Return of Heel Contact ¶
By: Gabriel M on June 11, 2025, 7:59 p.m.
I had a problem with heel contact when I was working on my in to out which originally lead me to this site, but the turtle shell helped me immensely to the point where I get almost too much toe contact.
I've made great progress on my wipe while swinging through the ball and have been hitting the best looking draws of my life for a while. While working on my follow through I came to the conclusion I am too much arms and not enough body. As soon as I try to use my chest and body more through the swing I have been getting nasty hozel shots again, while also having low point issues resulting in bad chunks way behind the ball. I also remember hitting heel/hozel shots after reading James Sieckmann's book when trying to flight the ball with more chest rotation and less hips for approach shots. Similarly after watching the finesse wedge videos that showed up again on me.
I know I have good supination and release mechanics and I am not throwing the club out/tumbling or leaning towards my ball in the downswing. My theory is my timing is off incorporating my body, and that maybe I need to unhinge sooner and also have body extension sooner. When I tried that I didn't get the hozel shanks but I did get heel shots far from the middle of the face. I'm also getting nasty hooks when I do get clean contact, but I know that's just because I was probably mechanically rotating the face through impact compensating for not using my body and now that I am using my body I need to be more passive holding my motorcycle through impact.
Tyler, just wondering since you are a seasoned coach, if hozel/heel shots are a common swing fault that comes with using more body through the swing, and if so what exactly is happening so I can fix.
Thanks for all your support on this site, you've answered all my questions in the comments and message boards. I have been accelerating my swing development so much on here and my knowledge of the swing is so deep I can easily diagnose or fix most of my problems on my own, it's an amazing feeling and fun to play golf with a bit more confidence on what's going on and how it all works.