Click here and enter your email address to watch the full video
Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

Subscribe now to watch the full video.

Delofting vs Closing The Face

If you breakdown delofting the face into its components you can learn more about the face-to-path relationship. Delofting, but keeping the same face alignment requires a few elements. 

  1. You must close the face to the path.
  2. You must hit it earlier on the arc to prevent the face from actually be closed to the target
  3. You must swing more out-to-in to balance the path change from hitting it earlier on the arc.

Playlists: Fix Your Flip, Squaring The Club Face Explained

Tags: Fundamentals, Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Not Enough Distance, Early Extension, Chicken Wing, Cast, Iron, Driver, Impact, Member Question, Concept, Intermediate, Beginner

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000
This concept is looking at D-Lofting versus closing in the face to path.

00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:11,000
So many golfers have got a flip style release where the shaft is pretty vertical at

00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:15,000
impact and they always want to get more shaft lean because shaft lean is going to help

00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:17,000
with compressing the golf ball.

00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:21,000
It's going to help with solidness of contact by moving the bottom of the swing forward.

00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:23,000
It does a lot of really good things.

00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:28,000
But it's referred to as just D-Lofting and I'm going to show you what you really have

00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,000
to do in order to move the grip from here to there.

00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:39,000
So I've got the trusty Hula hoop out because if we're swinging the club around and

00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:44,000
we imagine that the club head was like a sparkler you could see kind of the path of the

00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:48,000
club head as it went through impact.

00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:57,000
It would either follow kind of a circular shape or like this or ideally it would have a little

00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000
bit more of this squished kind of ellipse look to it.

00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:08,000
So if our goal is to get the shaft leaning forward like that impact but we're used to hitting

00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,000
it with the shaft fairly vertical.

00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000
I've got new for you.

00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,000
You're going to have to rotate the club face more closed because basically what happens

00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:23,000
is if the club is swinging around me and we're around this circle when it straight

00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:28,000
up and down it's pointed at that general direction over there.

00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:33,000
Well when you add shaft lean you're basically hitting it earlier in the circle and so

00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:40,000
you can see that club face is now pointed a good 10-15 degrees off to the right.

00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:45,000
So if all I did was shift this forward and squish it down which is what it would take to

00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:50,000
create that shaft lean well then the club face is pointed over there.

00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:56,000
So I would have to rotate the club to still have shaft lean and get it pointed at the target.

00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:02,000
So one way to think of this whole shaft lean idea is the more that I close the face to

00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:09,000
the path the earlier I can hit it in the circle or along its path and still have it pointed

00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:11,000
at the target.

00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:17,000
If you hit the ball with the shaft straight up and down so you scoop and all you hit

00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:22,000
their pull so it never starts where you're aiming it always starts left and it always

00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:28,000
hooks then you could just get shaft lean and it would straighten it out.

00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:34,000
So that also tells you that when you're working on trying to get shaft lean the skill prior

00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:39,000
to getting shaft lean is learning to rotate the face more close to the path so basically

00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000
getting the face to rotate like this in space.

00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:47,000
If you also then scoop you should hit more shots left so if you're working out of a scoop

00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:53,000
pattern or a flip pattern and you're working on getting some of this shaft rotation

00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:59,000
then what you'll do is you'll work on getting shaft rotation when you flip it will go straight

00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:05,000
or sorry it'll go left or over draw so then you can use the body rotating to hit it

00:03:05,000 --> 00:03:10,000
earlier in the circle which would take that shaft rotation and now point it right so that

00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:15,000
the ball launches a little right and potentially has a little bit of a draw to it.

00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:20,000
So now working through it we're going to do a walk you through what are the normal

00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:23,000
stages for someone working out of this pattern.

00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:28,000
So if you're used to hitting it straight kind of more like that with a vertical shaft not

00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:33,000
taking a whole lot of divots then what'll happen is the first step you need to do is getting

00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:38,000
the shaft to rotate and if you have the same impact to release same impact timing but all

00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:44,000
you do is release the shaft then or release the club then what should happen is it will

00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:50,000
tend to be too close when I may contact with it it'll launch 20 30 degrees left or so

00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,000
and over draw it may even launch more than that.

00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:00,000
Now to fix it what I'm going to do is I need to have that same amount of shaft rotation but

00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:05,000
I'm also going to have body rotation so I hit it earlier in the arc basically right around

00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:11,000
there is what I was used to feeling at impact now it's going to happen after impact so

00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:13,000
impact's going to feel like it's happening earlier.

00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:23,000
I'm going to take it back rotate and that should make it launch a little bit more right

00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:27,000
and depending on how much I rotate the shaft it'll either go pretty straight like that one or it

00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,000
might even have a bit of a draw depending on the face to path relationship but that's the normal

00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:39,000
pattern for learning to deloft the club you've got to close the face and then get the shaft leaning

00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:44,000
forward by hitting it earlier in the in the arc if you do that you will hit it with less

00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,000
loft but a club face that's still pointing at this target which is all really a deloft

00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:55,000
club actually is trying to apply it to a full swing.

Subscribe now for full access to our video library.