Self diagnosis is a technique used by the worlds best golfers and coaches to determine what they are doing in their swing, and how this effects their ball flight. When making a change in your swing it is important to know the end goal of what your trying to achieve. Ultimately this will always be linked back to the ball flight you are trying to create. This is why, when we start to self diagnose, ball flight is always the first thing we analyse.
Ball Flight:
Ball flight is the most important aspect in studying your golf game. All the answers to unlock your game are hidden here. I am going to show you how to analyse your own ball flight so you can start understanding what creates it.
The first step when analysing ball flight is to understand the ball flight characteristics, these are.
Distance
Direction
Curvature
Trajectory
You want to know if the ball travelling an appropriate distance for the club you are hitting. You need to know the initial starting direction of you golf ball, relative to your intended target line. You'll have to analyse if there is any curvature of the ball during its flight and whether it is left to right or right to left. Finally, you want to know if the ball is flying at an appropriate height for the club your hitting.
Once this information is found, you can then start to figure out what type of ball flight you have, it will be one of the nine ball flights, which include.
Straight
Slice
Push Slice
Push
Draw
Fade
Pull
Hook
Pull Hook
You will have one of these ball flights, the first step you need to take is to identify which one you have and then we can start looking at the impact factors and what creates it.
What creates my ball flight?
Now you have deciphered what type of ball flight you have, we now need to go about learning about what creates it. The ball flight you see is created by six impact factors which include.
Centeredness of strike
Clubface Alignment
Club Path
Angle of Attack
Dynamic Loft
Clubhead Speed
The ones we will look at first will be, club face alignment (club face) and club path, as these have the biggest impact on direction and curvature.
First of all, club face, what is it? How does it effect the golf ball's direction? Club face alignment is the direction the club face is pointing at impact relative to your target line. Research and launch monitors tell us that the majority of the time, the golf ball will likely start along the line that the club face is pointing during impact. This means that if your golf ball starts left of target, then the club face was pointing to the left at impact. Conversely, if your golf ball starts right of target, then the clubface will have been pointing to the right.
A point I would like to make, is that this proves your swing direction doesn't necessarily have an influence on where your ball starts. Countless players say to me, "I hit it left when I swing over the top". No, you hit it left when the clubface is pointing left at impact. There is a belief system in club golfers that the further you swing in one direction, the more the ball will start there. This is FALSE, the clubface dictates start line.
This brings me on nicely to to our second impact factor, club path. So, what is it? Club path is the direction the clubhead is swinging through the golf ball at impact. There are three possible club paths you could have, in-to-in, in-to-out and out-to-in. Not one of these variations is better than another, it all depends on what your intended shot shape is.
So, what combinations of clubface and club path create each ball flight? We already know that the golf ball starts where the clubface is pointing so you should know what your clubface is doing to determine your ball's start line. We now need to understand the curvature of your golf ball.
In-to-in:
Straight
In-to-out:
Draw
Hook
Push
Pull Hook
Push Slice
Out-to-in:
Fade
Slice
Pull
Push Slice
Pull Hook
This is a break down of which club path directions create which shots, it should give you a good indication of which pattern you have. It will also tell you what you need to do to create the shot you might be working on. One thing to note is that both the pull hook and push slice can be created with either in-to-out or out-to-in club path's even though they are vastly different shots, to figure out what you are doing, it would be advisable to video your swing from down the line to determine if you are in-to-out or out-to-in.
What do I do now?
Now that you have a credible system of determining what your ball flight is and what causes it, you're ready to start improving. The first place I would start, is to develop feels of what you need to do to hit your desired ball flight. For example, if you hit a slice but want to hit a draw. You'll need to see how easy it is for you to move the ball from right to left in the air. I would advise setting up to a target line and practice starting golf balls right of this line, exaggerating the feeling of an in-to-out club path. The opposite would be true for someone who hooks the ball but wants to fade it. Start the ball left of your target line and exaggerate an out-to-in club path. This will give you a baseline feeling of what you have to do with your body and golf club to produce that ball flight.
Final Thoughts:
This self diagnosis technique is something that has helped me greatly through both my playing and coaching career. It enables me to analyse my ball flight whether on course or on the range so I can identify what I need to do to hit better golf shots. Like anything it takes practice and time to get good at, but is well worth the effort and will help you greatly. The next post will be following up from this subject, giving you some ideas and drills to help move your path around and create different shots. Including video check points to help you identify what could be causing your big misses.
Lets Get Better Together
Harrison Peck, PGA Professional
コメント