Video Tip: Keeping the Club Low THrough Impact

In this instructional tip, Mel Sole of the Mel Sole Golf School at Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club shows us how many beginning golfers make the common mistake of trying to bring the club head up in the air quickly. Mel is here to show you how keeping it low through impact will yield better results.

Good afternoon everybody and welcome. I am Mel Sole, at the Mel Sole Golf School at Pawleys Plantation Golf and Country Club. Today we’re going to talk about an issue that plagues the higher handicap. The good players very seldom do this, but this is for the beginners and those people that are trying to learn the game. When I watch beginners with chipping and pitching, there’s a subconscious move that the beginners make where they think they have to help the ball up into the air. When they’re going to hit a little pitch shot or a little chip shot, they want to do this and they want to get … If you watch, even if you watch a little child … I was watching a junior clinic on TV this morning and these little kids were trying to do this and so the club would come up this way very, very quickly.

If you want to start becoming a good ball striker, learn to keep the club low through. When you come through here, I want you to hit just little shots, all right. This is what we call graduated learning, just little shots like this. And when you finish, I don’t want the club to be more than a foot off the ground. When you go through, I want you to do little shots like that. See where my club is? I don’t want this. I don’t want to try and scoop it. And it doesn’t matter. That was a lob wedge. I can take my seven iron, if I can do the same thing. Keep the club low. Do you see how nice that is? When you learn to do that, now you start going a little bit longer and keep it through. Now, it’s not going to stay one foot, but you can see I’m still keeping the club low. I’m not allowing this breakdown between the left arm and the shaft.

Eventually, you want to learn to then go through. Now, you see where I’ve extended my arms? I want that feeling of pushing here with both arms straight through impact, so that initial little drill, you learn that. You learn to do, straighten the arm like that. That keeps it low. When the arm bends, the club comes up. There it is, folks. All you do, keep the club low. You’re going to hit the ball nice and solid.

So beginners, don’t rush. Take your time. Learn to keep the club low through impact. You’ll start hitting it well.