Learn how to compress the heck out of a golf ball!
You’re going to have some fun with this video.
Tell that ball who’s boss and compress it for powerful, penetrating shots.
There’s one key to the swing that you probably haven’t thought about…
And pros get it and the mid to high handicap players don’t.
There’s a special way to move your wrists…
And it’s really a key move that’ll help you square up the club face.
So if you’re looking to improve your ball striking, this is the video for you!
You’ll find out:
- what’s really happening through contact when you hit compressed shots,
- what’s happening at impact with shots that shoot up with a nasty slice, and
- how to make the proper changes to maximize your power!
You know what else you’ll learn?
What you’ll discover in this video, along with all the videos in my The Move series, are they key differences…
…between the high handicap folks that struggle every time they’re on the course…
And the golfers that are consistently shooting in the 70s and even lower.
Watch this video now and begin your journey to becoming a great player!
What's Covered: What the left wrist is doing as you perform a golf swing with emphasis on compression and contact.
Golf Pros Featured:
Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard
Video Duration: 8:19
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Normally, this video in our step-by-step, course-based training is only available to our All Access Members...
But I'll let you watch this ONE video today only... because I can already tell I'm going to like you !
Video Transcription:
Hi guys, now we’re ready to start the fun. We’re going to start compressing these golf shots.
There’s a special way that we move our wrists to square up the face that I think really separates the low, super good ball strikers from the guys that are struggling with ball striking. That’s what I’m going to teach you in this video.
First off, let’s go over what’s happening through contact in a very good, well-compressed shot versus a poorly-compressed shot.
When we’re hitting a draw, usually what’s happening is we’re going to come in a little bit shallower to the ground. You see my club is shallower to the ground, it’s going to exit shallower to the ground.
If you can imagine I had a swing plane here, it’s going to be on a bit of a flatter of an arc. That’s when I’m going to be mostly hitting a draw.
I’m also going to be closing that face down, so that the face is actually turning over from right to left, and that ball’s going to curve from right to left.
Whenever I close the face, I’m taking loft just like we talked about in the last video, I’m taking loft off that face, and now I’m taking this 4 iron, or let’s actually go with a 6 iron here. 6 iron has low 30s loft, and we’re going to turn this down.
PGA tour 6 iron at contact, they’re turning that down to about 21°, roughly, somewhere around in there, 21-22° of loft at impact. So they’re taking a lot of loft off of the club coming through contact.
Now when I’m hitting a slice, or what I see a lot of people hat really struggle with more of an over the top swing, I see this every single day, I see people that are coming with an over the top swing. Very, very common, and what I’m doing is I’m moving in a steeper angle.
Now you can see how this club is coming down steeper into the ground, and if I’m swinging over the top or slightly to the left, in order to make sure that that ball doesn’t go left, I have to open the face or I’m adding loft to the club.
A lot of players also struggle with not getting enough forward shaft lean. When we’re doing these two things, one of those is going to really compress the ball, make it hard hit, go a long way, lot of distance. The other one is going to kind of slide across the ball.
The first one is the sledge hammer, and the other one is kind of a glancing blow across the golf ball. So that’s all good and well, t’s good to know that that happens. How do we actually change it? That’s what we’re going to go over in this video.
Two things, we need to work on having more forward shaft lean, and in order to do that we need to really close the club face, or rotate the club face so it’s coming down.
In the downswing, I notice a lot of players that really struggle with forward shaft lean, they’re used to squaring the face up by using the hands and kind of flipping the hands forward.
If you look at my club face right now, my club face is pointing directly 90°, or roughly 90°, the leading edge is 90° to the right. As I come through contact, I’m pushing that forward and now my shaft is straight up and down, and the club face is pointed toward the target.
So if I go from this way, you’ll see that from here the club face is 90° pointed toward the camera, and then at contact if I don’t have very much forward shaft lean, now it’s at the target.
What happens if I try to get some forward shaft lean, to really compress that ball, to get that more compression, and to get that hard-hit shot?
Well as I lean my hands forward, watch my wrists, I’m going to keep them in the same angle. My wrists stay in the same angle, now I’m leaning the shaft forward, and as I’m coming down, the face is wide open.
This is what I see everybody doing as they’re starting the downswing, trying to get more forward shaft lean.
