On driving ranges and golf courses all over the land, each day, struggling golfers are attempting to diagnose and correct their swings.

Since we can’t see ourselves, we primarily use the ball’s flight to determine how efficient any given swing was. After all, it is a satisfactory ball flight which we desire, right? But when I quiz my students on the physical basics of impact and ball flight, it becomes clear that most players do not have a sufficient education in this area to draw the correct conclusions about their swing.

This article will lay out the procedure to “read” your ball flight so that that you can accurately determine how your swing is delivering the club to the ball. This is a crucial first step before you should attempt to implement the correct adjustments, with the help of a pro or on your own.

First, let’s look at how the ball flight is created. Although the time that the ball is actually on the club face lasts only one half of a millisecond (1/2000 of a second!), it is shortly after contact is first made with the ball, at the point of maximum compression of the ball against the club face, that the ball flight is “programmed” into the ball. Of the handful of user-controlled conditions between club face and ball at maximum compression, we shall look at three. They are:

1. The impact point on the club face.
2. The direction of the swing.
3. The direction of the club face.

You need look no further than these three to understand both why the ball starts off in the direction that it does and why it curves sideways or not.

IMPACT LOCATION

Most people understand well that the ball should be struck on the sweet spot or center of gravity (CG) of the club face, which is typically located on the lower center of the club face. But I find that people do not fully appreciate what happens when the ball is not impacted on the sweet spot.

Not only distance is lost, but also accuracy. This is because the club face twists during the collision, causing a loss of energy and distance, but also a change to the direction that the club face is pointing from first contact. This re-direction of the club face affects not only the starting direction of the ball flight (horizontal launch direction), but also the resulting curve, courtesy of a phenomenon known as the “gear effect,” which we shall not get into here. Just know that in order to make an accurate determination of how you are truly “presenting” the club to the ball at impact, you’ll want to read for “centered” impacts only.

It is worth noting that the club face twisting which occurs from off-center impacts is quite significant, even for the most “forgiving” club head designs. I use Dr. Scholl’s powder spray for the club face in my teaching and club-fitting to determine the impact point. This is preferable to plastic decals since these alter the launch and spin characteristics of the ball flight. Impacting the sweet spot takes precedence over any other impact condition. If you are not able to impact on or very close to the center of the club face better than half of the time, then you should be working on this aspect of your swing before anything else.

Now, assuming that you have impacted on or very close to the sweet spot, you are now ready to make relative determinations of the direction of the swing, and the direction of the club face by “reading” your ball flight.

CLUBFACE DIRECTION

The direction that the club face is pointing is alternatively referenced to either the target or the swing direction by teaching pros. This is confusing. The most important reference for the club face is the swing direction, since it is responsible for the curvature or lack thereof in the ball flight.

I have a saying, which is that “The ball doesn’t know where the target is.” For sweet-spot impacts, the ball will curve from left-to-right when the club face is facing rightward (open for right-handed players) of the swing direction, right-to-left when the club face is leftward of the swing direction (closed), and no sideways curve when the club face is square. Period. This is physical law. Observe the curve in your ball flight and diagnose this aspect of the swing correctly.

SWING DIRECTION

Although the direction of the swing’s plane and the direction that the club head is travelling parallel each other only at the low point of the club head’s arc, let us, for the sake of simplicity, assume here that they will be the same. Traditionally called the path, the swing direction, in conjunction with the club face direction, determines the starting direction and resulting curve in ball flight. When the ball does not curve sideways, then the swing direction and club face direction are the same, and the ball will also start-off in this direction. This is fairly easy for most players to follow.

For example, let’s say that your ball starts off at the target and does not curve sideways (no wind influence). This means that both the swing direction and club face direction are in-line with the target. This is the ball flight that most of my students tell me that they desire. If you have made a sweet spot impact and achieve this ball flight, then congratulations! You have achieved perfection in all three of our impact conditions! It is when we come to the task of determining swing direction for sideways-curving ball flights that things get trickier.

Curvature results when there is a differential between swing and club face directions. Here’s the key to determining relative swing direction for curving ball flights; relative to the starting direction of the ball flight, the swing direction is OPPOSITE to the curve direction. Take a moment to really digest that statement because this is where I find that too few players draw the correct conclusions regarding swing direction. So for example, if your ball starts off at the target, and then curves to the right, then your swing direction is leftward of the target. Your swing direction is not on-target. This is because the direction that the ball starts off is much closer to the direction of the club face than the swing.

The seminal golf research book, “Search for the Perfect Swing,” published in 1968, clearly presented this science to the public, but that didn’t stop many players, pros included, from incorrectly assuming that the starting direction was the same as the swing direction. This is a BIG difference. So, an example for all you “slicers” is the following; if your ball starts off at the target and then curves to the right, then not only do you have an open club face, but also a swing direction which is leftward of on-target. “Hookers” would do well to realize also that when your ball starts at the target and then darts quickly left, then your swing direction is well rightward of the target.

When you understand what has been presented here, you can determine whether it is the direction of your swing, or your club face, or both, which require adjustment, and more importantly, in which direction to adjust.