In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA Pro Alex Elliott to discuss how to improve your impact position for longer straighter shots.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the range here at West Hill Golf Club
00:04and this video in which we're going to take a look at everything you need to know about the impact position.
00:10No doubt about it, this is the bit of the golf swing that everyone needs to get right if they want to play better.
00:15So we're going to focus exactly on what the right impact position should look like.
00:19Now, the tips and advice in this video comes courtesy of Alex Elliott, PGA Pro.
00:23He's also got a YouTube channel, so head over to his YouTube channel and find a link in it below
00:27if you're interested in Alex's tips.
00:29But let's get started now looking at everything you need to know about the impact position.
00:35So we're going to treat this as a little bit of a step-by-step guide to building the perfect impact position.
00:40Now, it's fair to say there is no such thing as a position, impact position, because it's all a flowing movement in the golf swing.
00:47But it's still a good idea to have these thoughts in mind because this is what you're looking to try to recreate.
00:51Is that fair, Alex?
00:52Exactly, yeah.
00:52And I want you to think about this video as like if you were updating your profile picture,
00:56you want to have a snapshot at impact, this is what we'd look for.
00:59Okay, fine.
01:00So the first point then in our step-by-step guide is about hips and shoulders.
01:04What do people need to know?
01:05So let's just have a look at what we've got set up on the floor here, Neil.
01:07So I've got my feet line and my shoulder line where I would be nice to address.
01:12Yeah.
01:12And then I've got another blue alignment stick on the floor here where we'd aim to sort of get our feeling of our hips to be open.
01:18Okay.
01:18So I do this in two stages.
01:20Firstly, get a golf ball across your chest.
01:23Everything's matching this red to start with.
01:26Solid address position.
01:27Nice and athletic.
01:28And then what we're going to try and feel is we're going to move our hips on the way back and our hips on the way through.
01:33So just focusing on, first off, keeping our shoulders level with this red.
01:38So it's almost like exaggerating what we want.
01:40Okay, fine.
01:41But your hips, hopefully you can see that through the camera, the hips are opening up and should be replicating, or near enough, quite close, replicating the other, the blue alignment stick that's on the ground.
01:49Exactly.
01:50Then the next stage of this would just be to make a little bit of a flowing movement back through.
01:55So at impact, what we're looking for is our hips to be a little bit more open than our shoulders.
02:00Yes.
02:01Yes.
02:01So you can see that nice and dynamic.
02:03And if I was to sort of put a lot of force into the ground here, you could really see I would be dynamic and I'd be into this position where my hip line is a little bit more open than my shoulder line.
02:13My right shoulder is sort of down towards the ground.
02:15Yeah, it's a really good picture to have in your mind because it's a technical key that will add speed and power and also accuracy to your game if you can get that aspect of the impact position right.
02:26Okay, so the next one is about weight transfer.
02:29Really important.
02:30Alex, what are the sort of faults and what position should people be in through impact?
02:35So let's start off with a simple fault.
02:37So if we lead on from that first point, if we don't open up our hips, we tend to see our weight be sort of more 50-50.
02:44Yeah.
02:44Or potentially on that back foot.
02:46Yes.
02:47Bat, thin shots or a really high launch with all our irons.
02:51Yes.
02:51If we think about what we said on that last point, where do we want our hips to be more here?
02:57Well, look where my weight's going.
02:58Yeah.
02:59It's going pretty much into my lead side here.
03:02So impact then, Alex, should your right heel be off the ground for right handers?
03:08It should be slightly off the ground.
03:09Slightly off the ground and I would feel like my weight would be sort of moving into this instant.
03:13And how much, if you were putting percentages on it, how much weight would be on the lead foot?
03:17I would say let's go rough guard of 70.
03:2070%.
03:20So imagine we started sort of 50-50.
03:24Back.
03:25In.
03:26We would see a lot sort of, imagine we had a heat pressure map under us here.
03:29We'd see sort of a lot sort of around our heel to the middle of our foot.
03:32And a little bit sort of towards the instep and toe of our right.
03:35Yeah, and one point I'd make here is that your upper body is still nicely over the ball.
03:40Yes.
03:40It's something that's really important, isn't it?
03:42Definitely.
03:43And that leads us to, again, like I said before, from that first point to the second point of the hips being more open than the upper half.
03:49So we've sort of got our middle of our sternum on the golf ball impact, not both significantly ahead.
03:54Yeah, so you're not 90% weight on the front foot.
03:57No, it's not this way.
03:58It's this move.
04:01Yeah, weight transfer, such an important part of the golf swing.
04:04Hopefully that gives you an idea about how it should work.
04:07So for the next part, we're talking about wrist position and shaft lean.
04:11What do people need to know?
04:13So I think there's probably a bit of a misconception here.
04:15I think a lot of golfers just want to get their hands ahead.
04:17And if you look at this and, you know, if I put my hands ahead here, my face point's significantly out to the right.
04:23And when we're trying to get our hands ahead, we will probably see some shots that are quite skinny, low and shooting off to the right for most golfers.
04:31Not what we're after.
04:32No, probably worse than what you're trying to get in the first place.
04:35Yeah.
04:36So I've got nothing flashy here, just a piece of wood.
04:39Really, what we've got to understand is how do we get the hands ahead but keep the club face pointing to target?
04:43Square.
04:44Right, got it.
04:45So I dress that piece of wood and I want you just to not put any hands on this golf club to begin with and just realise what direction this club's got to work in.
04:53It's not out this way.
04:55It works very much like this.
04:57Yeah.
04:58Okay.
