When you hit a golf ball that ball will have spin on it more often than not it will have backspin and then some degree of side spin, so as the club comes – coming into the golf ball the club face has a degree of loft on it that will impart the back spin. And then the difference between the path and the face when you hit the golf ball, will impart some degree of side spin. So the path is described as the direction the club is travelling as it hits the golf ball, and the face angle is the direction where the face is aiming as you hit the golf ball.

And unless the path and the face are exactly travelling in the same direction, there will be some degree of what we would class as side spin, side spin isn’t actually the ball spinning side ways, the ball will always be spinning backwards and then it will have some degree of tilted backspin which could be classed as the side spin. Side spin is an easy to understand term, so I will keep using it, but the ball has back spin, and then it tilts on the back spin axis and it has a degree of what we class as side spin. Now the speed that you hit the golf ball and the speed the club head is travelling can also change the amount of spin as well, so you will often find, when you hitting with a shorter iron or wedge, we generate loads of back spin, limited amount of tilted back spin or side spin.

Then when we change to a driver we generally find we generate less back spin and potentially a lot more opportunity to tilt the spin and to curve the ball offline, particularly if that path and that face aren’t lined up. And often what we would suggest is a better golfer as opposed to a worse golfer, the better golfer is simply better at controlling the amount of spin he creates, so he hits the ball down the middle and it stays down the middle whereas the high handicap hits the ball down the middle but can’t control the spin and then the ball veers offline.

The higher handicapper hits nice high floaty wedgies on to the greens that stop and spin, the worse golfer, the higher handicap golfer hits balls that land on the green, they don’t spin and they shoot off the back. So the better golfer is just better at controlling the accuracy of their spin and the amount of back spin. The higher handicap golfer, less accurate in their side spin control, less accurate in their back spin control, and that's often the difference between a high handicap golfer and a lower handicap golfer. If you can improve the spin control, you can improve your golf.