lessonspin
by Andy Loving, PGA
General Manager
Laurel Country Club
set your goals for spring 2018
This article is written to address driving
accuracy. The concept is technically the same with
all of our clubs and will consequently work with
any club we’re swinging. I’m sure you’ve heard
the term “squaring it up” before. I’ll explain the
“vertical line” as we go along. Let’s play!
We all know we need to square up the club face
at impact to hit a straight shot. The challenging
part of that statement is to learn how to square
it up at the right time during the swing. We get a
lot of questions about “the release” from our golf
students. The release is when the club is traveling
down to the ball the club face is rotating from open
to closed during the swing. Our goal is the make
sure it’s close to square at impact. If it’s a little
closed we pull the ball and if it’s a little open we
may push the ball. There are a few other things
that can impact the direction of the shot such as
the path of the swing, but for today’s lesson we’re
just talking about squaring the club at impact.
The Vertical Line is what we like to call the
line from the back of the golf ball straight up to
the sky in a vertical line. The goal in “squaring
it up” is to square it up right at the point of the
vertical line. If we square it up before the vertical
line we will “pull” the ball left of our target and
if we square it up after the line we will “push”
it right of our target. Now for all you technical
thinkers and engineers the path of the swing
will determine whether the ball slices back to
the target after starting left or hooks back after
starting right. That’s for another story. We’re
talking about learning how to square the club up
at impact which is right on the “vertical line.”
Here are a few techniques to help us develop
this skill. I believe we all have the ability to do
this with a little time and the right practice drills.
Remember this is a learned skill just like driving a
car or tying your shoes. You can do this!
1. The Slow Motion Drill – Our students
know this drill as the Payne Stewart Drill. Payne
Stewart, God rest his soul, used to swing the
driver at about 25 percent power. He had such a
great smooth unhurried golf swing and he used
this drill to get his timing down and to help him
stay connected (all of the parts moving together).
The goal is to make a “full” swing and only hit
the ball 100 yards with a driver. Yes; only 100
yards. By swinging the club slower we are able
to feel everything just a little better. We feel the
club face and we have a better idea of where that
vertical line is located in our swing. I’ll go as far
as to say “if you cannot hit it straight with this
drill, how would you expect to hit it straight with
a faster swing. When someone is learning how
to play a musical instrument such as a piano or
guitar they learn how to play the cords slowly at
first. When we’re learning h ow to dance we learn
each step slowly before we try to put the whole
thing together. This technique is used in almost
all disciplines of martial arts. When shooting a
gun we learn that slow is smooth and smooth is
fast. The speed will come, but we must have good
technique first. I recommend hitting 20 shots
with your driver using a full swing each time you
practice. The ball should only travel about 100
yards. It will take a few times out to get the hang
of it, so be patient. When you’re seeing some
straight shots you can start adding in a few faster
swings. At this point make 10 slow swings and
then 2 faster paced swings. Gradually increase
the amount of faster swings. If you notice your
accuracy is still not consistent then go back to the
slower swings until you’re seeing better results.
We must crawl before we walk.
2. The Short Swing with the Driver – For those
of you that know me you know that I love to work
on the short swing. I have the same view of the
short swing as I do about the slow motion swing. If
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