Ron Hanson's Golf Tips
Divots
A tendency
by many beginners and by many experienced golfers is a
desire to
hit up at the ball to make the ball go up.
It is amazing;
with all that is written about the game of golf and all
of the instruction available that the basic concept of hitting
a ball on the downswing is not conveyed.
We all watch the Pros hitting irons and taking divots.
Are they trying to take the divots or not? They are. Realize
these are the best golfers in the world. If they can’t
do what they want, we don’t have much of a chance.
Since they are consistently taking divots, we probably
should be too.
Does the divot occur before the ball is hit or after the
ball is hit? If the club hits the ground before it hits
the ball, club head speed is greatly diminished. As a
ball sits
on the ground, there is no room to hit up at it. To hit
up at the ball, the ground will have to be hit first.
We want
to hit the ball on the downswing because we have more
club head speed on the downswing than on the upswing.
We all marvel at the Pros’ shots that hit the greens
with a lot of back spin. A downward motion at contact is
needed to put the proper spin on the ball. If the golf swing
is traveling up when it gets to the ball, the ball will have
less than the desired amount of back spin. Additionally,
back spin is needed to keep the ball airborne. If a field
goal kicker kicks a ball with top spin, the ball may not
clear the linemen’s heads. The same principle holds
true for a golf ball. A ball hit with top spin will not stay
in the air for very long, it will not go very high and it
will also roll for quite some distance. When hitting a ball
into a green, we usually want it to go high and not roll
very far. To create the proper back spin, the ball has to
be hit with a descending blow. The divot should occur after
striking the ball.
To work on hitting the ball with a descending blow,
lay a tee down about 2” in front of the ball (target side).
Your goal is to hit the ball then the tee. If you take a
swing and hit the ball but the tee does not move, you probably
did not hit the ball on the way down in the swing.
Golf Tip
We often hear the term “releasing the club”.
It might better be described as hinging, unhinging and re-hinging.
We hinge on the backswing and unhinge on the downswing. The
confusion comes as to the proper time to re-hinge. If the
re-hinging starts at the contact of the ball or before contact,
body rotation will be impeded and manipulation of the club
will occur. The re-hinging of the club does not take place
until the shoulders are squared up to the target. When the
release is done properly, it may feel as though you hang
onto the swing longer and definitely your balance will improve.
E-mail
Ron about lessons!
|
