How Attack Angle Affects Compression
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Ever notice how the PGA Tour pros take razor thin divots? That's exactly what you want. This video focuses on how your angle of attack affects compression. Learn how to hit the ball with a slightly descending angle of attack and stop chunking the ball or hitting it thin!
- Shallow angle of attack improves compression by decreasing spin loft
- Looking for razor thin divots with proper angle
- With driver we are looking for -1 AOA and -5 AOA with a wedge, gradually steepening will the shorter the club
All right, a little divot exploration time.
So here is a grouping of my divots on the range where I actually hit balls for about 20 minutes with a 7-iron here.
So that's a normal grouping with a 7 -iron.
Now I'm going to show you what it looks like when a typical amateur hits balls for 20 minutes.
Let's take a look.
All right, So I happen to watch this amateur and he was here about the same amount of time as I was warming up to go play.
And here we look like he was trying to bury a small animal.
We've got deep divots, really deep.
You're seeing get into a totally different color of sand.
Mine was all white sand, just barely scraping the grass.
These things you could bury a rabbit in.
So what's causing this and which one's right and which one's wrong?
Let's take a look.
All right, the next critical piece is all about angle of attack.
And for those of you that don't understand this, it's a very simple term.
It just means the angle that the club is approaching the ground when it strikes the ball.
If you come in really, really steep, you're going to have a steep angle of attack.
You can come in really shallow, think of like an airplane landing, you're going to come out with a shallow angle of attack.
Which one's right, which one's wrong?
Well, as the video, the divots I just showed you, most amateurs have really steep AOAs, angles of attack, and most pros have very shallow angles of attack.
If you remember in the intro video, I said that on average, the pros swing down about negative three degrees.
That's really shallow.
Now, that's why we can practice from the same spot for a long time.
We're not digging these giant trenches, and most amateurs have to kind of move all over the place because they're coming down so steep.
Why does it matter?
Well, first of all, having a steep angle of attack is typically a byproduct of too much right side, which gets you coming over the top.
Now, you know, by now that every single tour pro on the planet is pretty much left side dominant.
It's the only way that it aligns itself with the laws of physics.
So when you swing right side dominant, you have all of these levers, your arm, your shoulder, your wrist, that can push the club down and make it dig a trench.
You can also do the same thing with your left thumb, and that creates a steep angle of attack as well.
So the first thing is when you have a steep divot, a steep angle of attack, it's typically indicating that you did something else really fundamentally wrong in your swing.
If you swing just left arm only, like so many of our drills are, you'll notice the club just barely brushes the grass, which is the angle of attack that you should have.
As the wrist release, that should be the only thing creating the steepness in the swing.
So you can notice I can swing like this all day, hit the same piece of grass every time, and not ever lay the club into the ground, unless I take my left thumb and push against the shaft.
So that's the first thing.
Again, why does all this stuff matter?
Well, again, it comes back to compression.
As you're coming down on the ball very steeply, it's no different than if you're coming across the ball with a very out-to-in path.
When you come across the ball out -to-in this way, you're not getting a solid strike, you're getting a glancing deflected blow.
When you come down very steeply, it's the same thing, just on the other axis.
So now the club's working this way.
That's not a good way to get compression on the ball.
You want to hit it as directly as you can, which is another secret of the pros, which is why they come through so shallow.
I'm giving a little bonus trick to this.
If you look at my iron here, you'll notice where's the majority of the mass on that club?
Well, it's not way up here.
If you come down really steeply on the ball, the club's going to tend to bottom out and hit the ground before it hits the ball, and that's going to cause you to tend to hit the ball high on the face.
Well, there's no mass up here.
You hit the ball really high on the face, that ball's not going to go anywhere.
You need mass behind the ball to send it somewhere, otherwise your clubs would be made out of wood.
We need them out of metal.
So with all this extra mass down here, You want to hit the ball lower on the face than you typically do when you have a steep angle of attack.
And that's another benefit of having a really shallow angle of attack.
So how to create the single shallow angle of attack that all the pros have?
It's simple.
The left arm drills do everything you need to know.
As I was just demonstrating earlier, as I go back and forth with just my left hand only, I just lightly brush the grass.
What creates the steepness in the swing is anything that causes the club to throw out away from you, a pushing force.
If I take my right wrist and I push out, what's the club going to do?
Well, it's going to go down.
If I take my right arm and try to push it down really hard with my shoulder, what's that going to cause the club to do?
Go down.
As the club is being swung like a pendulum, it's always going to lightly brush the grass.
Think about a grandfather clock.
A grandfather clock has a single pivot point for the pendulum.
Your golf swing has a primary pivot point, just like a pendulum.
Now, does that grandfather clock ever bottom out in a different spot?
No, of course not.
That seems silly, right?
But does your golf swing?
If your golf swing is bottoming out someplace different every single time, what does that tell you?
Your pivot point for your pendulum is moving.
That's a big point why I don't want that left shoulder doing this in the downswing, like so many golfers, instructors teach to turn your shoulders through.
You're taking your pivot point and moving it.
How are you going to get the club to bottom out in the same spot every time?
Same thing with your right hand.
If you take this right hand, start pushing against the shaft, the club's going to bottom out somewhere different every single time.
I want you to pay attention the next time you're at a golf tournament.
Go to a par three where there's a big hold up, or a short par five where everybody has to wait.
Because everybody's going for the green in two and watch the tour pros standing on the tee.
I guarantee you as they're standing there, you'll see them doing this, kind of wasting time, talking, shooting the breeze, looking around, seeing if there's any good looking girls in the crowd, but they'll be doing it all with their left hand.
You'll never see a Tour pro take the club with his right hand and start making just little practice swings like this.
It's never going to happen.
It doesn't even make sense to them because they know how to swing the golf club properly.
That's why they all use the same RST fundamentals.
They have to.
That's what allows them to be tour pros.
You need to put these same fundamentals in play for you.
When you're sitting around on the practice tee, start making some left-hand only swings.
Start grooving this motion with the last three fingers only.
You can do this anywhere.
You can do this right now in your office where you're watching this video, ducking out from dinner with the kids, wherever you are right now watching this video.
Grab just even just your arm and get that pivot point to stay in place and let your arm start swinging freely.
And as you grab a club, you can do this on your next conference call.
Let the club start brushing the carpet in your office very, very lightly.
As long as you don't take your thumb and push against the shaft, you're never going to take a chunk out of your carpet.
You don't have to worry about it.
It's all about understanding the physics that allow the club to bottom out in the same spot.
And that is what creates a shallow angle of attack, just like the tour pros.
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