Why You Need This: In this video, you'll learn how to cover the golf ball.

You've probably heard at your local club about players "covering the golf ball."

Or you've heard about it on TV when talking about a PGA Tour player's swing.

But what the heck does "covering the golf ball" mean?

And if it's such a good thing, how do you do it?

Find out in this video.

You'll learn the 2 moves to help you properly cover the ball and get tons of ball compression.

Move #1: Chest and Body

To cover the ball, your chest and body moves down toward the ball in your downswing.

I see the opposite with many golfers when they stand up out of their posture and move their hips forward too early in the downswing.

This causes you to flip the club and lose your lag.

Move #2: Delofting Your Clubface

To cover the golf ball, you'll also need to make contact with forward shaft lean.

It'll feel like the clubface is covering the ball.

Note that you actually won't completely cover the ball; it's just what you'll feel.

PGA Tour players deloft their clubs roughly 30%, depending on the club.

For example, a pro hitting a pitching wedge with 45 degrees is actually making contact with a clubface angle of around 30 degrees.

So if you've ever wondered...

"How do the pros hit it so dang long?"....

Delofting the clubface is one of the reasons.

Watch this video now and find out how to cover the golf ball like a pro.

You'll learn...

• What covering the golf ball means,
• How to move your chest and body to cover the ball, and
• How to deloft your club and compress the ball with power!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 8:31

Video Transcription:

You probably heard that your local players, the really good players at your local club talk about covering the golf ball. You maybe heard PGA Tour players talk about covering the golf ball?

What the heck does that mean? How are we supposed to cover the golf ball? Is it even a good thing? Should we be trying to do this?

It is a really good thing, if done the proper way, but there’s a lot of misconceptions about covering the golf ball.

I’m going to go over the two moves that talk about how to properly cover the golf ball so you can get a lot of compression on there. Let’s go ahead and get started, if you want to start hitting more solid today, this is going to be a great video for you.

All right, so covering the golf ball comes down into two motions. Number one, we’re actually going to have our chest and our body worked down into the golf ball.

If you tend to stand up, so typically a lot of players that I see, let’s look from down the line here. Set up a ball so we’re a little more realistic.

As I start to come int the downswing, my hips are going to move forward, and then I’m going to stand up out of my posture. From there, I tend to going to flip the club. So it’s going to look something kind of like that as I’m swinging down.

My hips are moving forward, I’m standing back away from the ball. When that happens, I’m going to have to flip the club to be able to reach the golf ball.

So as my hips go here, they go toward the golf ball, toward the camera, then I’m going to have to flip to be able to reach down at that golf ball. So I’m going to lose some lag, I’m going to lose some forward shaft lean, my shots are going to tend to go pretty high.

I’m even going to lose a little bit of speed, and I’m definitely going to lose some consistency. Because my hips go forward, I’ve kind of got too flip hose hands out to reach that golf ball, and now all of a sudden sometimes I flip a little too much, the ball goes too high, it’s just very inconsistent.

It’s all over the face, very tough to hit the ball solid time, and time again. That’s piece number one we’re going to talk about.

Then piece number two, we’re going to talk about is actually delofting the face. So if you can imagine my hand the oft on the club. I’m actually going to deloft and get some forward shaft lean at impact, to feel like my club face or the loft on my club is covering down over top of the ball.

It’s going to feel like, if this is the golf ball, and here’s the loft on my face, I’m going to turn that all the way down where it feels, the sensation, is that I’m covering the top of the ball with my club.

Not really going to happen. We are delofting, or PGA Tour players are delofting their club about 30 percent.

So if you have a pitching wedge, 45° of loft, roughly, on a pitching wedge. They’re going to take about a third of that off, so about 30° of loft.

So 15° of forward shaft lean, 30° of loft on the face when they actually hit the golf ball. That’s that sensation of covering the golf ball.

So let’s start with number one. We talked about that early extension, very common. I bet I see probably, I would say, at least half the people or not more than that, maybe three-quarters of the people if I had to guess, are getting those hips to come toward the ball a little too early.

What we’re going to eel like here, is as we start out downswing, if we’re going to cover this golf ball, I need to find my legs and kind of squat a little bit, and I’m definitely going to feel like my chest kind of works down toward the golf ball.

So as I start my downswing, my chest is working down, my shirt buttons feel like they’re moving down closer to the golf ball. My hips are going to feel like they’re kind of going back that way.

If I go squat down, you’ll hear some people talk about the Sam Sneed squat, or the Tiger squat, well that’s all they’re doing, they’re just doing this to an extreme amount.

As they start their downswing, they’re letting those knees kind of separate a little bit, and there chest is working down toward the ball. I’m going to feel like somebody had my left hip here.

