How To Strike The Golf Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles
How To Strike The Golf Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if we now know that striking the golf ball is an increadibly important part of being a successful golfer, it’s now important we understand how to strike the golf ball correctly and what's important about doing that. So, if we look at the eye end strike to start with looking from the head on here. We’ve got ourselves set up in a good balance position; we’re going to generate some power in the backswing. As the club comes down to the ball, we've got two areas to look at; we've got the vertical height of the strike to consider, and also the side ways element of the strike to consider. Now the vertical height, let's consider that first. Hitting the top of the golf ball simply doesn’t work, that's classed as a top or a thin shot and the ball will go down and roll across the floor. Hitting the bottom of the golf club against the middle of the ball, we might talk about that as being a thin shot. Some people even refer to it as a skinny shot. And again it goes very low, it might lift off the floor slightly, but it’s probably going to send vibrations up through the shaft. So it’s important to understand that we've got to get the sweet spot of this club, the middle of this club, below the center of that golf ball to get a good strike.

The way we do that correctly is we get our body weights forwards, our left arm nice and straight, we hit the ball then we carry on down and take a divot out of the turf. So we should hit the turf, to get really nice iron strikes, but we hit the turf after we hit the golf ball. I think a lot of golfers because they're desperately trying to not top the ball, they're desperately trying to get under the ball and hit the ball up in the air. They actually hit too much ground behind the ball, so there's a temptation to lean back, to hit the ground here, and then to lift or to flick the ball up into the air. And that leaning back and hitting the ground before the golf ball and lifting the ball into the air is a very common sort of a beginner’s mistake. Now reality is they’re trying their best to hit the ball up into the air, and to get a good strike, and actually it’s counterproductive, counterintuitive. So we need to make sure that during the impact phase the body weight is moving to the left side, we’re hitting down on the golf ball, and we’re taking ball and then turf, and trust the loft on the golf club to hit the ball up in the air. If you don’t trust the loft, you'll get caught leaning back, you'll hit the gound, you'll try and scoop the ball up into the air and that's why you could be struggling to hit the golf ball with a good ball strike. 2015-10-14

So if we now know that striking the golf ball is an increadibly important part of being a successful golfer, it’s now important we understand how to strike the golf ball correctly and what's important about doing that. So, if we look at the eye end strike to start with looking from the head on here. We’ve got ourselves set up in a good balance position; we’re going to generate some power in the backswing. As the club comes down to the ball, we've got two areas to look at; we've got the vertical height of the strike to consider, and also the side ways element of the strike to consider. Now the vertical height, let's consider that first. Hitting the top of the golf ball simply doesn’t work, that's classed as a top or a thin shot and the ball will go down and roll across the floor. Hitting the bottom of the golf club against the middle of the ball, we might talk about that as being a thin shot. Some people even refer to it as a skinny shot. And again it goes very low, it might lift off the floor slightly, but it’s probably going to send vibrations up through the shaft. So it’s important to understand that we've got to get the sweet spot of this club, the middle of this club, below the center of that golf ball to get a good strike.

The way we do that correctly is we get our body weights forwards, our left arm nice and straight, we hit the ball then we carry on down and take a divot out of the turf. So we should hit the turf, to get really nice iron strikes, but we hit the turf after we hit the golf ball. I think a lot of golfers because they're desperately trying to not top the ball, they're desperately trying to get under the ball and hit the ball up in the air. They actually hit too much ground behind the ball, so there's a temptation to lean back, to hit the ground here, and then to lift or to flick the ball up into the air. And that leaning back and hitting the ground before the golf ball and lifting the ball into the air is a very common sort of a beginner’s mistake. Now reality is they’re trying their best to hit the ball up into the air, and to get a good strike, and actually it’s counterproductive, counterintuitive. So we need to make sure that during the impact phase the body weight is moving to the left side, we’re hitting down on the golf ball, and we’re taking ball and then turf, and trust the loft on the golf club to hit the ball up in the air. If you don’t trust the loft, you'll get caught leaning back, you'll hit the gound, you'll try and scoop the ball up into the air and that's why you could be struggling to hit the golf ball with a good ball strike.