Good golfers hit good shots by making good contact. If you really want to be good at golf, or at least get better, it starts with making solid contact with the golf ball. Its extremely difficult to make swing adjustments if you aren’t hitting the ball solidly. Now, I’m definitely not saying you have to pure it every single time. There will be days where your swing feels great, and unfortunately there will be other days where you feel like you’ve never swung a golf club before in your life. In my opinion, solid contact is the foundation of the golf swing, and is the key to producing a consistent, repeatable swing. I’m sure there are plenty of people that would love to argue that, and I’d actually love to hear those points of view.
Before we dive in to some tips on making solid contact, I’ll start by saying that it ain’t easy. I truly believe its just about one of the hardest damn things in all of sports. The golf swing is extremely complex, and has a ton of moving parts. This makes diagnosing problems difficult. Your body has a tendency to correct itself and try its best to hit the golf ball no matter what position you consciously put it in. So what does that mean? Basically, if you take the club back really far inside, your body will “flip” your wrists when you come through the ball, because if you don’t, the ball is going straight right. I say all of that to say that it can be difficult to determine the root cause of your swing issues. You may find something that you’re doing incorrectly, but that issue could be caused by something else entirely that occurs much earlier in the swing. So trying to fix that issue that you see may actually be impossible without fixing the root cause. If you want to see what I mean for yourself, go on any Facebook Golf Group and look in the comments when someone asks for advice on their swing. Its all bullshit. People will just comment the first thing they see with absolutely no advice on how to fix it. I’d highly recommend finding someone that will actually analyze your swing. I wish I had that kind of resource when I was first starting out.
Here are three ways you can start making solid contact with the golf ball:
- Low Point Control
- “Hands in front of the club head”
- Quit Overswinging
Low Point Control
I’m sure you’ve heard what low point is in the golf swing, but if you haven’t, its the lowest point your club reaches during the swing. In order to compress the ball and produce a consistent strike, the low point should be after you strike the ball. For the most part, golfers like to try and time their low point to be when they are making contact with the golf ball. Its so much harder to produce solid contact when you have to time so many moving parts.
Making sure your weight transfers to your front heel is also important in consistently hitting your low point. If you keep your weight back, you’ll likely have a low point that takes place before the ball, and we all know what that means. The ole chunkaroo.
Its also important to set up to the ball in a repeatable way. For a rough standard, lets have your feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent, and have your left arm straight. Or, find what’s comfortable for you and set up like that every single time.
This video does a great job explaining what the low point is in the golf swing:
“Hands in Front of the Club Head”
This one is a pretty simple concept, but it can be difficult to do. Having your hands ahead of the club head all but ensures that you will be hitting the ball while your club is still moving downward. It also keeps the power loaded up in the swing. There are more technical ways of saying what I’m saying, but I’m trying to let you know exactly what I “feel” when I’m trying to accomplish a swing goal. If you stand there and feel like the club head is following your hands instead of staying even with your hands, you’ll most likely understand what I’m talking about. Swing with your hands, and allow the club head to trail behind you. Here’s a great video on this:
Quit Overswinging = Solid Contact
This last one doesn’t need a video, and doesn’t need much explanation, but it is super important. I see so many golfers swinging at the ball like it just stole their wife and became their kids new dad. Slow the hell down. No one cares if you can hit it 300 yards if it ends up in the woods 80% of the time. I used to be THAT GUY. I could hit a 9 iron 165 yards, and it would go… somewhere. I was a 10 handicap when I was doing that. My 9 iron goes about 145 yards now, and I’m a +3 handicap. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the birdies instead of the snakes in the woods. Plus, your friends will thank you when they can finally stop looking for your ball on every hole. Take your swing and dial it back to about 75%. Learn to make solid contact from there, and then you can learn to add power.