Where Do You Hit Your Ball

Pitch & Putt
The Short Game

16th Article
Where do you hit your ball?

Is there a better place to hit a golf ball, which will give me better loft, carry and distance? The answer of course is yes. Lets face it, when we first start out playing golf, the object of the game is to hit a little white ball as far as we can. Well it doesn’t take long to discover that all hits on a golf ball are not equal. Some shots will go hundreds of yards and some will go ten feet and die. Why the dramatic differences. Well that has to do with where on the ball your golf club makes contact. This is particularly important when using your irons. All golf clubs have a loft feature build into their make up. The driver having the smallest loft, typically 10 degrees, and an X Wedge having the largest, some 60+ degrees. The more the loft the higher the shot should go. Going on this principal it would seem that a wood should hit the lowest of your shots and X Wedge the highest. Not necessarily so. Contradicting this statement, some drives can reach heights in excess of 150 ft. But in the case of the woods, the heights achieved has more to do with club head speed and back spin applied to the ball on contact. Interesting but lets get back to your original question. Where do you hit your ball? Or better still where should you hit your ball. Take a look at the diagram below:

In this picture, note the arrow, also note where the club is going to make contact with the ball. It will hit the ball somewhere between its mid point or above, causing a heavy top spin on the ball, and little or no loft. This shot is most likely the result of the ball being to far forward in the golfers stance (to close the left foot). Consequently the club has pasted its lowest point in the swing arc and is now on its upward travel to the golfers left shoulder. The ball will travel half the expected distance the golfer intended. If the shot had been intended fly over some obstruction, it didn’t, and is more likely now in the obstruction.

Shot number two:
In this picture the club is going to make contact with the ground just behind the ball. Assuming that the club is hitting the ground at the lowest point in your swing arc, we should get a certain amount of good results from this shot. There will be some power lost in the shot because the club hits the ground first then the ball. There is also some chance of the club being dragged off-line because of the contact with the ground, but hey its better then the first diagram by a long shot; but still not the most efficient use of your efforts. Lets take a look at your third shot.

The first thing you should notice is the club has a slightly steeper line of approach on the ball: its also going to make contact with ball before making contact with the ground. This contact with the ball is going to cause a pinching action between the club and the ground, causing increased backspin. As the club continues its path to the ground the ball will also make maximum contact with the face of the club. This makes maximum use of the loft of the club. The shot should take off high and true. This scenario best points out why it is so important that the ball should almost never get forward of the middle of your stance at address. If you have to err, err towards your right foot, (right handed golfer), not the left.

Comments and Suggestions gladly accepted.