Until the arrival of Doppler Radar launch monitors such as Flightscope, there was never really an effective way to check out the ball striking claims tips we got from other players.

Golf is still the rare sport where the best players in the world help each other with techniques they are trying to learn. Recently, I watched Rod Pampling try to teach Ryan Palmer how to hit a driver off the deck on No. 18 at The Memorial. After a few swings, Palmer was hitting low screamers out into the tight, sloping fairway.

During my playing career, I got to play a round with 1976 U.S. Open champion Jerry Pate. The weather that day was not ideal. The wind was blowing 30 mph and it was cold — not the best conditions for flying a golf ball. We were good and cold by the time we got to hole No. 15, which was not normally a tough par-3. But on this day, what was nothing more than a standard 8 iron on a normal day required something more low and boring. Both of us grabbed 5 irons and had at it.

Jerry hit a low bullet to the middle of the green. The wind only slowed the ball down enough for it to land on the green; it didn’t knock it down in a dangerous way.

My swing at the nickel took off hot and low. Then it began to stall and lost momentum to fight onward. Just about the time I expected it to land safely, it splashed down a woeful 10 yards short of dry land.

It was here that JP offered me this information. He told me that Lee Trevino once told him that if you wanted to keep the ball from ballooning in the wind, you need to keep your hands out of it on the backswing.

[quote_box_center]”Keep them really still and do not hinge the club a lot,” he said. [/quote_box_center]

Remember, this was a time when pro golfers still played golf balls that spun way too much, so there was a often a need to be able to keep the spin off the shot.

Once I got the time, I practiced the shot and sure enough the ball stayed down without any urge to rise. It is especially effective when you’re in the trees and need to keep the ball under the limbs for a long distance before the ball enters clear airspace. Everyone can relate to that time you moved the ball back in your stance, leaned the handle way forward and tried to knock it down low only to see the ball shoot straight up and into the overhanging limbs. This little tip kept the ball from doing that.

Recently, I was using Flightscope and decided to put the technique to the test and see what the numbers had to tell me about the ball and club interaction

I hit three different shots with a 7 iron.

1. Standard full swing (ball position under the logo on the left of my shirt)
2. Normal knockdown (ball position under my right eye)
3. “No hands knockdown” (ball position under my right eye)

Here is what the data screen looked like (click to enlarge):

Here are the launch screens for each shot: Shot 1 on the left, Shot 2 in the middle and Shot 3 on the right. You can see the ball flight got lower with each shot.

A bit of transparency may offer some clarity about the numbers. The grass on the range where I work is not tightly mown. It is a nice customer length where the ball sits up, which differs from the tight conditions that you see on Tour where you can really have control over the golf ball. As I look at the data, there are some values that I know are potentially exaggerated by the conditions. Nevertheless, what can we deduce other than trajectory for each shot I hit? What changed from shot to shot, especially from Shot 2 to Shot 3 that would have kept the ball lower?

It’s obvious that the distance dropped significantly from Shot 1-3 with the difference being a whole 20 yards of carry. The hinging of the wrists is a definite power source, so I am not shocked by the distance gap. Also, the height dropped 30 feet, which was obvious to the naked eye. Shot 3 was quite lower than Shot 1, even on grass that was like using a tee.

For the four remaining categories, I want to really focus in on dynamic loft, spin, spin loft and angle of attack (AoA). We have confirmed what Lee told Jerry and what Jerry told me is true. Take the hand action out in the backswing and you will hit it lower. But what do these three numbers confirm about that?

First, when you take out hand action, you take out some of the opening and closing action of the clubface. When the hands “normally” set, the clubface will continue to open. Yes, you can impose your own will on it and do it wrong, but if done “naturally” the face will continue to open thereby adding loft. So the less your hands set, the more the clubface stays shut and the lower the ball launches. That is represented in the dynamic loft number at impact.

There is a downward trend in dynamic loft from the full swing value of 36.5 degrees.

1. The “normal knockdown” has a dynamic loft of 31.8 degrees.
2. The “no hands knockdown” has a dynamic loft of 24.5 degrees.

You can also see the same thing in the vertical launch values with a big jump between Shot 2 and Shot 3. So quieting my hands brought the dynamic loft down by more than 7 degrees at impact. That is a lot and will keep the ball down!

Notice the spin values increasing, however, and remember what I said about the turf conditions. I give the credit for the increased spin to lies that were a little cleaner, because all three shots were hit right on the middle of the face.

The AoA of the shots also remained very static — there were only a minor few changes in the value between the three shots. One thing I see when I first try to teach a low shot to a player is they think they need to “tomahawk” down on the ball as hard as they can and bury the club halfway up to the neck into the ground to keep the ball down. Once I get them to understand that keeping the shot down is about dynamic loft and how the hands control the club, they stop chopping at it to keep it down and begin to lean the shaft to have a shallower AoA so the ball stays nice and low.

My last point is about spin loft, which is the difference between AoA and the dynamic loft at impact. These values follow the trend of everything else we have looked at. From the full swing shot to the last shot, the numbers decreased. In turn, that produced a lower ball flight that penetrated the wind more and stayed low.

It is very cool to be able to test out shots like this on Flightscope, especially when it’s something another Tour player has shared to help you learn a new shot. After all, the game is about playing shots and the more shots you have the more fun you can have playing the game.

So what did we learn here?

1. Keeping the hands quiet will help to keep the ball down.
2. Less hand action going back with the ball positioned back-of-center in your stance gives you less loft at impact and lowers dynamic loft, spin loft and vertical launch.
3. Keeping shots down for a long time over a long distance is a vertical launch value promoted by firm hands in the backswing.
4. All of this brings down your overall height and produces a low, penetrating shot.