Why You Need This: In this video, "Lower Hands for Better Impact"...

You'll learn how to hit those really clean and crisp golf shots.

One of the most common mistakes I see with players is that, in the downswing, they get the club too steep and come in above the elbow plane.

You can easily check to see if you're doing this by analyzing your divot.

Is your divot perfectly square or does it look more lopsided as if only a small portion of your clubhead made contact with the ground?

Your divot should have a nice wide square shape which shows you that the bottom of the clubhead made contact with the ground evenly.

When you notice a lopsided divot, that could mean that you're coming in too steeply and the toe of the club is making contact with the ground first.

Here's how to fix that:

As you start your downswing, you need to perform what I refer to in the Top Speed Golf System as The Move.

Essentially, this is shallowing out the club in the downswing.

Your left wrist should bow as you shallow the club path.

At first, it may feel like the hosel end of the clubface will hit the ground and that's a normal feeling.

Just keep track of your divots to see the evidence if you're coming in correctly.

Watch this video now to shallow out your club path in the downswing and get lower hands for better impact.

See if you can make a perfectly square divot!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 4:25

Video Transcription:

All right guys, I’ve got a great video for you today on how to hit those really crisp, clean golf shots. This is something a lot of people don’t think about, but if you start to pay attention to it you notice right away that you may not be right where you need to be to hit those really nice, clean shots.

One of the biggest mistakes that I see, or most common mistakes I see in golf is having the divots that are a little bit askew.

You can imagine a very common thing to happen. If I can draw a plane from the hosel of my club up through my right elbow at address, we call that the elbow plane.

Now what we want to have happen is as we’re making the downswing, we’re going to have our club shallow out a little bit below that elbow plane, and then come in nice and square with the ball.

As I do that, the leading edge of my club, the sole of my club, should be perfectly flush with the ground. So what happens a lot of times is I see players that get a little bit steep, they get above this elbow plane, and then what happens is they back up and their arms kind of go down this way.

Now the toe of my club is digging down in the ground. You see how the hosel of my club sticking up, the toe of my club is digging down. When you do that, it gets these divots where the toe starts first and then the heel starts.

The feeling for this is going to be if you go ahead and go steep, try this out, if you’re in your living room right now, stand up grab a club. Come down steep, and then let’s move your hands like you’re moving your thumbs down toward the ground.

So this would be thumbs up, that’s what’s called radial deviation, we don’t need to know that term, but ulnar deviation means the thumb’s down this way.

When I do my thumbs down too early, now you can see the toe of my club digs into the turf. Let’s go ahead and try one out. I’ll hit one toward the green here in the distance, and I’ll try to come in too steep and then really stand up and get the thumbs down toward the turf, and let’s take a look at this divot.

There we go. Not very solid, we’ll see here when we look at my divot, I’ll show you a close-up view of that there in a second, that the leading edge, the toe of the outside of my divot, this part of it is deeper. It’s starting first and then it’s at an angle, then the heel of the divot is kicking in.

That’s when we’re kind of throwing the club down, the divot is crooked, it’s not real square as we’re doing that.

Now let’s go ahead and do this the correct way, and what we’re going to feel here are a couple things. Number one, as we start the backswing, complete the backswing and start the downswing, what we talk about in The Move series.

So we want this club to shallow out, and we’re going to start to feel like we get our left wrist to bow a little bit. So I’m letting this left wrist bow, and that’s what’s going to drop down this leading edge a little bit.

As I shallow out my club here, now my hosel is dropping down, the sole of my club on the inside is dropping down, and as I come through now I’m going to feel like if anything – I’m going to exaggerate it here a little bit – if anything my heel of my club is lower.

So the handle is coming in lower and kind of exiting to the left like this. So we look at this from face on, we’re getting some good lag shallowing out that club. This wrist is bowing just like we go over in The Move series in the website.

Then as we’re coming through, this handle’s going low and moving into the left. I feel like the hosel is only going to be the feeling, the hosel of my club is hitting the ground first. That’d be the opposite of what I see almost all players doing.

I struggled with this for years, and never could figure out exactly what it was until I realized how plane and the flip of the hands related this.

If I can get this leading edge perfectly square, that’s going to allow me to contact the ball a lot more solid. Let’s go ahead and try it out. I’ll shallow this one out, I’ll come in nice and solid, and if anything I’ll get that heel leading the way first.

There we go, nice and solid. If you check out this divot I’ll show you close up of this one in a second, you’ll see it’s nice and square. The leading edge is perfectly square with the target, and my heel and toe are coming in, contacting the turf at the same amount of time.

Play around with this a little bit. Get to a nice patch of grass where you can see your divots, and work on that perfectly square heel as you’re hitting the shots.

If your toe’s digging down, you’re going to need to flatten that out a little bit more. Feel like the heel is even lower as you’re coming through the shot.

If your heel gets a little bit down, which I don’t see very often, that’s very, very rare. Then you can just go ahead and relax, go ahead and let the hands be a little bit higher at contact. We’re looking for that very perfectly square divot as soon as it hits the turf.

Good luck to you guys, work hard.