Lesson 6: Alignment, club face, shoulders square, and rolling the wrist in downswing

Lot's of changes lead to some impact

I have been golfing with my clubface very open for a very long time. I have thought that my clubface was set properly, and I have been very, very, very wrong. Combined with how open I keep my shoulder (even though for years I try to adjust it) this makes it hard to get my club square when coming through the ball. It’s causing my arms and wrists to do a lot of work which counteracts my lower body and helps create the over-the-top motion in my swing.

Basically, my club is not falling into the “slot” properly when coming through.

In this lesson we started with two things about my setup, getting my shoulders squared (which when they do feels closed). Then really getting my clubface straight which feels really closed to me. By closing my clubface, it changes my grip ever so slightly. These are simple changes that I can make that have a big impact, so these are now part of my pre-shot routine and looking at how I set up.

One thing that this really made clear is when you see a lot of golf instruction you see people talk about overexaggerating a movement, alignment, or whatever. I never realized how much our brains played tricks on us. When we make a slight change, it usually isn’t nearly where it needs to be, our brain is telling us it is incorrect.

The final thing we worked on, which I have been struggling to really implement, is getting my wrists rolling at the proper point. I tend to do this late in the swing which leads to a scooping motion, which is incorrect. Now when I don’t do it properly, I am rolling at impact which causes a massive hook.

This is going to take time.