Understanding the Como Flatspot for Better Impact Position

The Como Flatspot is one of the clearest ways to understand what great players do through impact. In simple terms, it describes how the club’s arc widens through the strike instead of collapsing, lifting abruptly, or cutting inward too early. While 3D data is the best way to measure it, you can still spot the pattern on video if you know what to look for. When you study tour swings this way, you start to see a common theme: the hands travel through impact on a relatively level path, then rise gently as the arms extend toward the target. That motion is a major key to clean contact, stable face control, and the kind of compressed strike most golfers are chasing.

What the Como Flatspot Actually Is

The easiest way to think about the flatspot is this: through the hitting area, the clubhead stays low to the ground while the arc width continues to increase. In other words, your arms are not folding up early, and the handle is not diving down and then sharply yanking upward. Instead, the club is moving through impact with a wide, brushing action.

On video, that often shows up as the hands moving more across and toward the target, with only a gradual rise through and after impact. That is the visual clue. The club is not being thrown outward early from the top, and it is not being pulled inward immediately after contact. It is traveling through the strike with extension and support.

This is why Tyler often connects the flatspot to ideas like the wipe and bracing. Those movements help you keep the club moving through the ball with width instead of losing structure and narrowing the arc.

How to See the Flatspot on Video

You do not need a launch monitor or motion-capture system to begin recognizing this pattern. A face-on video can give you a useful rough picture.

Reference Point 1: Hand Height in the Downswing

A good checkpoint is when the shaft is about parallel to the ground in the downswing. At that moment, draw an imaginary horizontal line across the top of the wrists or hands.

In many high-level players, that hand position will appear:

• Below the belt line
• Often around the mid-thigh area
• Sometimes near the crotch level, depending on camera angle

Because most videos are filmed from slightly above, the exact height will vary. You are not looking for a perfect measurement. You are looking for a pattern. Pros tend to have the hands lower in this phase, which gives them room to move across through impact rather than dropping steeply and then lifting abruptly.

Reference Point 2: What the Hands Do Through Impact

Once you have that line, watch how the hands move relative to it. In a strong flatspot pattern, the hands generally:

• Travel across the screen toward the target
• Stay relatively level for a short stretch
• Then begin a slow, gentle ascent through and after impact

That gradual rise is important. It usually goes along with good arm extension and a clubhead that stays low through the strike. It is very different from the amateur pattern of the hands working sharply down, then sharply up in more of a “V” shape.

Why Pros Create This Pattern So Consistently

The flatspot is not just a hand action. It is the result of how the body supports the club through impact.

When you see a tour player creating this motion, several things are usually happening together:

• The player has enough axis tilt
• The upper body is staying in side bend while rotating
• The upper body remains behind the pelvis into impact
• The arms are allowed to extend later, not thrown early
• The clubface is already organizing in transition, often with some motorcycle move

That last point matters more than many golfers realize. If the clubface is not squaring early enough in transition, you will feel pressure to throw the clubhead or extend the arms too soon. But when the face is already in a playable position, you can keep the structure of the swing longer and let the extension happen later, through the strike, where it belongs.

The Relationship Between Transition and the Flatspot

If you want the hand path to look relatively flat through impact, the hands usually need to be slightly lower before impact than they will be at impact itself. That means the transition has to set up the motion correctly.

Typically, that comes from:

• Retaining or regaining forward flexion
• Adding some of the proper left tilt in transition
• Avoiding the urge to stand up away from the ball

This is a major separator between skilled players and amateurs. Better players tend to organize the body so the hands can work out and across later. Many amateurs lose that opportunity in transition by casting, standing up, or letting the club get too far behind them.

What Tour Swings Tend to Show

When you study strong ball strikers on video, the pattern repeats itself. Players such as Nick Watney, Graham McDowell, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Sam Snead, and Ben Hogan may all have different styles, but through impact you often see the same broad idea:

• The hands are not excessively high in the downswing
• The path of the hands works more toward the target than most amateurs expect
• The rise of the hands is gradual, not abrupt
• The arms extend through the strike instead of collapsing

One useful observation is that pros often do not look like they are lifting the hands faster than amateurs. In fact, many skilled players appear to have less upward hand motion through impact. What they do have is more motion toward the target. That is a huge reason their arms can extend so well and the club can stay low through the hitting area.

