Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro
Having the clubface perfectly aligned to the target during the full swing will obviously give benefits. The only difference there is if you are trying to play fade, if you are trying to play a draw, the clubface doesn’t need to be aligned to target when you are hitting the shots. And there are also differences in the short game because as you know from seeing many, many professionals play, you have seen from probably many tip videos before, opening and closing the clubface with the wedges can give you very different results.
For example I have got here my lob wedge. And I am just going to hit out here, a normal little pitch shot. And what I want to do is I want my clubface square to target, I want to swing through on my ball to travel straight down towards my target as well. But what if I want to get more height, what if I want to hit the ball much, much higher. So I want to play more of the flop shot. Well, what I will be doing here is opening up my clubface so I have more loft. Now you will notice here that as I open up my clubface, it starts to point off to the right hand side. So what I then need to do is alter my aim and for a flop shot what I want to do is I want to keep my clubface aiming right at my target, but because my body is aiming left, path will travel much further left. And the ball will come out in the middle of those two things. The big key here is loft, loft is a great forgiver, loft will correct or incorrect ball flight more often than many people know, but getting in this type to setup with a short game, you can really start it all to face same and play around with different types of spin. So I am going to get in this position, clubface open to my target, it is little flag, body open as well and I was going to swing above my bodyline, ball will pop out nice and high and then start to drift off to that right hand side as well. Clubface alignment during the full swing is very, very important. And it is just as important in the short game, but you can start to play around with it on certain shots and certainly in bunker shots. So it’s not actually aiming at the target, but using it in combination with angle of attack and with club path, you can still get it started out towards target. Is there difference? There’s certainly a difference but it is something that can be mastered with practice. 2016-10-28Having the clubface perfectly aligned to the target during the full swing will obviously give benefits. The only difference there is if you are trying to play fade, if you are trying to play a draw, the clubface doesn’t need to be aligned to target when you are hitting the shots. And there are also differences in the short game because as you know from seeing many, many professionals play, you have seen from probably many tip videos before, opening and closing the clubface with the wedges can give you very different results.
For example I have got here my lob wedge. And I am just going to hit out here, a normal little pitch shot. And what I want to do is I want my clubface square to target, I want to swing through on my ball to travel straight down towards my target as well. But what if I want to get more height, what if I want to hit the ball much, much higher. So I want to play more of the flop shot. Well, what I will be doing here is opening up my clubface so I have more loft. Now you will notice here that as I open up my clubface, it starts to point off to the right hand side. So what I then need to do is alter my aim and for a flop shot what I want to do is I want to keep my clubface aiming right at my target, but because my body is aiming left, path will travel much further left. And the ball will come out in the middle of those two things. The big key here is loft, loft is a great forgiver, loft will correct or incorrect ball flight more often than many people know, but getting in this type to setup with a short game, you can really start it all to face same and play around with different types of spin.
So I am going to get in this position, clubface open to my target, it is little flag, body open as well and I was going to swing above my bodyline, ball will pop out nice and high and then start to drift off to that right hand side as well. Clubface alignment during the full swing is very, very important. And it is just as important in the short game, but you can start to play around with it on certain shots and certainly in bunker shots. So it’s not actually aiming at the target, but using it in combination with angle of attack and with club path, you can still get it started out towards target. Is there difference? There’s certainly a difference but it is something that can be mastered with practice.