They’d be pushing it back, and I’m starting to clear my hip out of the way so I can stay down and into my poster.

As I continue around, you can come on to the release, I’m actually going to stay in my posture. So if here’s my shoulders in the backswing, as I come into the downswing, again my chest feels like it’s down toward the ball.

As I come through, I’m staying in my posture. My hips are moving back that way, feeling like I’m pushing this way with my left hip to clear about of the way. Now I’m in my posture I can really cover that golf ball.

The opposite of that would be, so I go to the top of the backswing, and then I stand up and all of a sudden my shoulders are level, my hips are moving to the ball to early.

What you want to do to feel this, let’s actually show this from a couple different angles. As I very first start down, what I’m going to feel like is I get a good turn to the top.

As soon as I start down, I’m going to let my hips start to come back, my chest feels like it’s working down toward the ground, and then as I’m coming to contact, or getting closer to contact, that’s when I’m going to extend up.

That extension, when I talked about getting those hips to move forward, that should happen in the golf swing. We should be doing that, but it’s not happening until we’re coming through the golf ball.

If you’re losing compression, you’re starting that as soon as you start down. Let me go ahead and show you this from a few different angles.

As I start down, I get into my max lag position. This is what we talk about in the Top Speed Golf System, we’re going to get a ton of lag at this halfway down position. We’re really loaded up with some power.

Again, there’s a flex between my upper leg, the bone in my upper leg and my torso. That’s going to allow me to feel like I’m covering the golf ball.

As I get past that, now I’ve gotten this max lag position, this is what we also talk about The Move in the Top Speed Golf System, really shallowing that club out. I’m in a powerful position here.

As I come on through the ball now and go to the straight-line release, that’s when I’m going to lose this angle. As I let that club whip on through contact, now my leg is straightening out with my torso. It’s not happening until the second part of the swing, though.

So I’m getting tons of lag, tons of power, and then from there, now I’m going to extend out coming through the shot, and I’ve lost this angle.

If you have early extension, if you’re not covering the golf ball, if you’re losing this, as soon as you start down, so you go to the top of the swing, as soon as you start down, you’re automatically moving those hips toward the ball.

What we want to do is as we start down, we’re going to move those, clear those out of the way. Again, my left hip is getting pushed back this way.

So I’m already way down here, then I’m going to release those hips, and then I’m going to let those hips fire to what we call the straight-line release. That’s going to allow me to get a lot of lag, and then get those to fire in front of the golf ball.

It’s not the move that you’re doing is wrong, it’s not that we don’t ever want these hips to extend, we just want that to be happening much later in the swing. That’s going to give me the sensation that I can still cover this golf ball because I’m not extending until after or coming the ball.

Now last piece for that, if you really want to cover the golf ball, this is crucial, even after I’m extending, I’ve got to keep my shoulders in posture.

If I start to extend and start to have my shoulders come up, my chest is going to move away from the ball, and I’m going to be flipping it every single time.

So that’s a big key with it. That’s the first piece of it, get my bod working correctly to cover the golf ball. The second piece here, is I’m going to go ahead and I’m going to hit some shots, and I’ve got to make sure that I feel like I’m taking all the loft off this face.

Again, I feel like I’m delofting this club where I’m hitting like this on top of the golf ball. Not really happening, but that’s the sensation of covering it.

The way I’m going to do that, is what we talk about in The Move. Very, very critical to get that lag and to have this left wrist be nice and flat, this club to be shallow, so I don’t want to be here, I want to be shallowing out this club and then I can feel like I come in and compress the golf ball and get on top of it.

So when I put those together, what I want you to do for your practice drills or your swings here, I want you to pause halfway down. I’m going to check to feel like my chest feels like it’s covering the golf ball, and I’m going to check to make sure my left wrist is flat.

I’ve got a ton of lag from here. Then as you’re coming through your practice swing, this slow-motion rep, again through impact, tons of forward shaft lean.

Feel like I’m down on top of the ball, and then I’m going to pause in my straight-line release, just like we go over in the Top Speed Golf System, I’m going to make sure when I’m in my straight-line release, that I have kept my shoulders in their posture.

I don’t want to be like this. I’ve got to keep those shoulders in their posture, then I’m going t be able to cover the golf ball.

So piece number one, as I start down, chest toward the golf ball. Piece number two is I’ve come through contact, I’ve got to have my left wrist bowed, I’m going to really feel like I’m covering that ball with the face of the club.

Then piece number three as I come to the straight-line release, I’m staying in the posture with my shoulders. If I can put those three pieces together, I can really compress this golf ball and feel like I’m covering on top of it and get a lot of speed and power.

Let’s try it out. There we go guys, try those things out, you’re going to cover the golf ball. You’re going to hit it more and more solid every day. Good luck.