By Alan Watson, President, GOLF+ Panama City Beach, FL
I hear it over and over again. Alan, I just want to hit the ball straight. Well, good luck with that. Even the best golfers in the world don’t hit the ball straight. Particularly when they have a driver in their hand. Cam Young, PGA Tour golfer, plays a natural draw (right-to-left movement) off the tee and he hits it long. Rory McIlroy long. But when the hole demands it, Cam can also hit a cut, moving the ball from left to right. He makes small changes in his setup and swing path to accomplish this. So if one of the hardest-hitting players on tour can’t hit it straight, what makes the rest of us golfers think that we can?
Apparently, along the way, we all bought into the driver and club advertisements from the big manufacturers. What they said was “hit it straighter,” but what we all heard was “hit it straight!” Not gonna happen! Seriously, golf is hard. I think we have already established that point.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler plays a cut but occasionally will draw the ball. You know what you won’t see him do? Hit the ball straight.
Okay. Okay. I’ve made my point. So how does this affect you and me? Well, for starters let’s just all give up on the notion that the ball goes straight and accept the fact that due to club path, face angle, angle of attack, head shape, internal weight, bulge and roll, shaft length, flex, and many more things the ball will move somewhat to the left or the right. The next thing to do is to figure out what you naturally tell the ball to do. And to accomplish this, you really need to get on a launch monitor and see some data. Once you see your club head speed, your angle of attack, where you tend to strike the ball on the face, the angle of the face at impact, and the path you swing the club on, then you can see how the ball will fly if you change nothing about your clubs or your swing.
Now that we know if you are a drawer of the ball or a cutter of the ball, we can move on to what to do about it. If you don’t have too much movement and you are pretty consistent, then I say just dance with the one that brung you and don’t change a thing. However, if the movement is too much and it’s getting you in trouble with trees, OB, or causing uncertainty over how far it will move, then it’s time to do some things. For example, if you are hitting the club in the heel a lot, you could shorten the shaft a little. Hitting the center of the face not only gives you more ball speed at impact, but it also helps to reduce side spin. Let’s say you have the wrong flex in your driver. The shaft is too soft for your club head speed. Changing that shaft to a heavier, stiffer option could lead to straighter, more consistent drives. If you have a movable weight driver, you always want to position the weight directly behind the strike for more energy transfer and straighter shots. So note where you hit on the face 7 or 8 out of 10 times and move that weight. There are several other issues that can be addressed as well, but without a launch monitor and a good fitter, you may not have the tools to fix this yourself.
Ok, so you still want to hit it straight or at least straighter than you currently can. I get it. Let’s talk about golf lessons. A great teaching professional has the tools to be able to see your issues, assign drills to help you practice and train, and can monitor your progress as you get better. Lessons cost money. But so does golf and so does equipment. You might as well seek professional help if the swing issues are more of a problem than the golf clubs. I went to see a teaching professional two years ago and he showed me something in my path that I didn’t realize was there. Then he showed me the fix for it. Now, when I hit a poor shot, I recognize the issue and make an adjustment on the next swing based on his advice. There are many great teachers in our area, and you don’t have to take weekly or even monthly lessons to see improvement in your game. Sometimes, a few lessons sprinkled throughout the year can help you to find some fixes without overloading your golf brain.
If you want to see what’s going on with your swing or your equipment or both, please give us a call or book online for a fitting and we can show you where you are at and what fixes we recommend.
Call (850) 249-2726 or visit www.golfplusretail.com and click the fitting tab to book an appointment.
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