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the amateur did or he could get his hands ahead, but he would have to start really

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pulling it down.

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You can actually see in this video right around here he starts to really flex that lead

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wrist as the hands worker cross.

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It will be even more clear from the down line.

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So, sorry, from the face on view over here on the right.

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Here he is.

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We know that the club face was in a slightly open position.

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Then through here you're going to see the effect of his wrist flexing.

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This is a pretty good picture here where you can see that even through impact is one of

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the rare or golfers that flexes the wrist through impact not letting it extend on the

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way through.

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Because he uses a timing where he closes the club face with rotation, but he does it

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late.

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If you close the club face with rotation, you're going to have a much better chance with

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the driver and you're going to have a much better chance having a leg and you're going

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to have a much better chance to get into an impact position where your hands are in front

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of the golf ball.

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If you don't close the club face with shaft rotation, you're not going to have leg,

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your hands will have to be more even with the golf ball or even behind it.

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That's going to produce certain low-point control issues or contact issues and it's typically

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going to show up as problems with the driver.