Reducing The Dreaded Side Spin (Video) - by Pete Styles
Reducing The Dreaded Side Spin (Video) - by Pete Styles

As a golfer if you can conquer the dreaded side spin that you are putting on a golf ball you are on a good way to being a much, much better player. Now the first thing to conquering the side spin is understanding the side spin, understanding what it is and where it comes from. Now the first consideration is side spin is not necessarily as you might picture in your brain, a ball rotating like this, a ball does no rotate like this, a ball rotates this way, with a degree of back spin and then the side spin element is a bit of a tilt to that back spin. So a ball is always back spinning it just tilts side ways a little bit as well. If the ball was back spinning and side spinning to the same degree, the ball would be tilting on an axis of 45 degrees.

If the ball wasn’t back spinning at all, and only side spinning, then it would be laid side ways and spinning this way. But generally when we see a golf ball even with the driver and its curving a lot we would probably get a round 3000 revs of back, and 1000 revs of side, so its only on the third axis like this and that ball is going around corners anyway. So less side spin than that, the ball is back spinning a lot more so consider side spin, back spin, almost as an aero plane, if we tilt the axis that the ball curves around, it curves in flight so that will be a fade if I'm looking down the fair way, tilting the axis and the ball fades it, tilting the axis draws it to a hooks this way, so you can consider the axis spin and the way the ball curves, then you can go a long way to being a better golfer. Generally the side spin is impacted on a golf ball at the point of impact, and it happens because the club is travelling in one direction, and the club face is travelling or aiming in a different direction. So ball that slices and tilts the ball this way is a swing path that travels from right to in. So we would be hitting a golf ball and the path would be travelling to the left, but the club face position would be aiming more so to the right, so its an out to end with a rightwards aiming face, and a draw from the right side to the left side, tilting the aero plane wing this way, that would be a path that’s into out, with a club face aiming more to the left, and if there is an issue, where the face and the path aren’t lined up together, we get a degree of this side spin which is actually the tilted back spin. But you will get a degree of curvature on the golf ball because the path and the face aren’t lined up. The closer you can get the path and the face to being together, and the close the path and the face could be to the target line, if you strike the ball out in the middle you generally hit straighter shots, so we don’t want to see big differences between path and face and we definitely don’t want to see, big differenced between the path and the face and the intended target line. Yet the three things, the path, the face, the intended target line, lined up nicely down the center you will hit more straighter shots, if you can control the side spin you can control your ball, and you can control your scores. 2015-11-03

As a golfer if you can conquer the dreaded side spin that you are putting on a golf ball you are on a good way to being a much, much better player. Now the first thing to conquering the side spin is understanding the side spin, understanding what it is and where it comes from. Now the first consideration is side spin is not necessarily as you might picture in your brain, a ball rotating like this, a ball does no rotate like this, a ball rotates this way, with a degree of back spin and then the side spin element is a bit of a tilt to that back spin. So a ball is always back spinning it just tilts side ways a little bit as well. If the ball was back spinning and side spinning to the same degree, the ball would be tilting on an axis of 45 degrees.

If the ball wasn’t back spinning at all, and only side spinning, then it would be laid side ways and spinning this way. But generally when we see a golf ball even with the driver and its curving a lot we would probably get a round 3000 revs of back, and 1000 revs of side, so its only on the third axis like this and that ball is going around corners anyway. So less side spin than that, the ball is back spinning a lot more so consider side spin, back spin, almost as an aero plane, if we tilt the axis that the ball curves around, it curves in flight so that will be a fade if I'm looking down the fair way, tilting the axis and the ball fades it, tilting the axis draws it to a hooks this way, so you can consider the axis spin and the way the ball curves, then you can go a long way to being a better golfer.

Generally the side spin is impacted on a golf ball at the point of impact, and it happens because the club is travelling in one direction, and the club face is travelling or aiming in a different direction. So ball that slices and tilts the ball this way is a swing path that travels from right to in. So we would be hitting a golf ball and the path would be travelling to the left, but the club face position would be aiming more so to the right, so its an out to end with a rightwards aiming face, and a draw from the right side to the left side, tilting the aero plane wing this way, that would be a path that’s into out, with a club face aiming more to the left, and if there is an issue, where the face and the path aren’t lined up together, we get a degree of this side spin which is actually the tilted back spin.

But you will get a degree of curvature on the golf ball because the path and the face aren’t lined up. The closer you can get the path and the face to being together, and the close the path and the face could be to the target line, if you strike the ball out in the middle you generally hit straighter shots, so we don’t want to see big differences between path and face and we definitely don’t want to see, big differenced between the path and the face and the intended target line. Yet the three things, the path, the face, the intended target line, lined up nicely down the center you will hit more straighter shots, if you can control the side spin you can control your ball, and you can control your scores.