Golf Impact Position Drills
In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA Pro Alex Elliott to discuss how to improve your impact position for longer straighter shots.
Transcript
00:00 Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the range here at West Hill Golf Club
00:04 and this video in which we're going to take a look at everything you need to know about the impact position.
00:10 No doubt about it, this is the bit of the golf swing that everyone needs to get right if they want to play better.
00:15 So we're going to focus exactly on what the right impact position should look like.
00:19 Now, the tips and advice in this video comes courtesy of Alex Elliott, PGA Pro.
00:23 He's also got a YouTube channel, so head over to his YouTube channel and find a link in it below
00:27 if you're interested in Alex's tips.
00:29 But let's get started now looking at everything you need to know about the impact position.
00:33 So we're going to treat this as a little bit of a step-by-step guide to building the perfect impact position.
00:40 Now it's fair to say there is no such thing as a position, impact position, because it's all a flowing movement in the golf swing.
00:46 But it's still a good idea to have these thoughts in mind because this is what you're looking to try to recreate.
00:51 Is that fair, Alex?
00:52 Exactly, yeah. And I wanted to think about this video as like if you were updating your profile picture,
00:56 you want to have a snapshot at impact, this is what we'd look for.
00:59 Okay, fine. So the first point then in our step-by-step guide is about hips and shoulders.
01:03 What do people need to know?
01:04 So let's just have a look at what we've got set up on the floor here, Neil.
01:07 So I've got my feet line and my shoulder line where I would be nicely addressed.
01:11 Yeah.
01:12 And then I've got another blue alignment stick on the floor here where we'd aim to sort of get our feeling of our hips to be open.
01:18 Okay.
01:18 So I do this in two stages. Firstly, get a golf club across your chest.
01:23 Everything's matching this red to start with.
01:26 Solid address position.
01:27 Nice and athletic. And then what we're going to try and feel is we're going to move our hips on the way back and our hips on the way through.
01:33 Just focusing on first off, keeping our shoulders level with this red.
01:38 So it's almost like exaggerating what we want.
01:40 Okay, fine. But your hips, hopefully you can see that through the camera, the hips are opening up and should be replicating or near enough,
01:46 quite close, replicating the other, the blue alignment stick that's on the ground.
01:49 Exactly. Then the next stage to this would just be to make a little bit of a flowing movement back through.
01:55 So at impact, what we're looking for is our hips to be a little bit more open than our shoulders.
02:00 Yes.
02:01 So you can see they're nice and dynamic.
02:02 And if I was to sort of put a lot of force into the ground here, you could really see I'll be dynamic and I'd be into this position where my hip line is a little bit more open than my shoulder line, my right shoulder is sort of down towards the ground.
02:15 Yeah, it's a really good picture to have in your mind because it's a technical key that will add speed and power and also accuracy to your game if you can get that aspect of the impact position right.
02:25 Okay, so the next one is about weight transfer. Really important. Alex, what are the sort of faults and what position should people be in through impact?
02:34 So let's start off with a simple fault. So if we lead on from that first point, if we don't open up our hips, we tend to see our weight be sort of more 50/50 or potentially on that back foot.
02:46 Yes.
02:46 So if we're going to do a fast bat, thin shots or a really high launch with all our irons.
02:51 Yes.
02:52 If we think about what we said on that last point, where do we want our hips to be? More here or look where my weight's going.
02:59 Yeah.
03:00 It's going pretty much into my lead side here.
03:02 So at impact then, Alex, should your right heel be off the ground for right handers? It should be slightly off the ground.
03:10 Slightly off the ground and I would feel like my weight would be sort of moving into this instep.
03:14 If you were putting percentages on it, how much weight would be on the lead foot?
03:17 I would say let's do a rough guide of 70.
03:19 OK.
03:20 70%. So imagine we started sort of 50/50 back, in. We would see a lot sort of, imagine we had a heat pressure map under us here, we'd see sort of a lot sort of around our heel to the middle of our foot and a little bit sort of towards the instep and toe of our right.
03:35 Yeah. And one point I'd make here is that your upper body is still nicely over the ball.
03:40 Yes.
03:40 It's something that's really important, isn't it?
03:42 Definitely. And that leads us again, like I said before, from that first point to the second point of the hips being more open than the upper half.
03:49 So we sort of got our middle of our sternum on the golf ball at impact, not both significantly ahead.
03:54 Yeah. So you're not 90% weight on the front foot.
03:56 No, it's not. This way. It's this move.
04:01 Yeah. And the weight transfer is such an important part of the golf swing. Hopefully that gives you an idea about how it should work.
04:05 So for the next part, we're talking about wrist position and shaft lean.
04:11 What do people need to know?
04:12 So I think there's probably a bit of a misconception here. I think a lot of golfers just want to get the hands ahead.
04:17 And if you look at this, if I put my hands ahead here, my face points significantly out to the right.
04:23 And when we're trying to get our hands ahead, we will probably see some shots that are quite skinny, low and shooting off to the right for most golfers.
04:31 Not what we're after.
04:32 No, probably worse than what you're trying to get in the first place.
04:35 Yeah.
04:36 So I've got nothing flashy here, just a piece of wood.
04:38 Really, we've got to understand is how do we get the hands ahead, but keep the club face pointing to target.
04:43 Square. Right. Got it.
04:44 So I dress that piece of wood and I want you just to not put any hands on this golf club to begin with and just realise what direction this club's got to work in.
04:53 It's not out this way. It works very much like this.
