19th Hole

Rick Silverman
Director of Instruction
John Jacobs’ Golf School
Mesa, AZ
rsilverman@jacobsgolf.com

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The Ball Says It All

The flight of the ball gives you all the information that you need to help you in your pursuit of better golf. There are teachers that need machines to tell you. There are teachers that need vests to tell you. There are teachers that need high tech 3D to tell you.

The ball says it all.

The basic elements are these:

1) The ball can be misdirected left or right. 2) The contact with the ball is good or it is not.

For the misdirection of your shot, there are not that many things that can go wrong.

1) At impact the face is looking in that direction. 2) At impact the club is swinging in that direction. These are the 2 most influential things at impact that will effect the direction of your shot.

The face of the club at impact is the most important.

For a right handed golfer, if the face is looking right of the swing path (open face) the ball will not only go right of the path but may go well right of the target.

For a right handed golfer, if the face is looking left (closed face) of the swing path, the ball will not only go left of the path but may go left of the target.

If you can fix the face and get the face square to the path, the ball will always go in that direction that the path is on.

To fix the direction of the swing it is imperative that one fixes the face of the club at impact first.

For the good contact with the ball, again there cannot be many things that can go wrong. The angle of approach at impact needs to be correct. If it is incorrect, there is either: 1) Too much down angle (too steep) or 2) Too much upward angle (too shallow).

The specific things that each of us need to do to fix the face, path or the angle are unique to each person and it is based on what we have done to make the mistake.

Determining what the needs of the individual are to fix these issues becomes the ART of teaching. Always remembering that the ball is the best teacher of them all.

Note: This is the third of a series of instructional columns that will be presented each month by a different John Jacobs’ Golf Schools and Academies’ Instructor.