My face is wide open, I come into the shot, and I have no way, the club may even be off the ground like this when you’re doing the practice swings, but you’ll see my face is pointing way over there. That’s a huge block to the right.
If I was to hit this ball, it would end up over in the weeds over there. That’s the struggle that I see a lot of people working with that are trying to get more compression, and to really get those hard-hit shots.
So here’s what we have to do to change this. We know that we can square the face by moving the club this way, but there’s also another way we can square the face. We can square the face by rotating the club.
Imagine you’re looking at the butt end of my club here like a clock face, and I’m going to turn that clock in a circle. So the shaft itself isn’t moving, I’m rotating the club to open or close the club face without moving the shaft.
This one moves the shaft to square the club face, this one rotates the face about the shaft.
So what I want you to do here, is we’re going to go ahead and make kind of a fake downswing here, a mock downswing, and I want you to pause when your club is about parallel with the ground.
Your hands should basically in front of your right leg as you’re doing this. I want to have my hands fairly low, almost just a little bit above my knee as I’m doing that.
Now here the leading edge is straight up and down. With good players, you’re going to be turning this club until the face of the club is pointing directly down to the ground.
That’s going to be…good players are going to do this a little bit. We’re going to do this a lot in this drill.
Now you see that my left wrist is bowed, it’s got that bowing action. For those of you have been struggling to get that bow, this is going to be right up your alley.
My right wrist is cocked back, cupped back, it’s what’s called wrist extension. So my knuckles are going back toward the back of my elbow, and that allows me to rotate this face.
I want to do that until my face is all the way down to the ground, so I may have to move my right elbow a little bit to do it that much, but now I’ve got this face really, really closed.
From here, if I do the old-school kind of flip move, I try to square the Face up by releasing the shaft, closed club face, I square the face up by releasing the shaft, look at the face. It’s way to the left, I’m going to hit myself in the left shin.
From this way, it would be going into the trees left, so what do I have to do to square up the face? It’s the magic move right here. Close the club face, now I’ve got to get forward shaft lean to square up the face.
My hips are clearing out of the way, my arms are moving forward, I went from that very closed club face here, and because I don’t want to hit it left, I’ve got to get more forward shaft lean.
Look at that, I’ve taken all the loft off this club. I’ve probably got I would say 10°, 5° of loft on that club, and now it makes sense. Because I closed the face, I could now get as much forward shaft lean as I want to and I’m still going to get a draw.
I’m going to get rid of all those blocks to the right, the shanks, and those different kinds of shots that I may be hitting out there.
So to work on this drill, I want you to go ahead and start out by doing about 100 repetitions just pausing as you’re halfway down.
We’re going to go, I’m going to set up to the golf ball, I’m going to pause halfway down. My hands are just above my knee, I’m going to rotate that face all the way down to the turf. Then I’m going to pause at contact.
Again, you’re going to let those hips open up, let this right ankle start to come off the ground, and now I have so much forward shaft lean that my face is almost no loft on it, 5-10°, but it’s still pointing straight ahead.
If I’m doing this, well now my face is wide open, it’s pointing over there, no good. I’ve got to rotate that club to get it square, and then we’re going to go ahead, after you’ve done that about 100 times, now you’re going to go ahead and make a practice swing.
There we go, and we’re rotating that face, getting as much forward shaft lean as we can. Let’s go ahead and try one out, and I’ll hit a shot down the middle of the fairway. I’m really going to exaggerate.
Tons of closing, tons of forward shaft lean, again, my hips have to rotate, my right heel as to come up slightly off the ground, and this ball should come off like a bullet right down the middle of the fairway.
There we go, hit that one really solid. Couldn’t have been any straighter. Nice, low, penetrating trajectory, but I’m not chopping down into the ground to take the loft off.
I’m taking the loft off by rotating my hands and getting loft off, I’m not taking the club and chopping down in the ground. Nice and shallow, you’ll see I barely got a divot.
So go ahead and try that out, do about 100 reps pausing, another 100 reps hitting some small shots, and between each shot, get the feeling again. Closing the club face down, getting the forward shaft lean, and this way it looks like this.
Getting my hands right above my right knee, closing that down. Getting the hips clear out of the way, the right heel’s coming up, and I’ve taken all that loft off. Look at the leading edge of the face, it should be dead square, right to the middle of the fairway.
So good luck to you guys. Work on these drills, and we’re going to kick it up even another notch in the next video. I’ll see you all soon.