04:57 Yeah.
04:57 OK, so if we just put our glove hand on, how would we keep that leading edge nice and square to that piece of wood?
05:04 Well, it wouldn't work like this. We'd have to have an element of this motion.
05:08 Got it. OK.
05:09 OK, so we just felt this a few reps. Then we went and placed our right hand on. A few reps.
05:16 And now you can really see with this bendy shaft on my golf club how much force I can put through this rather than no force.
05:25 Lots of force.
05:29 Yeah, and if you can get that position where your hands are slightly ahead of the ball and you're squaring the face, that's the dream combo, isn't it?
05:37 That's when you hit those shots that sound amazing, that have got easy power involved.
05:41 Exactly. And that strike goes from sort of, I guess, around the bottom to...
05:45 Right in the middle.
05:46 Right in the middle. So we've become a lot more efficient.
05:48 OK, Alex, can you take the wood away?
05:50 Yeah, of course.
05:50 And can you hit a shot for us? You're going to hit a shot with that club, isn't that a...
05:53 Throw me right in the deep end here. I will try.
05:56 You don't have to. You can hit one with your...
05:57 No, no, we'll go with that. I just want to say one more thing on this now. I think this is really important.
06:00 So if we sort of bring the first two points into this and we use this as sort of like our blueprint almost of everything that we're looking for up to this point.
06:09 Well, let's go in order. Hips open. My weight. Hands ahead.
06:14 Yeah.
06:14 So if we wanted to make some little half back in and through, this is a great way of bringing everything back square.
06:23 Get that feeling that you're looking for. OK, go on. I've been wanting you to hit one with this back.
06:26 So nice and smooth. Trying to really feel it.
06:29 Beautiful.
06:34 Very good. Hopefully you get a feel there for exactly where your hands should be through impact, where your wrists need to be to get that shaft lean for a pure contact.
06:50 So for the last part of this video, we're going to combine the last two points because there is a difference between how you approach impact with your irons and how you approach it with your driver.
07:00 Isn't it Alex? Let's start with the irons.
07:02 Yeah. And let's have a concept with an iron. We're looking to get our bottom of the arc happening just past the golf ball.
07:08 OK, yes.
07:09 Hitting down on the ball.
07:10 Yeah. So you get that nice ball first, a little bit of turf just slightly after. What are you thinking to help you do that?
07:17 So I think we can think about this in two ways, really. One, understanding the concept.
07:22 So really realise that my club's going to travel from high to low through the ball. OK.
07:27 But what I try and feel is that my chest and sternum are more on top of the golf ball.
07:32 You mentioned this in sort of that second part of the video.
07:35 Here, rather than with a driver, we'll talk about in a second.
07:39 I want to be a little bit more behind.
07:41 OK, hit one for us so we can see what it looks like.
07:43 So I would really just create a few practice swings and I would encourage a lot of golfers to do this just inside the ball,
07:48 halfway back, halfway through, really trying to feel as though from the golf ball forwards,
07:53 I'm making that little bit of a bruising divot.
07:56 Yeah.
07:56 And into the ball, a little waggle, Justin Thomas-esque, and then we can hit it away.
08:02 Beautiful. And you can see there, the divot has come just after where the ball was positioned,
08:10 exactly what Alex is looking for. But that's no good with driver.
08:14 Well, that's no good. I'm sure it would be OK, but you would be getting the most from your driver
08:18 if you approached it in exactly the same way, would you?
08:20 No, and with driver, we're looking for maximum distance, aren't we?
08:23 We're looking to hit this golf ball as far as we can.
08:26 So I think the simplest way to do this, Neil, is change our setup a little bit.
08:30 OK.
08:31 So we move our ball position a little bit further forward, hit later in our arc,
08:38 more ascending rather than descending.
08:40 Yes.
08:41 So ball position inside that left heel. And I like to simply do this. So it's a simple routine,
08:47 driver shaft sort of matching my zip, tilt so it points sort of towards my left toe,
08:53 down and in. Now I'm in a position where, OK, if I returned back here,
08:58 my bottom of the arc would be organised upwards and before the ball.
09:02 Before the ball.
09:03 Rather than with an iron, more sort of level shoulders.
09:06 Yeah.
09:08 That shoulder tilt, hopefully you can see it on the camera there, is very clear to see.
09:13 And it might only be a small technical point, but it's really important, isn't it?
09:16 Massive. We set up to hit the shot how we want to. For example,
09:20 you wouldn't set up to a flop shot like you would a chip and run.
09:23 So we've got to make sure we're doing the right things with driver.
09:25 That's a totally different video, Alex.
09:28 Right, go on, hit one for us. Again, hopefully we can get it on slo-mo.
09:31 You can see exactly what Alex looks like through the ball.
09:34 [Music]
09:47 And it's high launch, it's low spin, it seems like it's in the air for absolutely ages because
09:52 Alex has just changed that impact position just fractionally, but not doing anything
09:57 particularly technical. Really, the golf swing itself is the same, isn't it?
10:01 And that's how we make golf simple. We can't be thinking about too many things in the golf course.
10:05 Use your setup, change your setup to suit the shot you're about to hit, then swing away.
10:09 So there you have it. That's our look at everything you need to know
10:14 about the perfect impact position and hopefully some ideas there about how it differs just
10:17 slightly between the irons and the driver as well. If you do have any questions,
10:21 please do post them below. We'll get back to as many of you as we can.
10:25 But that's it for now from West Hill. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
10:28 [Music]