WEBVTT

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

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face.

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

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difference between shaft rotation and in-plane movement to square the clubface.

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

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have big 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

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curves a bunch, it usually means that your face-to-path relationship is off and

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you are using your swing 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 clubface

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a little bit differently can have a domino effect that's very positive for most

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

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

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very common phrase to use to describe slicing the ball.

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You can see through transition that he 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

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biased.

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

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movement, but this could be one of those cases where a golfer feels like he's

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doing one thing, and the descriptions that his buddies or other coaches

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may be giving him might not resonate 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

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understand that there's two different things you've got to do.

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You've got to square the clubface with more rotation, and you've got to get the

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path a little bit more 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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When we look at this position, we can see that the clubface is pointing above

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the horizon line.

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

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vertical with the club upside up or pointed straight up and down or

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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, if you want to have shaft lean, then you

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need to get the clubface on the other side of vertical by the time you get to

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impact.

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Now, this is a great or very clear case study on this shaft movement because he

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doesn't appear to have very much shaft rotation,

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and because the clubface is exaggeratedly open, it's actually more open than

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vertical.

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

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to slice when his clubface 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,

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then he has to actually get the grip behind the clubhead in order to get that

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to point at the target.

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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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We'll see that whole combination through here. This clubface is rotating

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towards the golf ball purely by straightening the arms and the grip freezing in

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space.

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But then because of the movements and the momentum of the club, you'll see it

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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

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effects and then compare it to a pro who closes the face in a slightly

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different way.

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Now if you remember, his path was pretty good, so we weren't doing a ton of

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path work, but we did use a little bit of path feedback down at the bottom to

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work on.

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I think we used either the railroad tracks or the four square, but one of the

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visuals to kind of help just clarify where the path was coming, but you can see

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that he's definitely using the motorcycle and getting the clubface into more of

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a closed position and learning to move the clubface in space

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with that closed or what I would really call square clubface position.

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

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staining his posture a little bit better.

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Now here's his attempt at a live ball. This was about the third ball after

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doing the drills and playing around with it a little bit.

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

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

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.

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

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arm movement, but I know he's been working on that and he's been making good

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progress, but compared to the golf ball, it doesn't get nearly as outside to

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end.

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

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because of the toe contact, but we can see that there's a dramatic difference

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in his body position here in the follow through.

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

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difference on the club delivery.

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And again, all we really worked on was clubface 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. You can see a much better shoulder tilt, much

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better spine angle, the exit path of the club instead of working more almost

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around the belly button is now working around the shoulders.

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There were lots of positive changes. This golfer went from shooting, having a

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low score above 100 to after about six weeks of practicing this and a couple

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other concepts was able to break 90 with his low score of 85.

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So it can happen really quickly. This was a really fun case study to see some

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pretty big improvement just by clarifying a key concept of understanding how to

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square the face with shaft rotation.

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

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This is an example that I know pretty clearly, Rory Sabatini.

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You could also look at Phil Nicholson or possibly John Sendin, Charles Howe III

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's earlier stuff.

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

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

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but you can see that the clubface compared to parallel, it's a little bit above

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it, but the clubface is in a more open position.

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From there, he could either use the strategy of casting the club or scooping

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

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start really bowing it down.

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

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that lead wrist as the hands work across.

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It'll be even more clear from the down the line, so, sorry, from the face on

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view over here on the right.

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Here he is, we know that the clubface was in a slightly open position, and then

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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,

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he's one of the rarer golfers that flexes the wrist through impact, not letting

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it extend on the way through.

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That's because he uses a timing where he closes the clubface with rotation, but

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he does it late.

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If you close the clubface with rotation, you're going to have a much better

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

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lag, and you're going to have a much better chance to get into an impact

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position

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where your hands are in front of the golf ball. If you don't close the clubface

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with shaft rotation, you're not going to have lag.

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Your hands will have to be more even with the golf ball or even behind it, and

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that's going to produce certain low point control issues or contact issues, and

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it's typically going to show up as problems with the driver.