Path of ball is determined by direction of club face

One of the basic principles of golf is based in physics. Wherever the club face is positioned at impact, that is where the ball will start. The path has a contributing effect on direction, but maybe only about 10 percent. This means that your direction is a minimum of 90 percent determined by the direction of the club face.

Knowing this as a teacher, the first thing I always look at in a student is his or her grip. The grip is your sole connection to the club and consequently to the club face. A correct grip will create the possibility, not the guarantee, of hitting the ball straight all the time.

Tour players have reached the level of hitting the ball straight almost all the time. And when they don’t hit it straight, most of us would accept it as a pretty good shot.

The idea is to make your average shot always stay within the boundaries of the course. So a good sound grip is the start of that elusive goal for most players, consistency.

It gets proven over and over again that an unsound grip is incapable of creating a repeating shot pattern. A major issue that arises, aside from the fact that the face arrives at the ball in a different position on each swing, is player’s ability to compensate for the bad grip. They will generally slice the ball with an unsound grip. Their normal compensation is to aim more to the left, which actually increases the size of his slice. Now we have two problems rather than none.

If players continue to try and compensate, their shoulder turn decreases, their shift reverses, their approach angle steepens and now the chance of hitting the ball straight is reduced below the odds of hitting a royal flush on video poker. And this is generally when we receive the call for a lesson. The entire issue could be prevented by establishing a fundamentally sound grip at the onset to avoid the reason for all the compensations.

Once the grip is established correctly, the player then works on creating a repeating path. A proper shoulder turn will be one of the biggest contributors to this goal. A proper shoulder turn helps also create the proper shift.

Once the club face is square and the path is correct, the player learns to repeat the motion at a speed which allows for shift and turn to be timed in a repeating fashion. This could take weeks, months or years, depending on the practice time allotted, even with constant monitoring from a professional.

I see many players reach a plateau in their handicaps due to the fact that their grip and path are incorrect. They may even get to single digits, largely due to a sound short game, but will never reach their true potential since they are limited by these flaws. Athletic ability and talent can still only take you so far, where sound principles and science have no limits.

Every player should have their grip and path checked by a professional. The key is to make the change now and start the process. The beauty of having a game based in physics is reliability. Physics doesn’t know how it feels or how long you’ve been working on it. It only knows if it is done correctly. It will give immediate results if done correctly, regardless of how it feels. Comfort and ease will follow over time after enough repetitions.

One final byproduct of improving face position and path will be an eventual increase in distance. Due to a gradual increase in club head speed and more consistent solid contact, each player will work closer to their potential distance and the ability to control the distance with all their clubs. How much better can it get than improving direction and distance? That’s the name of the game.

Tom Fischer is a 24-year member of the PGA of America. He has worked as director of golf at clubs in South Florida for the majority of his career and came to Las Vegas in 2006. He recently served as director of instruction at Red Rock Country Club and is currently the head golf professional at the Las Vegas Paiute Resort. He can be reached for instruction at lvpga@aol.com.