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.
Fix Your Cast
Subscribe now to watch the full video.
Golf is unique in the way the club face can be impacted by 3 different directions of movement. Most other sports the face will only be changed in one way. In this video, Tyler shows you how to recognize different face orientations at different key times in the swing.
Playlists: Fix Your Cast, Squaring The Club Face Explained
Tags: Not Straight Enough, Not Enough Distance, Intermediate
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
This drill is face alignment at different points in the swing.
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:09,000
So I've got a video where we talk about this face, the three major ways that you can
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:13,000
adjust the face, but I want you to see that it's not just down at impact we can apply
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:14,000
it universally.
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:20,000
And a couple of the key times when we're going to want to look at this or lead arm
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,000
parallel in the downswing shaft, parallel in the downswing or shaft parallel in the
00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:25,000
follow-through.
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:29,000
So the three main ways that I can close the face would be by using the whole shaft,
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,000
moving the shaft forward backward, which would look either like this or like this.
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:37,000
Those are the same things, just two different ends moving.
00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:39,000
Rotating the face, open closed.
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,000
That'll look the same regardless.
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:48,000
Or lowering the handle closes the face, raising the handle opens the face or raising the
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:52,000
club closes the face, lowering the club opens the face.
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:56,000
So that's what it looks like down there at the bottom and it's kind of easy to see.
00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,000
Now let's look at what happens when we're in the downswing.
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:05,000
So if we're looking at the pattern when the lead arms about parallel here, we can see that
00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:12,000
rotating the face with the motorcycle closes it, extending the wrist, kind of re-hinging
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,000
and pulling narrow, opens the face.
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:24,000
So from face on, that closes it, that opens it, from face on, that closes the face, that
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:25,000
opens the face.
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:30,000
The shallow movement that we want to do in order to allow that body rotation also opens
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:33,000
the club face, which is part of the reason why you need that motorcycle to balance that
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:34,000
back out.
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:39,000
Same thing we can get down into this position here.
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:44,000
This would be opening the face, this would be closing the face, that is closing the
00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:50,000
face, that is opening the face and then the one we really like, that shaft rotation
00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,000
opens the face or closes the face.
00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:59,000
Then as we go into that follow-through position, the same thing's going to apply, I can
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,000
rotate it more, open our clothes.
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:07,000
I can open it by lowering the club, I can close it by raising the club up.
00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:12,000
So you'll see that a lot of golfers get into this club face is open and then they close
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:20,000
it by re-hinging as opposed to fully unhinging and allowing the shaft rotation to close
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:22,000
it.
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000
Then the last one would be, this closes the face, this opens the face.
00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:31,000
That's another one where in trying to get everything to extend out there, a lot of golfers
00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:36,000
are used to closing it by having the shaft move, the entire shaft move and you'll see
00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:42,000
that a lot in that follow-through position if I've closed it by bringing, by using the
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,000
shaft, it'll show where the club is weighted a little left.
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:52,000
So what you'll tend to see is in that ideal swing or the stock swing model, you're going
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,000
to tend to see fully unhinging, which opens the face.
00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000
You're going to see the club staying out there, which closes, or sorry, opens the
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:01,000
face.
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:07,000
So the main closing that they'll have is more with that shaft rotation as opposed to moving
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,000
the whole shaft to move the face.
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:14,000
Hopefully it helps you visualize when we talk about face-to-path relationships or if we're
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:19,000
talking about the club faces in a position where you'd have to do something like
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:22,000
chicken wing or like scoop in order to square it up.
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:23,000
This is what we're talking about.
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:28,000
It means that your balance of steepest in shallows and your balance of the face open and
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:33,000
closing isn't matching up for the pivot that you're trying to train, but since the
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:37,000
face is happening first, oftentimes fixing the face-to-path relationship will help clear
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,000
up a lot of the pivot problems.
