Golf Instruction -
Hitting Down
Golf is a difficult
game. Yet to so many of the uninitiated it might seem incredibly simple.
The objective is to strike a ball ... that is just sitting there. After
all, how tough can it be? It's not like baseball, or tennis, where the
ball is moving as we attempt to make contact with it. It's not like
hockey, where someone is trying to knock you down. And if it is,
rethinking your choice of foursome should perhaps be the bigger
priority.
Why is it then, in golf, that this stationary ball is so difficult to
hit? Why do we even miss it completely at times?
Golf is difficult - deceptively so - due to our perception of how to get
the ball airborne.
We want the ball to go up, and our natural inclination is to hit up at
it. However, we need to hit down.
Part of this initial deception in golf lies in the fact that the ball is
round, and our clubface is lofted (angled back). On first look it might
appear that our goal is to slide the lofted clubhead under the ball,
striking its lower half on the upswing, and thus driving - or lifting -
the ball into the air. However, it is critical to note that the golf
club has not been designed to get under the ball to lift it. It has been
designed to strike the ball as the clubhead is descending - on the
downswing.
The face of the club will then contact the surface of the golf ball just
prior to reaching the bottom of the swing arc. As a result, the ball
becomes trapped between the descending clubface and the ground. The ball
compresses. Because the face of the clubhead is lofted, the ball -
rather than be driven into the ground as a downward hit might imply -
will spin backwards up the clubface, decompress (adding energy to its
escape) and climb into the air. The angle at which the ball climbs
(trajectory) will be directly related to the loft of the club we have
chosen for the shot.
Unfortunately, until the technicalities of hitting down are fully
explained, hitting up seems, on the surface, more logical. If we want
something to go up, we tend to hit up at it. If I gave you a tennis
ball, and a racket, and asked you to hit the ball up into the air - what
would you do? You would lower your racket and strike up at the tennis
ball. And the tennis ball would go up. It's logical. So why wouldn't it
be logical with golf too?
Certainly - on the surface anyway - hitting down at something you want
to go up, is not logical. And until it becomes logical, your muscles may
resist as a result. Gaining a firm understanding of the golf swing - and
especially the mechanics of "hitting down" - is vital to programming
muscle memory. And good muscle memory in golf is essential, so you can
stop worrying about your swing, and concentrate on the game itself.
From:
http://golf.about.com/cs/tipslessons/a/hitdowndammit.htm
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