Page 60 - Las Vegas Golf & Leisure Fall 2018

[ FE A T UR E ]

SOLID IRON CONTACT

(4) Kristin Sunderhaft, LPGA Teaching Professional, Lifetime Member, Revere

702-338-9033 | Kristin@HealthySports.com

Would you like to gain more distance and height on your iron shots? Who wouldn’t? This drill will help you improve contact
and hit the center of the clubface. Better contact on the sweet spot will help increase your ball speed and height, therefore
helping to improve carry and overall distance. Good contact occurs when impact is made directly under the ball, and
two or three grooves up the clubface towards the sweet spot. Connecting with the sweet spot feels
amazing, unlike the dreaded feeling of making contact on the toe, heel or sole of the club.

A great drill to help you determine where you are making contact and to improve contact is to put a tee
on each side of the ball and then also put a tee in front of the ball. If you are making good solid contact,
you shouldn’t hit either side tee, but you should knock the tee out that’s in front of the ball.
Initial contact should be made directly under the ball, not behind it, and then in front of the ball,
producing a divot, and knocking the tee out. If you are hitting any of these tees, then you have a flaw
somewhere in your swing or body movements, producing poor contact with the golf ball, robbing
yourself of height and distance. As a hint, be sure your weight is more on your forward foot, head is
centered and hands are slightly in front of the ball.
POSITION A

Tom Fischer, Head Professional, LV Paiute Golf Resort (5)

702-205-6234 | www.RealPureGolf.com

Even the smallest fundamental can have huge significance in maintaining a solid repeating swing. All fundamentals combined allow for a fluid, efficient
swing that is free of compensations and excess motion. One of these seemingly unimportant—but extremely important—fundamentals is ball position.
If a player has the ball too far forward, compensations may occur. Since the lower body is unable to bring the club to the ball easily, the upper body
starts to lunge at it to make contact. This generally creates an outside-in swing path creating pulls, pull hooks and more commonly, slices. Other
miss-hits attributable to a too-far forward ball position are topping, sculling and hitting fat shots.

Another common mistake is having the ball too far back in the stance. The player’s weight “hangs back” on their right side, making it more likely for
them to hit it fat. It creates a very steep angle of attack to the ball and most likely a loss of distance and a slicing ball flight.
B ALL P OSI T ION GUID ELINE S:
Wedges, 7-9 irons - center of stance | 3-6 irons, hybrids - between the center of stance and the inside of forward foot.
Fairways, driver - slightly closer to the forward long irons | When moving the ball forward, be careful not to allow the upper-body
position to move left. Maintain the weight distribution at 50-50.
FROM THE WEDGE

(6) Matt Henderson, PGA, Director of Instruction, TPC Las Vegas

www.matthendersongolf.com
A common misconception in wedge play is that “hitting down” on the golf ball more will create spin, but in most cases
when amateurs increase the angle of attack they also decrease the effective loft. Everything being equal, the less loft
delivered to the ball decreases the maximum potential for spin. The easiest way for most to add effective loft is to manage
the angle of attack. A great drill to manage the radius of the clubhead travel is the compression drill. Simply tee a golf
ball up about half an inch and use a sand wedge. The goal is to initially hit 50-yard golf shots without taking a divot.
Limiting ground interaction is a key component to quality wedge play, I hope you enjoy the drill.

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