Max Ayala is an 18 year old golfer from Mexicali, Mexico, I’ve had the pleasure of coaching Max for the past 6 years. It has been exciting for me to witness his growth into a young man that has a true passion for the game and not to mention unbelievable talent for playing it.
In today’s’ lesson of the week we will be looking at how a clubhead travels through the hitting area and how that can affect your ball flight.
Stability is defined in the dictionary as the resistance to change, especially sudden change or deterioration. When golf professionals try to explain the concept of having a stable clubhead through the hitting area, we are basically saying that we want a clubhead that can stay square to the target line a long period of time. This allows the clubhead to travel down one direction without adding any curvature to the ball thus creating a consistent ball flight.
This picture illustrates a target line (blue) and a club path line (red) since the club is traveling around us in a circular motion it is impossible to create a perfectly straight club path line (red).The trick to hitting straight golf shots is to try to create a repeatable motion that allows our square clubface to travel down the target line (blue) as long as possible.
As you can see from the picture, Max was having trouble keeping a consistent clubface through impact. The right hand way on top of the left hand is a good indicator of excessive hand rotation and not enough rotary motion with the chest. Max was hitting about an inch behind the ball and drawing the ball way too much with an inconsistent flight pattern. I explained to Max that the chest and arms are connected through the shoulders therefore if a golfer concentrates more on rotating their chest on the proper plane then the arms tend to travel on a more neutral plane through the hitting area.
What we would love to do is imitate Tiger Woods in 2002, as you can see Tiger has been able to clear out his left hip more effectively which will allow his chest to rotate easier through the hitting without any excessive hand rotation. After explaining to Max about the proper club path in relation to the club face he went from hitting draws that crossed over the target line to beautiful 2 yard cuts. Way to go, Max!!
Come join us over at Future Champions Golf in order to see if we can get your clubface more stable through the hitting area and get you hitting great golf shots out on the course. Check out our website for upcoming events and weekly lessons.