04:58So if we then just put our glove hand on, how would we keep that leading edge nice and square to that piece of wood?
05:04Well, it wouldn't work like this.
05:06We'd have to have an element of this motion.
05:09Got it.
05:09Okay.
05:10So we just felt this for a few reps.
05:13Then we went and placed our right hand on a few reps.
05:18And now you can really see with this bendy shaft on my golf club how much force I can put through this rather than no force.
05:25Lots of force.
05:29Yeah.
05:29And if you can get that position where your hands are slightly ahead of the ball and you're squaring the face, that's the dream combo, isn't it?
05:37That's when you hit those shots that sound amazing, that have got easy power involved.
05:41Exactly.
05:42And that strike goes from sort of, I guess, around the bottom to right in the middle.
05:46Right in the middle.
05:47So we've become a lot more efficient.
05:48Okay.
05:48Alex, can you take the wood away?
05:50Yeah.
05:50And can you hit a shot for us?
05:52Are you going to hit a shot with that club?
05:53Isn't that a thing?
05:54Throw me right in the deep end here.
05:55I will try.
05:56Try and have to.
05:57You can hit one with you.
05:58No, no, we'll go with that.
05:58I just want to say one more thing on this, Neil.
05:59I think this is really important.
06:00So if we sort of bring the first two points into this and we use this as sort of like our blueprint almost of everything that we're looking for up to this point.
06:09Well, let's go in order.
06:10Hips open.
06:12Now where's my weight?
06:13Hands ahead.
06:14Yeah.
06:15So if we wanted to make some little halfback in and through, this is a great way of bringing everything back square.
06:23That feeling that you're looking for.
06:24Okay, go on.
06:25I've been wanting you to hit one with this club.
06:28So nice and smooth.
06:29Trying to really feel it.
06:34Beautiful.
06:43Very good.
06:43Hopefully you get a feel there for exactly where your hands should be through impact, where your wrists need to be to get that shaft lean for a pure contact.
06:50So for the last part of this video, we're going to combine the last two points because there is a difference between how you approach impact with your irons and how you approach it with your driver, isn't it, Alex?
07:01Let's start with the irons.
07:02Yeah, and let's have a concept with an iron.
07:05We're looking to get our bottom of the arc happening just past the goal.
07:09Okay.
07:09Yes.
07:09Pitting down on the ball.
07:10Yeah.
07:10So you get that nice ball first, a little bit of turf, just like the after.
07:16What are you thinking to help you do that?
07:18So I think we can think about this in two ways, really.
07:20One, understanding the concept.
07:22So really realise that my club's going to travel from high to low through the ball.
07:26Okay.
07:27But what I try and feel is that my chest and sternum are more on top of the golf ball.
07:32You mentioned this in sort of that second part of the video.
07:36Here, rather than with a driver, which we'll talk about in a second, I'm going to be a little bit more behind it.
07:41Okay.
07:42Hit one for us so we can see what it looks like.
07:43So I would really just make a few practice swings.
07:45And I would encourage a lot of golfers to do this just inside the ball, halfway back, halfway through,
07:50really trying to feel as though from the golf ball forwards and making that little bit of a bruising divot.
07:56And into the ball, a little waggle, just in Thomas-esque, and then we can hit it away.
08:05Beautiful.
08:06And you can see there the divot has come just after where the ball was positioned, exactly what Alex is looking for.
08:13But that's no good with driver.
08:14Well, that's no good.
08:15I'm sure it would be okay.
08:16But you wouldn't be getting the most from your driver if you approached it in exactly the same way, would you?
08:20No.
08:21And with driver, we're looking for maximum distance, aren't we?
08:23We're looking to zip this golf ball as far as we can.
08:27So I think the simplest way to do this, Neil, is change our setup a little bit.
08:31Okay.
08:31So we move our ball position a little bit further forward, later in our arc, more ascending rather than descending.
08:41Yes.
08:41So ball position inside that left heel.
08:45And I like to simply do this.
08:47So it's a simple routine.
08:48Driver shaft sort of matching my zip.
08:51Tilt so it points sort of towards my left toe.
08:53Down and in.
08:55Now I'm in a position where, okay, if I returned back here, my bottom of the arc would be organised upwards and before the ball.
09:03Before the ball.
09:03Rather than with an iron and more sort of leveled shoulders.
09:07More this way.
09:08That shoulder tilt, hopefully you can see it on the camera there, is very clear to see.
09:14And it might only be a small technical point, but it's really important, isn't it, for this?
09:17Massive.
09:17We set up to hit the shot how we want to.
09:20For example, you want to set up to a flop shot like you would a chip and run.
09:23So we've got to make sure we're doing the right things with driver.
09:25That's an all totally different video, Alex.
09:28Right, go ahead and hit one for us.
09:29Again, hopefully we can get it on slow-mo.
09:32You can see exactly what Alex looks like through the ball.
09:34And it's high launch, it's low spin, it seems like it's in the air for absolutely ages.
09:52Because Alex has just changed that impact position just fractionally, but not doing anything particularly technical.
09:59Really, the golf swing itself is the same, isn't it?
10:01And that's how we make golf simple.
10:03If you can't be thinking about too many things on the golf course, use your setup, change your setup to suit the shot you're about to hit, then swing away.
10:10So there you have it.
10:11That's our look at everything you need to know about the perfect impact position and hopefully some ideas there about how it differs just slightly between the irons and the driver as well.
10:21If you do have any questions, please do post them below.
10:23We'll get back to as many of you as we can.
10:25But that's it for now from West Hill.
10:27Thanks for watching.
10:27We'll see you next time.
10:33We'll see you next time.