Flush The Strike.
Flush the impact of the golf ball by having a center strike hit. Tiger Woods holds Lee Trevino and Moe Norman in high regard, having watched them hit golf balls on his rise into the golf world, and one thing that never changes in his mind, even with junior clinics and amateurs, and that is the centeredness of contact. Tiger says that allows a person to have control. So, let’s point out why:
- Control: The last variable that a golfer wants is themselves. Certainly not in terms of distance control, as that is a necessity in golf, but in face impact. If you are familiar with gear effect, you understand that for a right-handed golfer, to hit on the toe is going to cause a counterclockwise spin and the ball will have a tendency to drift left and a heel strike will provide a clockwise spin and the ball will drift right. The opposite directions and spin for a lefty-clockwise for toe strike, counterclockwise for heel strike. If you have to miss on the face, miss on the toe side of center. I say that because the fastest part of the club in the swing is the toe, so a toe miss will maintain more of the probable “would be” distance if you had hit it center face.
- Consistency: When you groove your swing to centeredness of contact in all lie and slopes, the outcome is more predictable to you. That is where any golf coach or instructor wants you to be, in the land of consistency. If you hit ten iron shots and six are right and four are left, the right answer to make you more consistent is to change your alignment to the left to manage the higher percentage miss. What a golfer wants is “fixed.” A golf coach would rather ten shots all be right within 5 yards of each other, because now you have a very tight grouping. A simple grip change can put you back on target in no time at all. If your shots are a shotgun blast, then I question your pre-shot routine, because everything is different each time.
- Confidence: With all the external factors that present themselves in a golf shot: The lie, the wind, mud on the ball, scuffs, the slow group in front of you, the fast group behind you, etc.-the last thing a golfer wants to concern themselves with is whether they will hit it flush. If you have any amount of anxiety in your golf shot in dealing with contact, you will become tense. Tenseness is the opposite of confidence and the opposite of speed. However, when you are hitting it as Tiger has stated “dead nuts in the center of the face,” that is going to ooze confidence in your golf game.
I will be presenting a shot shaping video to the website soon to illustrate how the knowledge of bending the ball in the direction that you choose will lead to massive benefits in your golf game. Practice hitting the center of the face and again, if you miss the center, miss toe side of center.
Watch the excerpt of Tiger referencing centeredness of contact here: https://facebook.com/reel/383408694438568?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&mibextid=JY7zl
-David