The article below was written by Jack Backhouse of National Club Golfer.
In lessons, golfers always say that they just want to hit the ball straight, but are they going about this all wrong? In the video below, PGA Professional Jack Backhouse explains why you never want to hit the ball straight.
The straight shot is the hardest shot in golf
Contrary to what most amateur golfers believe, the straight shot is the hardest one to play because of just how many things you have to do perfectly!
To execute a straight golf shot, you have to have a 0-degree club face, and strike the ball exactly out of the sweet spot of your club. This is obviously extremely difficult to do, and if you are attempting to do this on the golf course, then you are setting yourself up for failure, as when you get this wrong, the ball is always curving away from the intended target.
Build some shapes into your shots
If you want to stop slicing driver and start lowering your scores, you need to build a predictable shape into your golf shots.
It is my preference that mid-handicap players work on hitting a draw as there are benefits to playing with that shape but hitting a draw or a fade is fine as long as you have picked one.
The reason this is better for golfers is that it builds some margin for error into your golf shots. In fact, the more curve you play with the more margin for error you actually have!
For example, if a golfer wants to play a moderate draw, their swing path should be roughly 5 degrees from the inside. For the ball to finish somewhere near the target, the club face can be anywhere between 1 degree and 4 degrees, giving us a 3-degree margin for error.
This is an awful lot more than the 0-degree margin for error when trying to play a straight shot, and if a golfer wanted to play a bigger draw, they would actually have a bigger margin for error.
The higher your handicap the bigger the shape you need
The more inside or outside the swing path, the less accurately you need to control the club face, making a bigger shape more appropriate for lower-skilled players.
The better the player, the more control they have over the club face in the golf swing, the smaller the curve they can play, or even manipulate the ball flight in both directions.
What golfers have to understand is that they need to control the clubface to make sure that the ball always starts on the side of the target it is curving away from (draw starts right to curve left).
The common slicer therefore is not that far away from having a predictable ball flight, they just need to learn how to start the ball left enough to make the curving golf ball finish near the target, not way right of it.
Drills
This might be a significant change of concept for you, but hopefully, you understand that you might not need a full-swing rebuild to start getting your shots to target more often. Going to the driving range and having a play around with some swing thoughts to either close the face more or open the face will make a world of difference to your game.
I like to practice with an alignment stick in the ground on my target line in front of me and work on hitting shapes around it to enhance my clubface control awareness which always leads to me hitting better shots out on the golf course!
