Golf – Hitting Down To Go Up

Golf is a game that often can often become such a mental fog that one finds they can’t get their game off of a particular plateau. This is often because the game calls for contradictory motions, particularly when striking the ball. The concept of hitting down to get more loft on a ball is a perfect example. Let’s take a closer look.

Despite what you may hear, the primary notions of physics are fairly straight forward. We know them without thinking about them. Let go of a golf ball and it will drop from your hand to the ground per the rules of gravity. It all seems so simple, but golf is really hard because playing well requires us to subvert these basic notions.

The concept of hitting down on a ball to get loft is one that just makes no sense. If you look at the club, the head is angled back. For all the world, this would seem to suggest that driving the head under and then up through the ball would create the most loft. I probably don’t have to tell you that this is not true.

To get loft, you must drive down on the ball. The reason has to do with the club design. The angled face of the club you are using is designed to strike the ball in such a way as to artificially create loft. This only happens if you hit down on it. By hitting down on it, I am referring to the portion of your swing when you should hit the ball. You should still be driving the club in a downward motion. The angle of the club head will take care of moving the ball in an upward motion, but the power of the shot will come from the downward motion.

So, why doesn’t the ball just get driven into the ground? Well, it sort of does. It will actually compress a bit because it is trapped between the club head and the ground. The only place for it to go is back up the club head. As it does this, it will release energy that is added to the shot.

Hitting down on the ball to generate loft is mentally uncomfortable. Try practicing it. Position yourself forward of the ball in such a manner that you can’t help but hit down on the ball. Exaggerate your position if you must. Once you feel the impact and see the result, you’ll understand that the technique works. From there, it is just a matter of endless practice to nail down the perfect technique!