1 simple adjustment to my golf swing resulted in better ball contact. Here is the way

Welcome to Shaving Strokes, the GOLF.com series where we share the progress, lessons learned and takeaways from novice golfers like you — including the speed bumps and challenges they’ve faced along the way.

In my quest to break 80 for the first time in my 28 years of golfing, I found out the lot It’s the little things in my golf swing that keep bugging me. Taken together, they all add up to inconsistent shots and missed shooting opportunities.

Although my golf swing seems to be much better than last year and I am hitting it more often, I still have many times where I fall into bad habits. When this happens, I’ll look at my scorecard after a round and see that a few holes have just gotten away from me.

A high shot here, a cut shot there – if this happens 6-7 times during a round, that’s the difference between a score in the mid-80s and flirting with breaking 80.

With access to the Top 100 Golf Instructors, I am fortunate to receive the best instruction known to man. Of course, it can be overwhelming at times – too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to too many ideas – so I need to pick and choose what works best. mine golf goals.

During my visit to Old Palm GC in West Palm Beach, Fla., I contacted head coaches Tony Ruggiero and Morgan Hale to take me through swing drills and help me finally improve my swing.

But instead of just hitting ball after ball, Ruggiero and Hale helped me do a thorough analysis in an attempt to find out what was leading to such consistent shooting in each round, a task they would recommend doing regularly. mistakes in the game tons of beginners.

I’ll turn it over to Tony so he can explain the lesson below from his perspective – and what he’s taught me that can help you too.

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Another exercise is to help me find the low point of the golf swing

When Morgan and I started our weekend with Nick, we asked the same question – what one thing Looking for a fix to improve his game? Nick’s desire and love to break 80 is widely known, so we quickly learned that his one thing was to stop hitting the heavy or hard ball.

Overall, contact was his biggest problem. In order to have a strong connection, it is important to be able to understand and find a consistent low point of the swing, ensuring that the club hits the turf in front of the ball.

In my experience, when a student has difficulty communicating, it is due to a misunderstanding of what a turn or weight shift is. As a result, their spine or swing shaft moves side to side or up and down, making it difficult to find a consistent bottom position – which is exactly what Nick was doing in his golf swing.

After Morgan and I got the hang of it, it was time to explain to Nick how to learn a new swing to hit balls with consistent results. Here’s how we helped him.

Build an understanding of what you are trying to do

Golf is a circular motion and the swing involves coming up on your leg, then pushing that leg off the ball to finish on your lead leg. The wrong idea for Nick was to transfer pressure or weight to his trail leg.

Nick’s understanding of how to move weight or pressure has a lot of flex and slide, giving the feeling of movement of weight or pressure going back. But in fact, it just changed and moved the hips and spine to the right – which never stopped putting any pressure behind the ball.

So we explained how the spine is like a stable pillar that allows the trunk to go back and around in the direction of the track, and put pressure on the track leg. The trunk and hips rotate around the spine, but the spine itself does not move much.

Learn to make a better backswing curve, eliminating unwanted lateral movement

In Nick’s attempt to transfer pressure to his swing behind the ball, he could have created an unstable lower body. So the first order of business was to stabilize Nick’s lower half, then roll his upper body to feel that movement in his swing.

Morgan started by having Nick work on some balance discs and a resistance band. When standing on the balance discs, it forced Nick to engage his midsection and stabilize his lower body – which made it difficult to get off or slide off the ball because he was falling.

If we put a student in a situation where they have to do a movement in a new way, they usually go slowly enough and start doing it effectively – which Nick is able to do.

Go slow when incorporating new movements

When a golfer is making a change or trying a new swing, it is important to move at a slower pace without the ball. Why? Because when you go full speed with the ball, your brain goes into work mode. When this happens, you tend to fall back into old habits rather than new instructions – as is what you tend to do at that time on the golf course.

So we took Nick out of the play, and just practiced a drill or two that would help him move in a new direction.

In Nick’s case, I had him use the old school pivot drill, putting him in a good golf stance with his arms crossed over his chest. In the beginning, he made beautiful pivots by wrapping the club across his chest and back towards the inside of his right leg.

Next, I gave some resistance by pushing the shaft into her shoulders. By putting resistance here, it makes it harder to shift or slide sideways – which was a problem Nick had.

This is a very simple drill, and one that you can try at home to help you find the bottom position in the golf swing.

By the time we finished our work together, Nick now had a better idea of ​​what was causing his inconsistent contact and heavy shot – which was hurting his pursuit of breaking 80.

For me as a teacher, it was very important for him to go with drills and exercises to help him develop the right feel for his golf swing. This way, when he senses bad habits creeping in during a round of golf, he can step back and fix the problems in real time.

So if you’re struggling to make good contact and hit the ball, try these tips to learn how to turn and move pressure behind the ball, which will help you find a low golf swing.

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Nick Dimengo

Golf.com Editor