Top teacher Michael Breed explains how understanding curve can improve our swings
One difficult aspect of golf is that the solutions to many of our misses are counter-intuitive. To help us better understand our common swing faults, we spoke with Michael Breed, who is ranked among Golf Digest’s 10 best teachers in America. The following Q&A with him has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
▶ ▶ ▶
Are there any misconceptions that golfers have about finding a repeatable ball flight?
Most of you struggle because you’re chasing the perfect golf swing, but the perfect swing isn’t necessarily the same for everybody, and it is absolutely not a straight golf shot. Many of you are trying to make the ball go straight, and you don’t embrace a shot shape. When you understand how to make a ball curve, what makes a ball curve and you play that shape, you will have a much more successful outcome in your quest for lower scores. Don’t chase straight,
chase curve.
The problem with straight is when you hit it straight, you must have the path coming into the ball square, you must have the face absolutely perpendicular to that path and then you must hit the ball in the centre of the face. When you curve the ball, you can have a path going some amount to the left or to the right, depending upon whether you’re trying to hit fades or draws. Then you must have the clubface some amount to the left or right of that path to be able to hit a curve. If the ball curves 15 feet or 25 feet, it’s fine. A lot of people don’t realise that when you curve the ball, you can be less perfect, and when you try to hit it straight, you have to be more perfect.
▶ ▶ ▶
What is the most common cause of slices that you see?
What I see is that people take the golf club back, and they roll the face of the golf club into what we call an open position. Then when they take this club that’s open and try to square it, there’s a few different things that can happen. They sometimes swing really across it, which creates a slice, or they pull across it and try to spin the clubface back. When they roll the face closed, all of a sudden they hit a hook. Both were caused by an open clubface in the backswing.
▶ ▶ ▶
You talk about how aim and alignment are different. Can you explain that?
When wheels on a car are in alignment, it means that the wheels of the car are consistent with one another. Alignment in golf to me is when the line of my feet, knees, hips and shoulders are all parallel to one another. I see most amateurs have their feet going one way, their knees going left of that, their hips going left and shoulders going left. That’s not in alignment.
I want my alignment to be parallel to where I’m aiming, if I’m trying to hit a straight shot. I can be aimed properly but be out of alignment. When I stand with my back completely to the target, I can hit the ball by aiming my shoulders perpendicular to my clubface, but I’m totally out of alignment.
