That’s right, CLUBFACE is KING!
Every golfer on the planet, if they know it or not, is making compensations in their swing and how their body moves solely based on where their clubface is in 3d space throughout their swing.
In other words, if you have an open face you will move your body and swing the club to compensate for the open face. Vice versa, if your face is closed you will also move your body and swing the club to compensate for the closed position. It’s not only where the face is looking, but also where it is relative to the golf ball that will force you to move a certain way.
Great, so why is that important?
It’s important because of a thing we call the Ball Flight Laws! These Laws are all based on physics and are absolutes that go for every golfer, of every level. I always want all of my players to remember what I call Ball Flight Law #1- The golf ball always starts where the Club Face is pointed at Impact! All things being equal and we actually hit the ball on the face, where your club face is pointed is around 90% responsible for where your ball starts. So, if you remember this, and your target is the middle of the fairway, and your ball starts 30 yards right of there, it’s because your face was pointed to the right at impact!
Many players feel like their face is square to their target at address, but in fact many are more left, or more right than what their eyes are telling them.
Don’t trust your eyes!
It’s easy for us to trust that our club face is looking where we want it to, but I tell players everyday that is a big mistake! If you watch the best players on the PGA Tour, they are constantly checking and re-checking the position of their club face. These are the best players in the world, and they are hitting thousands of shots a week! If they still need to check and make sure that their club face is actually looking where they want it to, you, the golfer who plays twice a week, and maybe practices once a month, should be checking and re-checking yours! Our eyes are often times lying to us in regards to where our club face is actually looking.
I see so many players who feel like they have a bad golf swing, or an inconsistent one, when the reality is they simply have poor club face awareness and management.
Calibrate your eyes to see straight!
How can we get better with this? If you do not have alignment sticks in your bag, I want you to get a couple ASAP! No, you don’t have to spend $80 on a set of alignment sticks, you can go to Walmart and pick up a couple of Driveway markers for $2 a piece, and they are the same exact thing! Once you have a couple, I want you to lay 1 down just outside your ball that is facing your target. I then want you to walk out in front of your ball about 5-10 yards and stick the second one in the ground on your target line. You now have a great practice station to help you understand where your club face is looking at address and at impact. You might ask, how can I tell where it looks at impact? Remember, the ball always starts where the club face is pointed at impact. So, if your ball starts left of the stick in front of you, your face was left, if it starts to the right of the stick, it was right, if you can start your ball right over the stick, then you know your club face was square to that target. There are many other drills that we can do to work on club face alignment, but I like to start with this one as it gets our address position in good shape.
2 driveway markers set up to help me work on club face awareness.
There’s definitely more to it, but we have to get off to a solid start!
As a player swings the club face is for sure all over the place, and we can talk about 1000’s of scenarios that throw the club face out of whack! But, I feel strongly that many players have their club face in a bad position in their setup before they even take the club back! If you work on this piece, you may be surprised at how much better your results get!
