In today’s video, I want to give you three checkpoints I look for when I’m working on players in their videos, that we want to make sure we’re hitting in order to deliver a good strike on the ball.

So, let’s get right into it and get to work. So, if I’m aiming for that flag, the first checkpoint I have for my players, once we make sure they’re set up correctly, is we want to make sure that, in the initial takeaway, the club head is hiding the hands down the line and the leading edge of the face is paralleling my spine angle. So, I’ll repeat that again.

When I take the club back, we want the club head to hide my hands, the leading edge to match my spine. From there, we go to the top, and we want to see this leading edge parallel to that lead forearm. So, if I can get to position one, and then to position two, I’m getting myself in a place ready to hit a good strike on the ball. And I will spend a lot of time with my players working on these two positions, and usually, what we’ll do is, we’ll stop, and then hit it.

So, we’ll go, one, stop, two, stop, and then we would hit a strike on the ball to make sure we’re finding the right places in our backswing because, sometimes, the backswing change is the hardest because it happens in motion and we don’t have enough time to think about how the club has to change in delivery. So, we get to the top – one, two. The next checkpoint I’m looking for is, can you get to a post-impact position where your hands are hidden from the camera and the club head’s still out?

A common flaw that I see is that the club head exits before the hands do, and then you have your quintessential flip. So, what we’re trying to do is get from the top position – again, you can pause and hit the golf ball – to a position post-impact where the club head’s still out and the hands are coming back in. And this will help get a good consistent hit on the ball, and simple checkpoints, like these three, you can use while you’re looking at your own videos to see if you’re hitting the mark. Typically, if I see the club too much behind the hands and face-down, we’ll see the club get across the line. If I see the club get too far outside, the club will get laid off.

So, it’s really important that that first position hits your hands with the face square so that it can get to an on-plane position at the top, to then a good post-impact position after you make the strike.