Great Results from Good Impact

Every day you’re at the golf course, driving range or watching golf on TV, you see many different styles of golf swings.  That’s what makes this game so great is that there’s a lot of different ways to swing the club.  However, there’s a common trait to all the different styles of swings: a good impact.

I really couldn’t tell you the last time I gave a lesson and didn’t work on the student’s impact.  A repetitive, technically correct impact produces results.  Results are what golfers judge their swings by and what I get judged by in my instruction.

A swing that mirrors the swing plane is a great start to having a chance to make a correct impact.  Generally allowing the club to swing over your back shoulder in the backswing and then back over your lead shoulder in the thru swing can help get you primed to work on your impact.  As far as the movements of your body, give yourself stability with your lower body as you turn behind the ball with your upper body.  In the downswing, you’d like to keep your shoulders turned as you start moving your lower body from the ground up.  A gentle lateral slide with your feet, knees and hips get the weight started back toward the lead side of the golf swing.  As you’re making this weight shift the lead arm/hand is pulling the club down toward the ball.

You’re now set to create a quality impact.  As the weight shifts my front hip starts to clear to the left as I continue to pull the club down.  The lead forearm and hand start to rotate back to the target.  At impact I’d like the back of the lead hand to face the target as the lead arm is lined up with the lead leg.  When the rotation starts of the lead forearm/hand all depends on the bad shot.  If you tend to slice, you start the rotation as the club starts pulling down.  If you tend to hook, hold off the rotation till the last possible second before impact.  Repeating this motion is essential with every club.  It will help your contact, curvature, distance control and feel.

Tim Cusick is the Director of Instruction at the Four Seasons Resort and Club/Dallas at Las Colinas. The Northern Texas PGA named Cusick Teacher of the Year in 2005, 2009 and 2015, as well as the 2014 Horton Smith Award winner for education. He’s the author of ‘The Four Keys to Improve your Swing.’  Follow him on Twitter @timcusickgolf and visit his website: timcusickgolf.com.