Having the manufactures logo on a golf ball is quite handy to identify your golf ball when you lose it in the rough, but it also can be quite a valuable aid to help you hit the right sorts of shots particularly on the tee. Now I stress on the tee because on the tee I can move the logo around, I can point it where I want to point it. When I’m play from the fairway, I have to play the ball as it lies, so I can’t move it around. But on the tee I place that logo in the right direction to help me hit particular shots. And we discuss how that can help me hit draws and fades, this might be something you can take on the golf course to improve your play. The first thing we need to understand with a draw or a fade is how we actually create that shot, how there’s a relationship between the path that the club is travelling on and where the clubface is pointing. Now this can be quite confusing, but just to simplify it for you; the ball will generally set off nearest to the face angle. So wherever the clubface is pointing, that’s pretty much where the ball will set off in its flight. And then the ball will bend away from the swing path line. So if the swing path line was to the right and the clubface was pointing straight, the ball will move from right to left creating a draw effect, and reverse those angles for the fade spin. So if the clubface was pointing straight and I was swinging out-to-in to the left, the ball would start quite straight and then fade a little bit.
So if you were trying to hit a draw, here is how you could use the logo to help you. You could take the logo and point it slightly to the right of you intended target. So effectively if the target was 12 0’clock, we’re going to point the logo at about 1 o’clock. And then as I setup to the side of the ball, I’m going to encourage my swing path to follow that I o’clock logo line, effectively hitting for a right-handed golfer from in-to-out, out to the right-hand side of the fairway. If the clubface when I strike it is aiming more left than that 1 o’clock line, the ball would move away from 1 o’clock more towards the center as long as I don’t overdo it and end up hooking it. This is about hitting draws and fades, not hooks and snap hooks. Likewise if I wanted to hit a fade, I would change my logo line, I would point my logo line more down the left-hand side. Remember 12 o’clock would be straight so now we’re thinking more about 11 o’clock, so I’ve pointed the logo at 11. That should encourage my swing path line to be more out-to-in across my target line swinging down the left side. If my clubface is pointing more right than that 11 o’clock line, I would start to see the ball moving from left to right.
Now you’ve got again understand this is a fade not trying to hit a slice. So it takes a little bit of experimentation to understand how much of the left or the right you want and how big a difference you need between the clubface and the swing path line. You don’t need a big difference to create shape with the driver. Also understanding that this is all relevant if you’re striking the ball out of the centre, hitting the ball from the toe, hitting the ball from the heel, does have a big effect on the shots as well, so this is understanding a good centered strike. And this technique really aimed at the slightly better golfers. Golfers that are still struggling with slicing, hooking or shanking the golf ball, not getting good contact, this idea of aiming the logo really isn’t going to be overly relevant for you guys just yet. But if you work on the principal that you’re hitting the ball straight quite nicely but you want to hit little draws, little fades, pointing that logo to the left or the right side of the fairway could encourage the swing path line to change, therefore could encourage the shape of the golf ball to change.
Have a little bit of practice with that on the driving range when it’s not too important whether you get it right or wrong and see whether you can take that golf, that technique out into the golf course to improve your scores.