How to Hit the Ball First Every Time in Golf!

Students always tell me they wish they would have known these three things about how to make ball first contact years ago. It has to do with ball position, weight shift, how actually shifting your weight can impact whether or not you hit the ball first or the ground first, and probably the most important, the direction of the swing. This was a breakthrough for me as a golf instructor. Now we know in order to hit a good quality iron shot, we've got to hit the ball first. And what we're really talking about here is controlling the low point. Now the low point is where the club actually is at its lowest point and where it hits the ground. I've got a 7-iron. Let's talk about the first thing. And that is ball position. Where should the ball be positioned? Because the club, when we swing it, whether it be a chip shot or a full swing, there's always a point at where the club hits the ground, and we want the ball to be slightly behind that. So when we're hitting like a 7-iron, here's what I want you to do. Let's say when I'm sitting here, the ball's in the center of my heels. I step towards the target 6 inches. For sake of discussion, I want to step away from the target roughly the same amount, 6 inches. That positions the ball basically in the center of my feet, and hopefully if you're set up correctly, about the center of your body. Because all things being equal, when I swing the golf club, where the club hits the ground, now assuming you understand the weight shift and the third thing we're going to talk about here in a second, if the ball's in the right spot, which is basically equal to the buttons on your shirt when you're hitting like a 7-iron, it's different with fairway woods and drivers. We've got a ton of videos on ball position for that. You can check those out. But I want the ball to be positioned off the buttons on the golf shirt, because I know then when they swing the golf club, they're going to hit the ball, and then they're going to hit the ground. Now the second thing, and this is really, really important, and you're probably not thinking about it, and that is weight shift. Believe it or not, wherever the weight is at on your feet, the club wants to hit the ground. Let me give you two extreme examples. This might be you. If this is you, maybe you raise your hand. Hey, and also be sure to tell us where you're from. We love hearing where you're from, and be sure to subscribe. Hit the subscribe button, and let us know if you're liking our videos. A lot of you, when you finish your swing, your weight's on your back foot. See that? Boom. Weight's on the back foot. My weight's going backwards. Okay, Nick, how does that look? Okay, thumbs down. Nick, give me a thumbs down. Make sure you give us a thumbs up and like this video. But when your weight goes back, the bottom of the swing goes back. Everybody see that? Boom. But as your weight starts to go forward, and we're going to give you a drill at the end of this video to kind of help with this. Notice how when my weight starts going forward, the bottom of the swing starts going forward. So if all things are equal, the bottom of the swing or where the club hits the ground is going to want to follow the weight on your feet. How can you take that information and say, hey Todd, what am I going to do tomorrow when I head to the golf course? Well, here's what you want to do. When you finish your swing, make sure that your knees are touching. Let's tie some of this together, and then we're going to get into the third thing, which was kind of the aha moment for me, and then I'll give you a drill also. I've got the feet together, balls in the center of my heels. I step, let's say, six inches towards, six inches away. Once again, those are just reference numbers, but equal distances. All I'm going to focus on here right now is making sure that when I finish the swing, my knees are touching and I get that weight going a little forward. That was pretty good, actually. For the first one here in the morning, I'll take that knees touching. That's one of the things that I look for in the golf swing. We've got the ball in the right spot, off the buttons. We understand this concept of, hey, wherever my weight is at, that's where the club is going to want to hit the ground. But here's the third one, and this was the aha moment for me, and that is what we call We actually wrote an entire book on this. We developed an entire system called the Vertical Line Swing System. The bad lie, the book. It's on Amazon. You can check it out. When you swing the golf club, the club travels in a direction. That direction can be straight back and up. It could be really flat and around. But when you swing the golf club, there's a direction that you swing. Think of like a hula hoop, right? You can have it tilted straight up and down. You can have it tilted on the side. There's lots of different philosophies. But what you need to understand, and this is the aha moment that all of my students have had when they come work with me, is that when the swing starts to work low and around, the bottom of the swing works backwards. This is the golden nugget. This is why you're still watching this video. When the club swings around, the bottom of the swing goes backwards. Let me just hit a little chip shot and give you an example, and then I'm going to give you a checkpoint if you're looking at your own swing so you know if you're in the right direction. I'll even give you a drill that I didn't plan on to make sure you can get it there. So if I'm even hitting like a little chip shot and I swing this club straight back and straight through, you'll notice that the club kind of hits the ground in between my feet. But as I start to swing it in and around, it starts hitting back and behind. As I start to go more straight back and straight through, it's more back in the center. And as I go out and across, it goes forward. Just understanding that concept of the direction of the swing can drastically change if you're going to be able to hit the ball first. But this is why you come to US Golf TV. This is why you come to Nick and myself and JT and Jordy and the whole team here is, okay, but how do I take that tomorrow to work on it? Here's what you want to look for. When the swing gets to the top, when your golf swing gets to the top, what I want to see is I want to see your lead arm slightly above your shoulders. Nick, how does that look right there? Okay, finally. I finally got a thumbs up out of Nick. It took me about a damn six minutes here. But when you get up here, I want to see your hand slightly above your shoulder. This would be bad. I think this looks pretty good. I don't want to see that either, though we're not saying that, but we're saying right there. That's your checkpoint. How do you naturally find that? Here's what you do. When you get set up, just go ahead and take your set up. Now you know how to find ball position. Just go ahead and maintain your posture, lift your hands up, see how I'm doing that, and then turn. Boom. So maintain, the key here is maintain posture, lift your hands to about button height, turn, and you're going to be pretty darn close to getting that in the right spot. So let me give you a little drill here. So here's what you've learned. You've learned that in order to make good, solid contact, you got to hit the ball first. Ball position. I want that ball to be off the buttons on my shirt. Aha moment. The weight has a huge impact on where the club hits the ground. So if you want to hit the ground in front of the golf ball, you better get your weight going forward. Number three, you want the lead arm going back and up. So here's the drill. This is the golden drill. We use this for all kinds of things. We call it our right-left drill. So what you're going to do is you're just going to make swings, and I want you to keep the club in continuous motion. I'm right, I'm left, I'm right, I'm left, I'm right, I'm left. And what you're going to find, this is the miracle of this drill, is that when the club is in continuous motion, it wants to find the right spot. It wants to find balance. It wants to help you get to hit the ground in the right spot. Now that you understand these concepts, hey, be sure to check out our next video. And if you want to personally work with us on your golf game, check out BLScoaching.com.