Squaring The Club Face Explained
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There are a few challenges with trying to feel face rotation earlier in the golf swing. Some of those are:
- The location of impact compared to your body
- The feeling of rotating the face gradually vs quickly
- The feeling of the club head being low to the ground to compliment the body rotation
- The feeling of rotating the club without steepening the path with the arms
This drill helps you isolate one or more pieces of your release and put it into an athletic feeling.
Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Chicken Wing, Draw vs Fade, Driver, Impact, Release, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner
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This drill is face closing with the impact bag.
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Many golfers struggle with closing the club face during the downswing or getting the club
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to rotate through the downswing.
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They tend to want to hold the face pretty square and then square it more by straightening
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the arms as opposed to rotating the face.
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The problem with that method is if you straighten it more by straightening your arms then
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it's very hard to have any amount of shaffling because shaffling as you can see opens
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the club face.
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So what the better golfers tend to do is they have this rotation of the club face to match
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that shaffling.
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That's part of the reason why you don't see that with wedges where wedges you want the bottom
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of swing a little bit more in line with the golf ball.
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So to work on face rotation early enough in the downswing we're going to use the impact
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bag.
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So again I'm not a huge fan of using the impact bag to actually train impact but it's a good
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way to stop the club at various points during the swing.
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I can give you a little checkpoint.
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It's something that I've done in the past with using just a bag or pillow type thing but
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this is an easy way for you to do it at home.
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So I've got the ball roughly in the middle of alignment stick and this is somewhere pretty
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close to the toe line.
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Now what I'm going to do or another way you can look at it it's about chef 30 degrees 45
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degrees back.
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That kind of like so.
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Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and stick the toe into the club or into
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the impact bag kind of like this and I'm just going to get the feeling of closing that
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down and turning that toe down.
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Many golfers when they first try to do the motorcycle and when they're trying to close
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the face more will end up doing it more like this.
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They'll do it more with shaff rotation and getting the club well outside.
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So having this position deep enough forces you to use that older deviation and forces
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you to do it in a way where you'll still be coming from the inside.
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So this kind of gives you a reference of what it's like to get that club face closed
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early.
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The other thing it gives you a feeling of or a sensation of is instead of hitting the ball
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with more of the club passing the hands you kind of get the sense of hitting the ball.
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More with this rotation or that palm press or palm strike feeling.
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So I get the feeling that I'm basically going like this and then what I'm going to do
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is I'm going to try to make there's my release and I'm going to try to use my body
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rotation so that that release there gets the impact.
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I'm going to try to use my body rotation to move impact from there to there.
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I'm not going to use my hands and arms to move the impact from there to there.
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That's a little tricky concept but hopefully you can follow what I'm describing there.
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Now if I was going to adapt this for a driver the question is what I make it happen
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earlier or later.
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Well what we really want to have happen is we're going to move this up so I'm going to grab
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a chair and it's going to happen earlier.
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So if I was doing this with a driver I would be basically getting that same amount of
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rotation right around there actually probably a little bit below that but I'm limited
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in the chair I've got here.
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So right around there and then now same rules I'm closing it to that position and I'm
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going to use body rotation so that my arms feel like they're doing there is happening
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until there.
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So you can see that if I do that facing the camera so if I get that position spring
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this back just a touch so it's roughly in line with just inside a shaft parallel to the
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target line.
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So now if I close that down kind of like this and then I use my body rotation so that
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felt like I did the exact same arm movements to hit it there but that's ending down there
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an impact and you can see if I had driver of the well behind it those would match up.
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So with an iron it happens a little bit lower to the ground kind of like there not
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quite as side bend and rotated with the iron as I would be with the driver but this gives
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you a sense of what are the arms going to feel like and where are they in space compared
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to your body and then gives you the challenge of how can I use my body to get that to
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impact.
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So then what you can do is you can set up a little circuit so I've got the ball there
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here's my station right so I'm set up to a golf ball right in line with the camera
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right about here.
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I do a few hit that impact bag get it close but make sure it's not coming outside and
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then use body rotation to get it to there and then I step forward with that same timing
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so I'm trying to kind of close it early to there and then that feeling of getting it close
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through there I'm just going to use the body movements so that that happens at impact so
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we'll do that again so we get there so now I'm trying to hit there but watch my body makes
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it so now if I took my body away but if I add my body back in the body moves the contact
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from there to there the example would be okay there's just throwing a ball with my arm but
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now I've got a time it so that that movement matches what my body is doing that's what I'm
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trying to do here so I get that closing the club face that motorcycle and owner and then
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let my body kind of bring that through pull that just the touch but overall pattern pretty close
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so if you're struggling with getting the club face or closed early enough you're not getting
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penetrating ball flight or you're not getting it to turn over a little bit this is a good way
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to check and make sure that you're getting that club face to close early enough and that usually
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transfers to that stronger ball flight or a little bit more of a draw once you sink it up with
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what's going on with the body.