Techniques Finding and Hitting Into Firm Left Side
Techniques Finding and Hitting Into Firm Left Side
We should mentioned that it is important to hit into a firm left side at impact, whether you are swinging a hybrid or any other club in your bag. In this section, we are going to help you make that happen. If you have not been doing a good job with this part of your swing up until this point, you may be shocked to find just how significantly you improve when you learn how to use your left side properly.
First, we need to define what it means to hit into a ‘firm left side’. At impact, your left leg is going to be solid, with your knee mostly straightened out and a straight line formed from your foot all the way up to your hip. You don’t want to ‘snap’ your leg up into this position, but rather you should try to get here carefully and gradually by using your lower body correctly throughout the entire swing. In addition to a solid left leg, you also want to have your left wrist in a firm position. The back of your left wrist should be flat, and its position should mirror that of the club face. When everything is solid on the left side, from your leg on up to your wrist, you’ll be able to turn the club loose through the hitting area with tremendous force.
The points listed below should help you understand how you can swing your hybrid clubs in a way that will naturally lead you to a solid left side at the point of contact.
Stay over the ball. This is the most important thing you can do when swinging a hybrid club. As the swing goes back, don’t allow your body weight to slide to the right along with the club. The golf swing should be a rotational action, meaning you are going to keep your center of gravity mostly in place as you turn back and through. As it relates to hitting into a firm left side, staying over the ball is going to make it much easier to place your left leg in the proper position. If you were to slide back and through, your left leg should almost certainly be in a soft position, and you’d have to drag the club slowly through the zone rather than whipping it through effectively. If you can learn how to stay over the ball during your swing, you will make big improvements almost immediately.
Don’t try to help the shot. One way to wind up with a soft left side is to attempt to help the ball into the air. As you may already know, trying to help the ball up off the ground is a pointless exercise, as doing so is not actually going to lead you to better results. Instead, you need to stay down through the shot, keeping the back of your left wrist firm as you strike the ball with authority. The loft on your hybrid is going to get the ball up into the sky, so don’t worry about that part of the challenge. Think about it this way – it is your job to make a solid swing, and it is the club’s job to get the ball in the air. If you do your job, you can be sure the hybrid will hold up its end of the bargain.
Quiet feet. It might surprise you to learn that one of the biggest problems golfers have in winding up with a firm left side is overactive feet. If you let your feet do too much during the swing, they are going to get in the way of positioning your body properly. Ideally, you will be able to keep your feet quiet throughout the swing from start to finish. Sure, there is going to be some movement in your feet, such as when the right heel comes off the ground in the follow through, but that movement should be the result of the rest of your swing – not the other way around. If your feet are playing an active, rather than passive, roll in the swing, you are doing something wrong. Do your best to keep your feet quiet at the swing progresses, and your left foot should be exactly where it needs to be at the moment of impact – flat on the ground.
Working on hitting into a firm left side is not just something that will help with your hybrid clubs. In reality, this skill is going to help you across the board, as you’ll be better able to strike the ball solidly with every club in your bag. In fact, the difference may be most noticeable in the driver, where you will have additional swing speed available that simply wasn’t present before.
