Club and Speed
Ben: We’re either going to buy three drivers or get a Titleist one where we can change shafts and heads and stuff, whatever and he can just show you the whole system or whatever. But if you do it, your body will learn how to go faster and faster and that way we can figure out what club speed you are in now and we could actually increase it over the next ten years as opposed to… If you guys do that, you guys could golf forever. I love it. But if you lose speed, it stinks.
Student: Beauty.
Ben: Nice Brucie.
Student: Very pretty.
Using Bounce
Everyone come on over here, come inside the ropes.
I think the most common way for people to chip and what people have been told is that we’re supposed to chip and keep our hands ahead the whole time. You guys ever heard that? The handle is supposed to stay like this and you’re kind of supposed to keep moving through there.
Well, that’s actually incorrect because the club is made with bounce and bounce you can see just kind of has a little…this one has 14 degrees of bounce which basically means from the leading edge down, there’s fourteen degrees of drop down there. When you set the club on the ground, that leading edge or that knife, that sharp edge doesn’t sit completely on the ground. The higher that essentially sits off the ground, you can see that, the more bounce you have okay.
Well, what happens is as I lean the handle back, you can see that leading edge gets farther off the ground which increases bounce. As I lean the handle forward, that decreases bounce and you have zero bounce at this point and basically all you have is a sharp leading edge. What happens is, is that when people tell you to lean your hands ahead like this and keep the handle out in front, you take away all bounce.
Well, bounce is your friend and bounce is forgiveness. It looks something like this. I’ll just go to Joel here. If I lean the handle ahead, that club comes to an immediate stop so you better hope the ball was in there somewhere, where as I can hit purposely two inches behind this one and that ball still wasn’t anywhere near a chunk but that’s because I’ve got the handle returned to here to there but never this way and so when that club lands, it slides. Any time I get in tight like this, I can hit behind the ball, at the ball, next to the ball and the ball’s going to come off clean. When you’re on the golf course, the test is you don’t get to hit it three or four times, well, some of you might if you get a really bad shot!
Strike Mark
Ben: I just want to see the contact. So a little toe. Did I talk you into that?
Student: Because you said you hit everything left.
Ben: Yeah.
Grip
Student: I finish aside from what I do wrong posture wise, I’m hitting the ball to the right and I think some of it is because I’m just behind, does that make sense?
Ben: Yeah, yeah the club face is definitely open right? So the question is, how do we get the club face three degrees more closed?
Student: Right.
Ben: The way I always, go ahead and take your grip, the way I always close club face is to take this hand, take this hand off real quick. There you go, now put the right hand on. Right there you’re just not going to open the club face in there. It’s a much stronger position; especially when our club faces, you know, yeah, like a vacuum, right? Okay so you’ve got your left hand on there stronger. Go a little stronger than you think. Yeah, just hit one from there and see what happens. I mean that’s what I’m talking about. We can play from there.
Student: Yeah, definitely, so strong.
Ben: So that’s twenty more yards. So we’ll take this hand off, yeah, the whole hand has to come over and you see that dot right there, the thumb has to be on that side of the dot.
Student: Okay.
Ben: So why don’t you do that on all shots except for little chips and stuff.
Student: Okay.
Ben: All full swings we need to be over there and that’ll help just close that club face a little bit.
Student: Fantastic, thank you.
Ben: All right, now you’re going to swing out to the right, trust it. You went underneath it, dang it. It’s going to be really good. You got it, right?
Student: Yeah, I got it.
Ben: You know what to do?
Student: Yeah.
Ben: It’s going to be epic.
Stance and Swing
Student: Have you always taken it back that short?
Ben: No, not always but we found that I don’t have a lot of rotation in my upper back and so once I get right there, in order to get farther I have to go like this and use my lower back which actually isn’t good for consistency. So we’re working on more rotation in my thoracic spine, but until then it’s just like boom! And I’m hitting it so straight.
Student: Yeah, that’s awesome.
Ben: I was telling my coach, “I want to take it back further.” He goes “why wouldn’t you want to take it back shorter and keep increasing our distance?” And I’m like “good point.”
Student: Yeah, I was actually watching you do that. Is that what I’m doing? I’m tilted the wrong way?
Ben: So what happens is, is that you start like this and then on impact you go like this. I think you’re getting more power if you preset your hips here and then you can just shoot. With me?
Student: Absolutely.
Sand Trap Wedge
Ben: If you actually, see how my shaft is actually pointing that way?
Student: Right.
Ben: Then that bounce hits and it slides so you get a lot of forgiveness and the ball won’t go as far but you’re going to get it out every time. So see how it’s way forward in my stance and I’ve got the handle like this.
Student: Got it.
Ben: Okay, so put your feet in my feet and then I want that…
Student: All the way?
Ben: Yeah.
Student: And then just swing through.
Ben: Go ahead, yep. See how that came out easier?
Student: Yeah.
Ben: Any time you lean the handle this way, you’re just not going to hit the shot, you’re going to dig. So just as much as you can get that shaft pointing this way right, and then you can actually practice by just… See that line?
Student: How far behind the ball are you hitting?
Ben: An inch.
Student: An inch? Okay.
Ben: And then the club actually lands in it but see how the whole head’s going to hit so it’s going to look like more but you know, an inch or two. Go ahead, try another one.
Student: Thank you.
Ben: Lean that thing way back. Like that, that’s going to expose the bounce. That’s all your forgiveness. The more you lean it back, yep and the more you go this way, the worse it is. The more you want to go this way.
Student: Across?
Ben: Nope.
Student: The other way.
Ben: You want to start like that and you want to impact like that.
Student: Okay.
Ben: Like you’re almost scooping it out of there.
