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Learning How to Control Your Low Point – Striking Pure Irons
This month we asked Golf Queensland's High Performance Coach Richard Woodhouse for his pick of a coaching tip.
In this ball striking tip I want to go into what I see is one of the most important factors that go into repeatable quality ball striking. If you are a golfer who struggles with variable contact, both heavy (behind the ball) or thin (striking around the equator of the ball) then you will be producing inconsistent low point control.
“Low point; by definition is the distance from the club head’s geometric centre to the lowest point on the swing arc at the time of maximum compression.”
Put that more simply and the golf swing travels on an arc and the bottom of that arc is the low point of the golf swing. When your ball is sitting on the turf, so in other words every shot asides from the driver your low point ideally would be located post impact.
A common issue amateur golfers face is consistency of strike, this would be directly related towards the low point of the swing frequently being found in a different place swing to swing.
The following diagram helps illustrate where the low point of the golf swing is:
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A negative attack angle indicates that the lowest point in the swing arc is after impact (maximum compression).
This drill is very simple yet incredibly effective for improving the quality of strike for your iron play. With the help of Trackman we can now measure low point which allows the player to get very precise real time feedback, as this isn’t possible for everyone when they head out to practice I like to incorporate the following drill to assist in providing feedback.
Simply go ahead and position your golf towel approximately two club heads behind the golf ball as seen in figure 1.
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Figure 1. – Set up with towel 2 clubheads behind ball
This towel is going to provide you some real time feedback at impact indicating to you where the bottom of the swing arc is.
The objective for you is to make a golf swing, miss the towel on the down swing whilst striking the golf ball. This may sound straight forward but if you are someone who has “hang back” in the golf swing or “early release” issues then this drill will start to expose those issues.
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Figure 2 & 3; demonstrating early release and hang back.
As you can see in Figures 2 & 3 the low point of the golf swing will definitely not be post impact, more than likely resulting in heavy or thin contact.
In the below diagrams (figures 4 & 5) you can see the delivery of the golf club is striking the ball on the descending side of the arc, collision occurs and the low point is past the golf ball some 5-8cm. By doing this drill you will bring awareness to areas of your golf swing that may need addressing. Common reasons for poor low point control are; set up – spine angles and pressure distribution, sway/slide, early release, body/arm sequencing.
By training the low point towel drill you will begin to come aware of the above issues and subsequently develop the awareness of moving pressure and/or sequencing release timing more efficiently.
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Figures 4,5,6 demonstrating pressure moving into left side on down swing and efficient release timing avoiding contact with the towel.
For more information on this drill or any other Richard can be found by the following contact details.
Email: richard@kdvsport.com
Phone: +61 415 853 337
Twitter: @RWoodhouseGolf
Instagram: richardwoodhousegolf