Number 9 in the Series of Dumb Things Golfers Do

In a practice session today, hitting little pitch shots, I was striking the ball very solidly.

You know what I'm talking about? Have you noticed that when you hit the ball solid, right on the nose, it feels dull, not sharp. You don't get the stinging sensation that tells you the hit was not solidly on the face of the club.

I asked myself the reason for this sudden streak of solid hits. What had changed?

I mentally traced it down to the discovery of one ruinous and false idea, which was the following; I had always thought that in order to hit the ball flush and send it down the line toward the target I had to deliberately square up the club face as I drove it through the ball.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The secret is to stop trying to square up the clubface!

Think of it this way -- When you turn your shoulders away from the ball to start the backswing you don't deliberately open up the clubface. Isn't that right? During the backswing the clubface opens up naturally without any conscious effort on your part.

Yet, most swingers (including me, until recently) start the downswing with the idea of squaring up the clubface.

But I've got news, folks -- that ruinous compulsion to square up the clubface only accomplishes one thing -- it throws the club out of the power arc, causes the clubhead to dive in at the ball too soon, with the result that you either yank the ball left into the trees or slice it out of bounds into the next county.

More later,
THE AUBURN FLASH