Lesson: The Impact

I once asked a homebuilder I was giving lessons to "What is the most important part of the house?" Without hesitation he answered "The Foundation", to which I replied, "Well your foundation is cracked right now!"

The foundation of the Golf swing is impact. If you are inconsistent, hit thin shots, whiff the ball, top, skull or chunk your shots, think that you should hit the ball farther than you do, if the ball does not sound good coming off the face on a full swing, your problem is in your impact. If your impact is correct you are not having these issues.

At impact you must have "The Line of Compression". The "Line of Compression" is a straight line running from the top of your left shoulder through your left arm & left wrist down to the club head (if you are right handed). It's your right shoulder, arm & wrist if you are left-handed. Furthermore, your left shoulder should be higher than your right & your head should be behind the ball. The left wrist must be flat & the right wrist is bent at impact. Scroll down & look at the pictures below. Start looking from the top of their left shoulders down to the club head.

So how do you fix and/or improve your impact?? Generally, things in golf tend to come in 3's. So there are 3 things that have to happen at impact:

1) The hands must always get to the ball first ahead of the club head.

2) The shaft must always look like it is leaned forward towards the target.

3) The blow must always be down or descending.

When you have hit your best shots, the ball took off like a bullet, the sound was different, and posing at the finish that little voice in your head said, "that was it, but I don`t know what I did right?" What happened was that your impact looked like one of the golfers below. Those 3 things listed above have to happen on every shot. Period. Obviously, on a tee shot with a driver, I don't think you should take a divot, but if the ball is on the ground or teed low, you should hit down on it with your hands leading, the shaft always looking like its forward leaned.