Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

As previously mentioned, hitting a high ball fight is a not problem, it's a big advantage for many, many golfers. However, switching over to the links course or switching over to the course which is particularly windy; having the option to controlling a low ball flight is going to be very, very beneficial. Now if you are a golfer in the British Isles or you are golfer around the Coast of the US; you will have played courses and you will have seen the old boys going out, hitting the ball about too far off the ground and managing to get around the course very, very well. What they learned is to be able to strike down on the ball and control loft more. If you're striking down on the ball with a loft, you're going to get that high ball flight with spin and with control, however controlling the amount of loft on the club face is essential to controlling overall ball flight.

And what the old boys at the links courses have found out is that getting extra shuffly; de-lofting the club while still striking down will give you the control that will also lower the overall launch of the shot. So the drill that we use before about just trying to make sure that you're striking down and through the ball can be adapted to help you control ball flight even more. So the drill that we used was getting with the 9-Iron that ball position pretty much in the center of the stance, swinging back to halfway, making sure that the sternum in the hands were ahead of the ball and keeping that left wrist and arm nice and firm as you move through the ball. To give you an understanding of how you can control loft a little bit better and that you can increase that shuffly and decrease loft with the same club, all you want to be doing is moving that ball back a little bit further in the stance.

Now what this is doing automatically, it's made my sternum position already start ahead of the ball. So as I continue to shift left towards the target, my standing position and my low point and my swing, is going to be much further on in the actual process. If I move my club back to the ball there, you can see how much shuffly that I'm going to be achieving at the point of impact; shuffling will lower loft but I'm still striking down an I'm still going to be generating back spin. So adapting that same drill; ball further back, hands ahead, striking down and through, shifting that way will stall the ball off so much lower than you would normally see. And what you can do, you can go on to a golf course, as long as no one is going raise any eyebrows; take two balls, hit a normal shot and then move that ball position further back and get that standing position shifting further through at the point of impact. And just so I see the difference that it will have over the overall trajectories and the overall control that you can have over the ball flight, if you manage to control loft a little bit better.