Swing smarter, not harder.
Here’s an old-school test: Put some impact tape or foot powder on the face of whatever club you like and start hitting full-swing shots. Just a hunch, but if you struggle to break 90, I’m guessing the majority of your strikes aren’t in the middle of the clubface. Even golfers who routinely shoot in the 80s struggle
to get pure, centre-face contact time after time.
If it’s a challenge for you to hit the ball solidly, I’ve got some drills and tips to improve your quality of contact from your driver down to your wedges. With each type of club, the task to strike the ball in the middle of the face changes, so be sure to follow along with my advice to make the necessary adjustments. The good news is that you don’t have to swing harder to get better; you just have to swing smarter. Let’s go to work.
Driver compression: Adjust your swing arc
Poor contact with a driver is typically caused by a downswing that is too steep into the ball. Obviously, you need to swing your driver downward to hit the shot, but the clubhead actually should be on its way up as it reaches the tee. If you hit a lot of drop-kicks, sky-balls or even take a divot with your driver every now and then, you need to adjust your setup and the height of your swing arc.
First, let’s make some changes at address. The mistake is to shove your hands forward [above], which primes you for that steep downswing and poor contact.
Instead, try hovering the driver at address and stand a bit taller. Your hands should be a little behind the ball position, too, which brings me to one of my favourite drills for better contact: lay an alignment stick on the ground on your target line under a teed-up ball [above]. When you swing, the goal is to hit the ball without touching the alignment stick [below]. Doing this gets your swing arc off the ground, allowing you to make really solid contact.
Fairway-wood compression: Keep your lead foot steady
When you need a reliable club for a tee shot or to send one down the fairway on a par 5, fairway woods are your friends. The mistake with these clubs, however, is to try to help them do their job. I see a lot of amateurs spin out with their lead foot and try to lift the ball off the turf with some body language. The lead foot’s toes turn towards the target before the club reaches the ball, shifting weight to the back foot and causing poor contact.
A great drill to prevent the spinout is for you to grab a fairway wood and address a ball with another ball resting next to your lead foot’s heel [top photo, above]. If you spin out, you will bump that ball [above]. The goal is to hit the shot as solidly as possible without moving it [below]. In fact, you get an A+ if your heel moves a little further away from the ball in the downswing than where it was at address. What’s happening is that your weight is moving in the right direction, towards the target, and that puts you in position to compress the ball off a short tee or tight fairway.
Iron compression: Maintain the connection
Amateurs hit the ball all over the face with their irons because they disconnect the movements of their arms and body during the swing, which causes the club to bottom out before the ball or reach it on a steep, glancing path – or both [above]. The goal is to get the body and arms working together and for the low point in the swing to come after you strike the ball. I’ve got two drills that can help.
The first is to wrap a towel behind your back and under your arms [above] and hit three-quarter iron shots. The towel prompts you to keep the connection between your arms and body as you swing back and down. It should feel like there is so much tension between your body and the towel, you might rip the fabric as you swing.
The second drill helps teach you to not just throw your hands and arms at the ball from the top of the swing, a common mistake. Grab a filled water bottle and mimic a downswing starting from the top. The goal is to get the water to spill out as late as possible, with some of it even dumping out in front of where your ball would have been [above]. To release the water (“energy”) later in the downswing, your body and arms have to rotate together through impact. Then the energy can be released to deliver a powerful strike.
Wedge compression: Lead with the hands
Many amateurs struggle to control distance on longer wedge shots because they hit them way too high. The mistake is making a wristy strike that adds even more loft to a club that already has plenty. Here I’m simulating the look of a bad wedge swing at impact [above]. Note how the clubhead has reached the alignment rod I stuck in the ground (which represents ball position) before my hands get there. I put a pointer on the clubface to show just how high the ball would launch if I flicked at it this way. That’s a shot that will balloon and never make it to the green.
If you watch tour pros when they get inside of, say, 100 yards, their first option is almost always to drive a wedge shot into a green with spin that stops it pin-high. My finish-line drill is a great way for you to learn how to do the same:
Put a rod in line with a ball at address [above, above] and start hitting shots. Your goal is to rotate your body towards the target so your hands reach the stick (the finish line) before the clubhead strikes the ball [above]. When the hands win the race, you’ll immediately feel better contact and see the ball bore lower through the air. That’s ball-striking 101.
Ryan Hager, one of Golf Digest’s Best Young Teachers in America, is director of instruction at Plainfield Country Club in Edison, New Jersey.
Photographs by James Farrell
