Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in
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Our goal with every club is to make “solid” contact with the golf ball, or as close to that as we can. The sweet spot is somewhere low on the face (roughly around the 4th groove on most irons), so the only way to get that part of the club to strike the ball on the fairway is to have the bottom of the swing just perfect, or to have the shaft leaning forward when you make contact with the ball. Here is a demo of how the shaft leaning forward gets the sweetspot on the ball and why the only way to do it otherwise is to have the ball elevated.
Another interesting correlation is between divot location and the golf ball and how it relates to handicap. In the Impact Zone, by Bobby Clampet, he discusses a correlation between low point location and handicap. Basically, the more skilled the golfer, the further forward the bottom of their swing was with an iron. This puts the sweet spot on the ball, and helps create consistent contact. In order to do this, you need to have a shallow angle of attack, and you need to have your arms extending through impact. This is how you take a perfect divot and get maximum distance for each shot.
There are some common factors for controlling the low point of the golf swing and they are:
- Location of sternum
- Straightness of arms
- Position of shoulders
- Angle of wristt
To learn more about these movements, please explore the impact section, the follow through section, and the release section
Tags: Fundamentals, Beginner
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Why do we need to make solid contact?
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But here's a high speed clip of me bouncing a golf ball with my wedge.
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Now you'll notice the first few I was trying to do it right and so I was making solid contact and you'll see that the club face stayed relatively stable.
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Towards the end of the clip you'll see that I started to hit the ball out more towards the toe and you will see that as I hit the ball further away from the sweet spot.
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Less energy is transferred to the golf ball and the club ends up rotating a lot more.
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This is one of the main reasons why we want to hit the golf ball with solid contact because we want to transfer as much energy as we can and understanding the tool or the golf club will help us do so.
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So let's take a look at the tools that we're using.
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Here in this snapshot you can see that the center of the highlighter is in the middle of the face which is much higher up than the bottom of the club.
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Now let's take a look at the driver. So as we pan around you'll see where the center of the highlighter is again in the middle or slightly above the middle of the club.
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Here we have an iron with the shaft vertical and then here we have that same iron from a different perspective.
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And what you'll see is that from this other perspective you can see that the part of the club that would make contact with the golf ball is going to be down around the second third somewhere in there.
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So one of the grooves lower than the sweet spot. Now here we have an iron that has forward shaft lean and what you'll see is the part of the golf club that is making contact with the golf ball is going to be closer to the middle of the club about the fourth groove.
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So this is how we're going to want to make solid contact is by having shaft lean anytime that we're hitting an iron.
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Another interesting correlation is between divot location and the golf ball and how it relates to handicapped. In the book Impact Zone by Bobby Clampett he discusses a correlation between low point location and handicapped.
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Basically the more skilled the golfer the further forward the bottom their swing was with an iron.
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This puts the sweet spot on the ball and helps create consistent contact.
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Factors for controlling the low point are location of the sternum straightness of the arm position the shoulders and the angle of the wrist by focusing on the proper movements of the body and the arms you'll learn a good impact position that controls your low point and ensure solid contact.
