In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will help develop your understanding of the relationship between the face of the golf club, and the path of the golf club, at the important point of impact in your swing. A lack of understanding between the face to path relationship is a major cause of confusion for golfers, and therefore a source of frustration if that golfer struggles with a slice and is desperate to create a desired draw shot but is unable to do so. Hopefully this tip will put you on the right path to creating drawing golf shots.
So I would imagine a lot of people watching this video now suffer with a little bit of a slice shot. It's the most common one we tend to see when delivering lessons and what we probably like to see is that beautiful draw we see a lot on the television it's one shot that everybody wants to hit I think from a teaching professionals perspective the slice pays the bills and it definitely a keep the lights on. So if we look at a golfer who's currently suffering with a slice I think the 1st thing we need to understand is why they slice the golf ball. Definitely and from obviously we all will understand and you're going to give us a couple of things. Now I think for me there's 2 things that are going to be most prevalent when we hear shots that are going to cause I hope we talk about the same 2 things and I would imagine we will be. We are looking at the understanding of the face and the path now the face is where that club points. Where that club points at set up but more importantly where it points as it hits the end is that in relation to anything in particular particularly the target.
I'm going to pick a flag out on the green from to as I'm going to say that's my intended target that's why I'm going to line up everything in a way that club needs to point in relation to that target we've got different ways. You've got square which is going to be straight we've got left or closed for the right handed golfer and we've got the right or open to the right hand golfer because we've got square open and closed in relation to target and with the with the fly so what we're going to be seeing most of. Why is that face going to be pointing in relation to the ball to target line quite often it's going to be pointing to the right for a ball that starts right curves further right but there's a bit of a more deeper understanding. We need that some times the face can be left of target but I can still slice and is that to do with the 2nd factor once that started in. Exactly right that would be in relation to the pattern that the pattern is the direction the club is travelling so the club is traveling in a direction as it comes through the bottom of the arc, and that can again be square left or right we often talk about out on the course. Out if you watched any golf on T.V. watching instructional videos in 2 hours and out in might make a little bit of sense OK so these 2 things can confuse can conflict one another as well but they're not always the same.
If they're always the same if your path in your face were always the same you struck out the middle generally hit the ball quite straight if you had to go pull that has any degree of curvature to it be a draw or fading or slice, and then then the most be a difference between the pack and the classics slice that we see on a day to day basis is a club that comes from out in so it's traveling to the left of the intended target and the face is some what open to that number and become quite vague. Though when I say some what because it's not as if you are 85 degrees 10 degrees 20 degrees it can be anything between one degree and 30 degrees with some thing you have seen that face is open to the path and it causes various degrees. Exactly you can have a 5 yard slice under 35 yards like I think you know if it was a couple of degrees a golfer would generally hit the ball right straight and probably not really think they got too much problem, but if the difference between the patch and the face became upwards of 5, 6, 10 degrees pretty driver thus a round ruining card ruining lost golf ball kind of numbers saying there was. So to get a draw what are we going to do then what will be the big change the 2 things obviously are going to change our face and going to change our path what are we going to be looking for now for a draw of the golf ball we need to see the path heading somewhat to the right of the target so much more on the in to outlines.
So a swing generally would look flatter on the down on the downswing here swinging more out to the right which feels ironic that I'm going to swing more to the right to stop the ball slicing to the right but I still need that. It definitely swing more to the right and how some what more left which might be grip related or forearm rotation related but swing right turn the face left instead of swinging left turning the face so. Right so I would be changing my slice into a draw. Perfect and would that be a starting point would be work on one firstly would it be at the face under control then go for the path or would it be go for the path then. Depending on the golfer really in a lesson sometimes we see golfers will be able to change the face and the path within a half an hour's period of time we can work on one and the other. Generally I work on the path 1st so I would encourage a golfer to stand here and make sure they're swinging to the right the difficult bit is sometimes they'll actually get worse they'll hit more shots on the driving range or the practice going to the right but you have to go through the pain barrier then work on face. Some people are going to take a week or so to get that path right before we can work on face running before you can walk. You know we need to get it right and in the right order. Yeah but I would work on a box bring the club down swing to the right then swing to the right with some hand action and that for most golfers we turn that slice into a draw. Excellent are 2 fantastic points down I think very critical points if we are understanding the difference between the face and the path and then we can bring those two together and see what is causing what type of shot we have, and you can flip it on the head as well for if you are a hooker of the golf ball once we've got those 2 things under control we should start to see we can straighten out our golf shots and start to hit longer straighter better golf shots from there.