Why You Need This:

In this video, you’ll discover how to hit solid golf shots and stop topping the ball.

This is the third video of my Stop Chunking & Topping series.

Quick recap of the previous videos in the series…

The first video focused on the body movements and stability needed to make better contact.

The second video focused on your weight transfer and how it contributes to more consistent contact.

Now on to this video…

You’ll get an in-depth view at how to use your arms to hit solid shots and avoid topping the ball.

You want to make sure your arms are coming down properly through the shot.

One point to follow is how your wrists influence your hitting zone…

And as you’ll see in the video, you’ll want to increase your contact zone to improve your consistency.

Also, I have a great drill and training aid to help you develop the right movements for solid contact.

The Impact Snap is a really cool training aid, and you’ll see how it’ll help you make solid contact with plenty of forward shaft lean.

Watch this video now to make better contact and stop topping the ball once and for all!

What's Covered: Adding to the previous videos on how to stop topping, now covering what the hands and arms are doing during a good golf swing in sync with weight shift and stability.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:52

Video Transcription:

Hi guys and welcome back. Hope you guys enjoyed the first two videos. In the first one we went over the body movements, talked about how to get those perfect angles so we can get rid of those chunks and those tops forever.

In the second one we went over your weight transfer, going to the right in the backswing, to the left in the follow through, but now it’s time to add the arms to this so we can use the entire body.

So we’ve got the angles, we’re using the big pieces, the legs, the hips, the torso, to make a great golf swing. Now let’s go ahead and add the arms in there, that way we can make sure that we’re always coming down and through the shot.

I’ve got a great drill for you on this, and a great training aid for this. So first let’s talk about what I want to be doing as I’m hitting this fantastic shot coming down and through, and really compressing the golf ball.

It really comes down to a couple movements with your wrists. In the Move section, so if you go to the Top Speed Golf instruction system, the five pieces there, if you go below that you’ll see a video called “The Move.”

In The Move we talk about how all great players are going to start to shallow out this club and begin to at least flatten this wrist, if not bow this wrist a little bit in the downswing.

What that does, is you shallow this out, you get this wrist nice and flat, it allows you to get some lag and some forward shaft lean, and to really compress this golf ball to get that divot coming down in front of the golf ball, hitting down and through.

So if we’re looking at that from this direction, we’re going to go ahead and shallow that club shaft. As you’re continuing down this is nice and flat, and as I’m coming through what’s going to happen is your club and your hands reach a low point about right here.

Then the butt end of the club actually starts to turn back up as you release the club. We call this impact glide, so basically what this is, is you can imagine, here’s my golf ball. My club is going to – I’m going to exaggerate here a little bit – my club is going to get its lowest point here.

As my club gets closer to the ground, my club is touching the ground here. This is obviously again exaggerated, but if I keep on turning the butt end of this club up my club head can work level with the ground for a very long period of time, because my butt end of my club is working out as this is releasing.

So imagine your club’s coming down, as this end of the club turns up the club head stays level with the turf for a very long period of time. So now instead of just having this one point that I can hit the golf ball, I’ve got this big zone that I can hit the golf ball now.

I could barely start touching the grass a couple inches behind the ball, but because I’m driving up my hands are turning up, the butt end of the club is turning up, I’m going to be coming in so level that I can really compress that golf ball.

You’re going to feel like the ball is sucking into the face, and it’s sticking against the face at contact a good five or six inches through contact. That’s the feeling you’re going to get, it’s not actually happening. We know the golf ball is only on there for a split second, but that the sensation that you’ll get if you do this correctly.

So a lot of this is, after I shallow this out, what do I do with my wrist? How do I get that to bow? How do I get my right wrist to be hinged back? This is called wrist extension. How do I get that to happen, and what’s the feeling for that?

Then letting that go in the follow through as I get to my straight line release like we talk about in our system. So we’ve got to get this lag, these wrist angles, and then let those go out in front. Awesome training aid here which is called the impact snap.

Really cool little training aid here. So what you do is you just grab this like your normal golf club, and if I was to go ahead and say flip this club, there we go, I got my flip. I’m casting the club, I’m rolling my hands, notice how this yellow golf ball is outside of my forearm.

That would be the incorrect motion, so that would be this flip. If I did that with a golf club, it would look like that where I’m flipping the club. Now if I do this correctly, as I shallow out this club like we just went over, this wrist starts to bow.

As I come around, I’m going to go ahead and rotate that until now, here would be my forward shaft lean, my compression, and now you can see this golf ball is right on my forearm. So I’m coming through there right on my forearm making contact, and then as I come on through we’ll see it’s still on my forearm there.

Notice how my left wrist is bowed and rotating on through. Also my right wrist is in extension, and then coming on through there. This is a little bit exaggerated.

If you wanted to go even more exaggerated, to make sure for those of you who are kind of long-time casters, use the impact snap and then we’re actually going to get this ball to pass through the inside of your forearms like that.

Now you can see just how bowed the left wrist is, you can see just how flexed the right wrist is. Now, there’s no flipping there. I want you to go ahead, if you guys have one of these, do about 50 to 100 reps just practicing, just feeling that motion.

Don’t worry about going with any speed, just time and time again. I’ll show you from two different angles here. I’m going to get that golf ball to touch the bottom of my forearm, the inside bottom of my forearm.

From this direction it looks like that. From here, looks like this. So we’re touching the inside, bottom of the forearm with the right hand. That’s allowing me to rotate that face on down.

Now that I’ve done 50 to 100 of these, actually let’s go ahead and do one more drill with this. It’s got a little ball in here, so as I swing the club it’s going to snap, that’s what the impact snap comes from.

As I start down, again, this is nice and flat. I’ve got some good lag here, and then I’m going to go ahead and release that club to my straight line release. That position that’s 35° or 45° in front, just like we go over in the system. Now I’m going to have that ball right against my forearm.

Let’s go ahead and try that again. I go to here, pause, left wrist’s bowed, just like The Move system. From there, we’re going to release that letting our hips rotate on through, letting our chest rotate on through. Now we’re in that awesome straight line release position and we haven’t flipped at all.

Another 50 to 100 reps doing that drill, and then once we add that club to it, no we’re really exaggerating this. There’s going to be no flip, no cast whatsoever. I’m coming down, I’ve got the move, flattened it out, nice and shallow.

Then as I come on through, now I’ really, really tons of forward shaft lean, bowed left wrist, this would be really hitting a compressed golf ball. It’s a little extreme.

We’re not going to really do this when we’re hitting a golf ball, but that’s a great way to get rid of that exaggerated flipping motion. Then we’re here into the straight line release.

Now that I’ve done 50 or 100 of those impact snap, just go in slow motion, 50 or 100 getting into the straight line release, really letting it fly. Now I’m going to go ahead and start to hit some golf balls and we’ll definitely be able to get rid of that casting motion and start compressing the heck out of this golf ball.

There we go, that came out really low, got a lot of forward shaft lean on it. Do the drills, good luck to you guys. You’re going to get rid of that topping forever. That club is never going to want to cast, never going to want to flip and hit the ground back here.

We’re going to be getting that forward shaft lean, always coming down and through the golf ball every single time. Work hard guys, I’ll see you all soon.