Why Does Your Ball Do That?

with John Randle

I ask most of my students why their ball is slicing or hooking and I always get a wide variety of answers, not all of them totally correct.  So, I thought a quick explanation of why a ball does what t does could be helpful.

Assuming your ball gets in the air, it will do two things as far as direction is concerned; it will have an initial direction and it will usually have a curve to it’s flight.  These two facets of ball flight are determined by what the golf club was doing at impact.

What determines the start direction of your shot?

The simple answer is, where your clubface is looking at impact.  This isn’t exactly correct but for the purposes of this article, it will do just fine.  If your ball starts 10 yards left of the target, your clubface is looking 10 yards left of the target at impact.

Why does your ball curve?

The golf ball curves of there is a difference between where the face is looking and the direction the clubface is travelling (swing path).  If the clubface is open to the path, the ball will fade or slice.  If the clubface is closed to the path, the golf ball will draw or hook.

So, after every shot you hit, you can have a fairly good idea what your club was doing at impact.  Where your ball started tells you where your face was looking.  If your ball curves to the right, the path was to the left of where you have determined the face was looking.  If the ball curves to the left, the path was to the right of where you determined the face was looking.  The more the ball curves, the bigger the separation between face and path.

I hope this information is helpful.  Next month we will take a look at how centredness of hit and different clubs affect the curvature on your shots.

To discuss this or any golf related topic further, please feel free to stop by the Golf Lab at King Valley!