That is the visual signature of width. The club is not being snatched upward. It is being delivered through the ball.

What the Amateur Pattern Usually Looks Like

Once you know what to look for, the opposite pattern becomes easy to recognize.

1. Hands Too High in the Downswing

Many amateurs reach shaft-parallel in the downswing with the hands closer to the belt line than the mid-thigh area. Often this happens because they have:

• Started casting the club
• Stood the upper body up
• Lost forward bend too early

That higher hand position makes it difficult to produce a long, level flatspot through impact.

2. A “Down Then Up” Handle Pattern

Instead of the hands moving across with a gentle rise, many golfers create more of a V-shaped path:

• The handle works down steeply approaching impact
• Then shoots upward quickly after contact

This often leads to a strike that is less stable, with less extension and less room for the body to support the motion.

3. The Club Gets Too Far Behind the Body

Another common issue is that by the time the hands reach roughly shaft-parallel, they are too far behind the torso. This is a critical checkpoint. If your hands are trailing behind your body too much at that stage, you have likely cast the club or disconnected the sequence.

From there, good body motion becomes difficult. If you were to add proper side bend and rotation with the club already stuck behind you, the club would tend to bottom out too early and hit fat shots. So your body instinctively avoids that. Instead, you compensate by keeping the hands going down longer, then lifting them abruptly.

That compensation can produce:

• Fat shots
• Toe strikes
• Weak shots right
• Sometimes heel contact if early extension enters the picture

Why This Matters for Contact and Consistency

The flatspot is not just a pretty visual. It has direct consequences for how you strike the ball.

When your hands move across with width and a gentle rise, several good things happen:

• The club stays low to the ground through the hitting area
• You are more likely to get a brushing, shallow strike
• Your arms can extend through the ball instead of folding
• The strike tends to feel more solid and centered
• Low-point control improves

By contrast, when the handle works too much down and then too much up, you often lose the stable geometry that supports crisp contact. The club either crashes into the turf, exits too steeply, or changes direction too abruptly to produce reliable strike quality.

This is why the flatspot is so closely tied to consistency. It is not just about club aesthetics. It is about whether the club is traveling through impact in a way that gives you margin for error.

The “Wipe” and Bracing Connection

If you have heard Tyler talk about the wipe, this video gives you a practical way to visualize it. The wipe is part of what helps the arms and hands work more across the body and toward the target through impact rather than immediately inward or upward.

Pair that with bracing, and you get the support needed for the arms to extend without the upper body backing out of the shot. The result is a strike that looks less like a slap and more like a wide, stable sweep through the ball.

That is why the best swings often appear so balanced through impact. The body is not panicking to save the strike. It is supporting a motion that was organized correctly much earlier.

Two Simple Video Checks You Can Use

If you want to evaluate your own swing, these are two practical checkpoints.

1. At shaft-parallel in the downswing, check hand height.

   Are your hands roughly around mid-thigh to crotch height, or are they up near the belt line? Lower is not automatically better, but if they are very high, you may be standing up or casting.

2. Check where the hands are relative to your body.

   At that same point, are your hands more in front of your torso, or are they stuck behind you? If they are too far behind, you likely released the club too early and will have trouble producing a clean flatspot.

Then watch the through-swing. Do the hands move more across and slightly up, or do they move down then sharply up and in? That one visual can tell you a lot.

How to Apply This Understanding in Practice

The best way to use this concept is not to force your hands into a shape. Instead, use the flatspot as feedback for whether the motion before impact is organized well enough.

When you practice, focus on these priorities:

• Keep your upper body from standing up too early
• Improve your transition alignments so the hands can shallow and lower appropriately
• Get the clubface organized earlier so you do not need to throw the clubhead
• Feel the hands and arms working through the ball toward the target, not just upward
• Use face-on video to monitor whether your hand path is becoming flatter and wider

A useful mindset is to think of the club brushing through the hitting area rather than stabbing down and escaping upward. You are trying to create width through impact, supported by body rotation, side bend, and late extension.

If you can begin to recognize that gentle, across-the-line hand motion on video, you will have a much clearer picture of what quality impact really looks like. And once you can see it, you can start building the movements that produce it more consistently.