Where should your golf swing bottom out with most of your clubs? Scott Tanguay of The Coastal Golf Academy at Whispering Pines Golf Course in Myrtle Beach, S.C. shows us, along with a simple practice tip for how to reinforce it.
Scott Tanguay:
Hey folks, Scott Tanguay here at the Coastal Golf Academy, right across the street from Myrtle Beach International Airport. Come see us at Whispering Pines!
So today we’re going to talk about the bottom of the arc, or the bottom of the swing. I see a lot of people that, again, they might even have a pretty good swing, but if we’re trying to hit under the ball, which is common, because obviously we’re laying the club there. But that’s not the bottom of the swing, that’s not where we want to clip the grass or make the divot. That’s actually going to be a little bit out in front of the ball, even a couple inches worth, because it’s a descending blow.
All clubs, it doesn’t matter if it’s a wedge, a seven iron, a hybrid, a three wood, a lot of the people that I teach when they get to hybrids are three woods, somehow their mindset changes and they’re trying to sweep it, which is okay. But almost trying to get underneath it to lift it. We don’t want to do that. Every club we need to hit down and through the ball. Down and through. So again, if you start looking more, even if you don’t look at the ball, actually look at the grass a little bit in front of the ball, that’s where we want to hit.
So we got a tee here and this stick, if we move the ball actually. I don’t want my divots to start on the stick here. That wouldn’t be good. We need it out in front, right in front of it. We’re hitting the ball, then the turf. We don’t want it to happen at the same time. So if there’s a ball here, and we got that in line with the stick, my divot should be in front of the stick. So we’re here. So clearly that divot was an inch or two in front of the stick and it went plenty high, plenty far. That’s how you’re going to compress it the best.
Another good drill. You could line that up. You could use foot spray, try and hit in front of the foot spray. Another one I’ll do is just put a tee there. Put a tee right in front of the ball. Just lay it there. And that’s more your target. You’ve probably heard this, let the ball get in the way, because it’s true. We want to hit the tee. So the ball just kind of gets in the way and I’m running into the tee right there. That’s the most solid shot. So the goal here would be ball and tee. Nice and solid. And there you go.