Another great drill that you can use to help find the center of the golf face and generally loss of back spin is a very simple gates drill. Like you see here I’ve got two head cover set up either side of the golf ball. Now the whole point of this is to hit the shot, move through impact catching the ball first and then the tuff afterwards. If I can do that I know that my path through the ball is pretty neutral, is moving in quite straight and it’s not coming too much from the outside or too much from the inside.

It’s a very good way to help train that path as you move down into the ball. If it kind of comes in and hits the inside with the heel, so it hits the inside head cover with my heel, I know that my impact will be more toe based. If I come through and hit the head cover with my toe and hit the ball with the heel, I know that my impact will be more heel based. So I can determine what I need to be doing with my path. If I then cross reference that with what my divot is doing after the ball, then I will know if I really have achieved just that straight through shot.

So you can see here I’ve not left myself masses of room either side you don’t want to – you don’t want it so close that you literally can’t swing the club through, but you don’t want it so far enough away that it’s not going to make much of a difference. I’ve got this set but I reckon I’ve probably got half an inch either side of that golf ball. So I know where I’ve placed my ball, and I swing up and down. Try and strike a nice shot away. Now as I look at my divot pattern there it is pointing pretty much straight down to where I was aiming.

So the divot is straight through the gates, I’m not disturbed either of the head covers, so I know that my pass through the ball was good, my strike felt solid, so I found the center of the club face. Very simple drill to settle, very simple drill to do, so take it away, give it a go and hopefully you’ll find a center of that club face a little bit more.