A golf club is a perverse tool indeed. Every other tool known to Man that is intended to hit things (e.g., hammers, axes, and the like) is designed with the striking surface directly in line with the shaft. This is true with hand tools and in sports, with the exception of hockey but in hockey you are not really striking the puck, you are pushing it with the blade.
With a golf club the ideal hitting surface is a few inches removed from the centerline of the shaft. Hence, if you have grown up learning how to hit, for example, baseballs, tennis balls, ping pong balls and such, your hand-eye coordination is geared to striking the object ball along the centerline of the tool. Not so with a golf club. You must - if you are an adult learning to play - UNLEARN what your brain has learned, in order to hit the golf ball in the proverbial "sweet spot" of the club.
Striking a golf ball that is sitting on the ground involves mastering two different arcs at the same time. You are swinging the club around your body so that the ball must be struck at the precise point where the tangent of the swing crosses the desired line of flight of the ball. A little before that perfect instant and the ball goes wildly right (for a right-hander) and a little after and the ball goes wildly left.
But you are also swinging from high (shoulder level) to low (ground level), and that tangent is even more demanding of precision than the horizontal arc. Because you must strike the ball on a slightly downward trajectory so that the club face strikes the ball first, then a microsecond later strikes the ground, usually taking out a "divot." Hence, the low point of the swing must be an inch or so IN FRONT OF the ball, If you don't do this perfectly, you will either strike the ball with the blade of the club and hit a "ground ball" or hit the ground immediately before the ball, thus losing all power and possibly direction as well, as the blade will often deflect when it strikes the ground. We call this "hitting it fat." It must be perfect.
Another factor that professional golfers and teaching pros NEVER mention is this: When you are standing properly at address (looking from behind), your arms drop vertically from your shoulders to the place where you grip the club, then the club angles over to the ball. Now imagine a line going directly from shoulder to ball. Now consider that when you actually strike the ball, that line is a straight line (your arms are aligned with the club, due to centrifugal force), 1-2 inches longer than it was at address. What happens with that extra 2 inches? There is no current explanation by golf pro's; in fact, many of them deny it even exists. (It is noteworthy that one golf professional (Bryson DeChambeau) is now conspicuously standing at address with arms directly in line with the club, thus eliminating that difference. Onlookers notice that he looks "different" when he stands over the ball, but most can't describe why).
In order to accomplish the nearly-impossible feat of striking the golf ball squarely, in the sweet spot of the club, the body must be totally still, and rotate through the process (picture yourself standing in an imaginary cylinder). If there is any shifting from back to front (the natural tendency), that totally destroys the required geometric relationships, although it must be said that many golfers have, through long years of practice, taught themselves to shift back and forth, hitting the ball at precisely the moment when they are back where they started.
Finally, the distance between the golfer and the ball changes with every club, because the sole (bottom) of the club is intended to force a plane of the swing that results in the club face being perfectly aligned with the target, and the bottom of the club perfectly parallel with the ground. If it's not, then either the heel or the toe of the club will strike the ground immediately before contact with the ball, thus causing the club to twist in the golfer's hands and diverting the shot, sometimes with disastrous results. You must stand closer to the ball with more lofted clubs and farther away with the longer ones). But golf pro's, again, deny that a different swing is required for every club - even though it's true - because if they admitted that, then most students would simply walk out and quit the game.
One more factor should be mentioned here: Muscle Memory. It is a concept that consumes instructors in many sports because it is so vital to success. It is necessary in golf (and in other sports) to execute shots exactly the same way, every time. You must be able to repeat a motion over and over again without deviation. This can only be done through the magic of muscle memory. Once you have muscle memory in golf, for example, then you can stop thinking about your swing while you are hitting the ball, and think about things like trajectory, shaping the shot, taking off a little distance and so on. If you are thinking about your swing while you are hitting the ball, you are a lost cause. It ain't gonna happen.
But the sad thing about muscle memory is that there is a finite window of time when it can occur. After age 18, you can forget about it. It doesn't happen. A 25-year-old person can hit a million golf shots and there MIGHT be a bit of improvement over time, but s/he will never get to the point where the swing happens naturally. The horse is gone from the barn and won't come back.
This is why it is not uncommon for someone who, say, played golf on their high school team, to abandon the sport for thirty years, then start again and within a couple weeks be as good as they were in high school. They developed that muscle memory and it remains until a person is physically impaired by age or injury. It is also why good athletes who take up golf as an adult never really get good at it. You can practice until your hands bleed, but you will never get the necessary muscle memory to start playing strategically, like the pro's do.
Everyone who tries can hit the occasional good iron shot in golf. I posted last week that I had my first hole in one, after 20 years of playing. But that wasn't because I have "mastered" the golf swing; it was just a million-to-one lucky shot with no real meaning.
