Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro
The basics of a knockdown shot are very, very important. They’re essential to practice before you take this technique out on to the golf course. So what you want to be looking for within this is something which is going to deliver a consistent impact, control over the ball flight, and also a consistent setup position that you can repeat with most of your golf clubs. Now ball positions here are subject to change. I’m using my seven iron here, as the clubs get longer they will go further forward ball positions. And as the clubs get shorter the ball positions will go further back.
So what I’m going to do first of all is I’m just going to talk through the setup, and how that will affect the overall shot. So with this setup with a seven iron normally it’s just forward of center, but I’m going to move this ball position just slightly further back in the stance into the middle. My stance, which is usually about shoulder-width apart, I’m going to narrow very slightly. This is because my overall swing length isn’t as long, and I want more control over where I’m bottoming out of the club in the swing arc as well. I’m going to get a little bit more weight on my left side. Because my swing is not going to be as long, I don’t have as much time to transfer my weight left. So getting my weight a little bit preset left is very, very important. So weight preset left, ball position very, very central. Then what I’m going to do is I’m going to focus on my backswing, keeping my sternum very much over the top of the golf ball. As my sternum is over the top of the golf ball I’m going to turn back and get into what I would class as a three-quarter backswing position. From here I can turn my body, moving left, maintaining that same sternum position, and you can see the amount of shuffling that I have at the point of impact. On my follow-through I’m going to be moving up to, again, that three-quarter position on the way through. So those are the basic fundamentals of getting setup, and then hitting a knockdown shot. It should give you a lower ball flight; it should give you more control over the overall trajectory of the shot as well. So into that setup, three-quarters back, three-quarters through, and just trying to gain that little bit more control over the overall shot. 2016-10-27The basics of a knockdown shot are very, very important. They’re essential to practice before you take this technique out on to the golf course. So what you want to be looking for within this is something which is going to deliver a consistent impact, control over the ball flight, and also a consistent setup position that you can repeat with most of your golf clubs. Now ball positions here are subject to change. I’m using my seven iron here, as the clubs get longer they will go further forward ball positions. And as the clubs get shorter the ball positions will go further back.
So what I’m going to do first of all is I’m just going to talk through the setup, and how that will affect the overall shot. So with this setup with a seven iron normally it’s just forward of center, but I’m going to move this ball position just slightly further back in the stance into the middle. My stance, which is usually about shoulder-width apart, I’m going to narrow very slightly. This is because my overall swing length isn’t as long, and I want more control over where I’m bottoming out of the club in the swing arc as well. I’m going to get a little bit more weight on my left side. Because my swing is not going to be as long, I don’t have as much time to transfer my weight left. So getting my weight a little bit preset left is very, very important. So weight preset left, ball position very, very central.
Then what I’m going to do is I’m going to focus on my backswing, keeping my sternum very much over the top of the golf ball. As my sternum is over the top of the golf ball I’m going to turn back and get into what I would class as a three-quarter backswing position. From here I can turn my body, moving left, maintaining that same sternum position, and you can see the amount of shuffling that I have at the point of impact. On my follow-through I’m going to be moving up to, again, that three-quarter position on the way through. So those are the basic fundamentals of getting setup, and then hitting a knockdown shot. It should give you a lower ball flight; it should give you more control over the overall trajectory of the shot as well. So into that setup, three-quarters back, three-quarters through, and just trying to gain that little bit more control over the overall shot.
