Achieving the Perfect Impact Position

December 18, 2007

The holy grail of the golf swing, and therefore of golf swing instruction as well, is getting to the right impact position. There are many different theories on the best route to get there and the best method to learn how. Sometimes, what and how cross paths, often creating confusion for the golfer.

What I mean by this is that knowing exactly what should be happening in the golf swing is not necessarily the best way to learn how to do it. I do believe that every golfer should have a thorough understanding of the physics behind the golf swing, as far as approach path and angle, club speed and ball speed, and other things of this nature. I also don’t have a problem with golfers learning what it takes for their bodies to produce the athletic motion required for a solid and dynamic golf swing. But everyone should keep in mind that what they are learning is the underlying physics and physiology behind what they are doing, and not a method of achieving it.

Here is my list of key factors for achieving a perfect impact position:

1. The perfect impact position is achieved before the golf swing begins.

We as humans perceive our world, and thus make our decisions on how to interact with it, through our senses. Our brains do this on the most rudimentary level, such as when a ball comes flying at our faces, we instinctively make the subconscious choice to cover our faces with our arms. Our conscious choices are guided by our subconscious choices, and everything we do ultimately stems from our reaction to stimuli.

This is important because, to understand how we make a golf swing, we must understand that we decide how we are going to swing before we do it. And the best way to allow our swings to form around the subconscious stimuli that allows us the most success is to consciously focus on the same stimuli. What are the stimuli? Ball and target (or target line).

2. Without a target line, there is no swing.

The golf swing is extremely dependent on a target. Without a target, we would have absolutely no idea how to go about hitting the ball. We need an objective to form purpose.

The golf swing revolves around the target, literally. We already know this, even if we don’t consciously “know” it. It’s the same as throwing a ball to somebody. We know that to get the ball to the person we are looking to throw it to, we have to release the ball at a point where the infinitesimally small line that is formed by the immediate point before and the immediate point after the release point is pointing directly at where we want the ball to go (for anyone who remembers high school geometry class, this line is called the tangent). In fact, we know even more than this: we know, after only a few tries, exactly how to adjust for the effects that gravity will have on the flight of the ball, by either throwing harder or aiming our tangent slightly above our target, or by an infiniate number of combinations of both.

Now, maybe you didn’t “know” all of this, or maybe you did, but you most certainly knew it subconsciously. We do this kind of subconscious analysis constantly throughout each day of our lives. And it is no different with the golf swing.

Your swing path is a circle or an arc. Your tangent is your target line. And so, you know where to “release” the club. The swing path is not a perfect circle, because you are actually hitting down on the ball for every club except possibly the driver. But even though you approach the ball vertically as well as horizontally, the horizontal aspect of your tangent should be pointing directly down your target line. Forget inside to out. Directly down the target line.

But how do you make sure that this happens? Isn’t that what all the drills are for? Well, if it is something that already know how to do, I don’t see why you would need drills to learn it. If you can slide a penny back and forth between your hands on a table you are sitting at, you already know how to do it.

The key to the golf swing, just like throwing a ball, is to know where you want it to go. The ball and your target create your target line: this is your tangent. But if you are thinking about anything other than your target line, your mind will not focus on finding the tangent. So focus on your target line, and let your subconscious do the rest. Picking out an intermediate target a few feet in front of your ball on your target line is a great way to get better visual focus.

And don’t worry about the ball. Your mind knows it’s there. And without it, you wouldn’t have a target line at all.

3. There’s no such thing as the perfect impact position or perfect swing.

Every person on this planet is unique. Part of our uniqueness is physical, and part of it is our mental wiring. There is no need to fight this fact by trying to make our swings conform to the “correct” model. Your height, weight, strength, flexibility and body composition are just some of the physical factors that will make your swing different from anyone elses. And our personalities are all different. Some people take the highway home from work, while others take the scenic back roads. There is no right way to get from one point to another. And despite what you may have heard, there is no one right way to arrive at impact. The only thing that matters is that you get to the correct place. And of course, driving home from work to find yourself at someone else’s home doesn’t do you much good either. Everybody will have a slightly different impact position, and some people will hit it high and some will hit it low, some will hit a draw and some will hit a fade.

The same way that it doesn’t matter how you get to an impact position on or near your target line tangent, it doesn’t matter how you get it from the tee to the hole, as long as you do it in the least amount of strokes.

As a famous golf saying goes, there are no pictures on scorecards.

Written by John at 1:56 pm. Full Swing