For an adult learning to play golf, you will never be good at hitting irons. Deal with it.
With a golf club the ideal hitting surface is a few inches removed from the centerline of the shaft. Hence, if you have grown up learning how to hit, for example, baseballs, tennis balls, ping pong balls and such, your hand-eye coordination is geared to striking the object ball along the centerline of the tool. Not so with a golf club. You must - if you are an adult learning to play - UNLEARN what your brain has learned, in order to hit the golf ball in the proverbial "sweet spot" of the club.
Striking a golf ball that is sitting on the ground involves mastering two different arcs at the same time. You are swinging the club around your body so that the ball must be struck at the precise point where the tangent of the swing crosses the desired line of flight of the ball. A little before that perfect instant and the ball goes wildly right (for a right-hander) and a little after and the ball goes wildly left.
But you are also swinging from high (shoulder level) to low (ground level), and that tangent is even more demanding of precision than the horizontal arc. Because you must strike the ball on a slightly downward trajectory so that the club face strikes the ball first, then a microsecond later strikes the ground, usually taking out a "divot." Hence, the low point of the swing must be an inch or so IN FRONT OF the ball, If you don't do this perfectly, you will either strike the ball with the blade of the club and hit a "ground ball" or hit the ground immediately before the ball, thus losing all power and possibly direction as well, as the blade will often deflect when it strikes the ground. We call this "hitting it fat." It must be perfect.
Another factor that professional golfers and teaching pros NEVER mention is this: When you are standing properly at address (looking from behind), your arms drop vertically from your shoulders to the place where you grip the club, then the club angles over to the ball. Now imagine a line going directly from shoulder to ball. Now consider that when you actually strike the ball, that line is a straight line (your arms are aligned with the club, due to centrifugal force), 1-2 inches longer than it was at address. What happens with that extra 2 inches? There is no current explanation by golf pro's; in fact, many of them deny it even exists. (It is noteworthy that one golf professional (Bryson DeChambeau) is now conspicuously standing at address with arms directly in line with the club, thus eliminating that difference. Onlookers notice that he looks "different" when he stands over the ball, but most can't describe why).
In order to accomplish the nearly-impossible feat of striking the golf ball squarely, in the sweet spot of the club, the body must be totally still, and rotate through the process (picture yourself standing in an imaginary cylinder). If there is any shifting from back to front (the natural tendency), that totally destroys the required geometric relationships, although it must be said that many golfers have, through long years of practice, taught themselves to shift back and forth, hitting the ball at precisely the moment when they are back where they started.
Finally, the distance between the golfer and the ball changes with every club, because the sole (bottom) of the club is intended to force a plane of the swing that results in the club face being perfectly aligned with the target, and the bottom of the club perfectly parallel with the ground. If it's not, then either the heel or the toe of the club will strike the ground immediately before contact with the ball, thus causing the club to twist in the golfer's hands and diverting the shot, sometimes with disastrous results. You must stand closer to the ball with more lofted clubs and farther away with the longer ones). But golf pro's, again, deny that a different swing is required for every club - even though it's true - because if they admitted that, then most students would simply walk out and quit the game.
One more factor should be mentioned here: Muscle Memory. It is a concept that consumes instructors in many sports because it is so vital to success. It is necessary in golf (and in other sports) to execute shots exactly the same way, every time. You must be able to repeat a motion over and over again without deviation. This can only be done through the magic of muscle memory. Once you have muscle memory in golf, for example, then you can stop thinking about your swing while you are hitting the ball, and think about things like trajectory, shaping the shot, taking off a little distance and so on. If you are thinking about your swing while you are hitting the ball, you are a lost cause. It ain't gonna happen.
But the sad thing about muscle memory is that there is a finite window of time when it can occur. After age 18, you can forget about it. It doesn't happen. A 25-year-old person can hit a million golf shots and there MIGHT be a bit of improvement over time, but s/he will never get to the point where the swing happens naturally. The horse is gone from the barn and won't come back.
This is why it is not uncommon for someone who, say, played golf on their high school team, to abandon the sport for thirty years, then start again and within a couple weeks be as good as they were in high school. They developed that muscle memory and it remains until a person is physically impaired by age or injury. It is also why good athletes who take up golf as an adult never really get good at it. You can practice until your hands bleed, but you will never get the necessary muscle memory to start playing strategically, like the pro's do.
Everyone who tries can hit the occasional good iron shot in golf. I posted last week that I had my first hole in one, after 20 years of playing. But that wasn't because I have "mastered" the golf swing; it was just a million-to-one lucky shot with no real meaning.
For an adult learning to play golf, you will never be good at hitting irons. Deal with it.
