Imagine a new golfer's brain beginning his adventures with golf. The golfer of course tries to hit the ball straight, that's for sure. Next, he likes to hit the ball straight and get it airborne. His brain looks for solutions what to do with these funny sticks -- how to deliver them at the ball to fulfil these goals. And that is how the story begins...
The tabula rasa starts with steering the clubhead alongside the baseline (let us believe it is aimed flawlessly straight at the target) and, simultaneously, he/she wants to scoop the ball because it does not trust in clubs' lofts yet. The result is obvious -- he/she hits long before the ball. Phil Rodgers writes: "A slicer has little or no flat spot, and a hooker's flat spot is too far behid the ball". Thus, the brain thinks how to avoid it and concludes that hitting from the outside across the ball is a cure. The brain accepts this easily, it is easy to hit the ball this way because it lies on the ground. Moreover, everyone says that one should hit the small ball before the big one (our Earth). However, a new problem arises -- the ball does not want to go straight at the target, it goes well left of the target. Until now, the brain associated the direction of the ball with downswing path direction with the clubface square to the path (hence, by the way, the so-called old ball flight laws were so long en vogue and millions of golfers including the greats built the whole game around them). Now it becomes obvious that toying with the clubface angle and delivering an open clubface to the path results in making the ball start more to the right and it also seems to curve even more right to the target. The vicious circle running...
Let us begin the same story a bit differently. What would happen if this new golfer would not have hit the first balls fat ? Or better said, if this new golfer hits long before the ball but he does not hit it fat ? Or even better said, this new golfer is somehow able to create a long flat spot that starts long before the ball and then sweeps the clubhead evenly through the ball ? The answer is simple -- this new golfer starts to hit the ball relatively straight from the beginning (of course trust in loft must take some time but let's forget about it now).
The conclusion is -- the golf instruction for newbies should concentrate on automating the process of finding the best way to let new golfers hit it fat from inside without hitting it fat. IT MIGHT BE THE MOST IMPORTANT GOLF SWING TRUTH EVER WRITTEN FOR ALL GOLFERS. Both Rodgers and Nicklaus thought about the same idea as well but rather in the context of helping accomplished golfers to work out consistent swing without lots of timing issues and verbalized it not so explicite. Coincidentally or not, this is also our current universal goal with working on the Senior Swing principles, for both accomplished ones as well as weekend hackers. Stay tuned, we shall try to work out the method of automating the process of obtaining long flat spot.
P.S. More specific and realistic graphics of the Flat Spot in our golf forum.
