Hi, I’m Rick Sessinghaus, PGA coach and coach for Collin Morikawa.
So let’s assume right now you’re hitting the ball solid on those iron shots, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to hit the green because we have to have proper direction now. Direction is affected by a few things, but the number one thing is clubface.
Where your club face is at impact is 80% of it. So we have to learn how to control a clubface. Well, clubface has a direct relationship to the hands. Wherever my hands go, the clubface goes. So if I’m going to shake your hand, how you doing?
That would be normal, right? But if I went like this, you’d go why is he shaking my hand like that. That would be now an open club face, and now we have a close club face. So the first thing we need to do is master how our hands work.
So let’s just start with a very simple half swing drill. And the goal would be that if my club stayed in my stomach and I just turned and I turn that club face never rotated either way. That’s square.
Now, if I take that concept to a regular swing, there was no club face manipulation. You’ll actually notice that the leading edge here is the same as my spine angle. It’s not over here, not over here.
So once we do some half swings and you can be very aware of the club face relationship, let’s hit a few half swings to see if we can get that same thing striking a ball so half swing. Your goal is to keep the club face square. As I look at that, I achieved a square club face. Hands equal club face.
Now where do we get in trouble? Usually, most right handed golfers slice it to the right. Their club face is open. Now we’re going to assume right now that you have a good fundamental grip if you don’t go see a PGA instructor.
But let’s say you have a good grip, but we’re not returning it back. A lot of people, it has to do with tension, right? We want to hit that ball hard. And when we do that, we don’t allow the club face to get back to square.
So it’s easy for me to say, Oh, be relaxed, but I’m going to ask you to be relaxed to allow the club to come through. If you’re one who does hit the ball to the right a lot, I do go back to my feet together drill because it will improve the ability of being relaxed and allowing the clubface to go with the body.
So your clubface certainly hands equal clubface. The tension, most people are tight. We want to relax that a little bit. And the third concept is allow your body to do the work. Not trying to hit a ball, but we’re going to swing a club.
So start mastering your club face today, start mastering your golf mental game and let’s start hitting some more greens.