Understanding The Meaning Of Square In The Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Understanding The Meaning Of Square In The Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

If we’ve stablished that we’re definitely trying to get this club face square at the point of impact, I think we need to understand exactly what that terminology means and how it can influence the shots that you are hitting. The idea of something being square to something else in golf refers to it as being sort of perpendicular, 90-degrees to another object. So if my camera was going to be my intended target, my club face would be square to the camera when it’s actually laid 90-degrees, if it was off angle like this, this is not square, if I move myself around this will not be square and then this would not be square again. So square here is 90-degrees to a target. Now on the golf course we need the club face to be square to an intended target, if we’re going to hit the ball perfectly straight, if we’re trying to hit the ball with a draw and a fade I can understand the club face doesn’t need to be square to that. But if we want to hit the ball straight at a target, we want the face to be square to that target.

Now the target is not always the flag, there are occasion because of a dog leg or because there’s some wind or because there’s some dangerous, some hazards, we don’t always aim the club face exactly at our target, we in fact we sort of replace and rebuild another target, so if I got a fairway straight iron in front of me but there’s a pond on the left hand side and the flag is over on the left hand side, I wouldn’t be aiming the club face at the flag, I’d be picking another target over this side, maybe a telegraph pole in the background or a tree in the background, I would then square the club face up to that. So my club is square to my intended target but it’s not always my ultimate aim let’s say, the flag. You can also have some other issues with aiming the club bringing in some new terminology that we need to understand. Generally speaking, for a right handed golfer a club that points to the right of a target, so here is square if I’m setting up pointing to the right of the target, we would describe this as an open club face. And if we have the club face aiming to the left of target, we would describe that as a closed club face. So it’s quite important to understand those terminologies because you might hear it on the TV, you might hear your coach talking to you, you might hear your playing partners saying, “oh, you just had the face of it open there.” You need to understand what does open mean. For a right handed golfer, open is too far right; for a closed it would be too far to the left hand side. So you’ve got to be careful of the open and the closed nature, we’re definitely trying to get the club face square to target if we’re trying to hit straight golf shots. 2016-08-19

If we’ve stablished that we’re definitely trying to get this club face square at the point of impact, I think we need to understand exactly what that terminology means and how it can influence the shots that you are hitting. The idea of something being square to something else in golf refers to it as being sort of perpendicular, 90-degrees to another object. So if my camera was going to be my intended target, my club face would be square to the camera when it’s actually laid 90-degrees, if it was off angle like this, this is not square, if I move myself around this will not be square and then this would not be square again. So square here is 90-degrees to a target. Now on the golf course we need the club face to be square to an intended target, if we’re going to hit the ball perfectly straight, if we’re trying to hit the ball with a draw and a fade I can understand the club face doesn’t need to be square to that. But if we want to hit the ball straight at a target, we want the face to be square to that target.

Now the target is not always the flag, there are occasion because of a dog leg or because there’s some wind or because there’s some dangerous, some hazards, we don’t always aim the club face exactly at our target, we in fact we sort of replace and rebuild another target, so if I got a fairway straight iron in front of me but there’s a pond on the left hand side and the flag is over on the left hand side, I wouldn’t be aiming the club face at the flag, I’d be picking another target over this side, maybe a telegraph pole in the background or a tree in the background, I would then square the club face up to that. So my club is square to my intended target but it’s not always my ultimate aim let’s say, the flag. You can also have some other issues with aiming the club bringing in some new terminology that we need to understand. Generally speaking, for a right handed golfer a club that points to the right of a target, so here is square if I’m setting up pointing to the right of the target, we would describe this as an open club face. And if we have the club face aiming to the left of target, we would describe that as a closed club face. So it’s quite important to understand those terminologies because you might hear it on the TV, you might hear your coach talking to you, you might hear your playing partners saying, “oh, you just had the face of it open there.”

You need to understand what does open mean. For a right handed golfer, open is too far right; for a closed it would be too far to the left hand side. So you’ve got to be careful of the open and the closed nature, we’re definitely trying to get the club face square to target if we’re trying to hit straight golf shots.