By learning how to squeeze the golf ball, you will begin to shoot more shots.
GOLF.com
Welcome to Shaving Strokes, the GOLF.com series where we share the progress, lessons learned and takeaways from novice golfers like you — including the speed bumps and challenges they've faced along the way.
Putting pressure on the golf ball is a skill used by the best players in their game, as it helps them make first contact with the ball and prepare their shot for distance and control.
But for average disabled people like me (and many of you reading), it's not an easy read.
Sure, we can always hit the ball, but, most of the time, it's by mistake, and many novice golfers don't know what to do correctly to do it.
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One of the first things needed for ball pressure is being able to take the correct divot – which means hitting the ball first again then the ground. If you're struggling with the pieces, it means you're hitting the turf first, and the top means you're not engaging the ground at all!
As I continue my journey to 80 for the first time, I know I have to become a better golfer. This means pressing the ball and making clean contact.
To work on this, I recently took a lesson from GOLF Top 100 instructor Brech Spradley, who walked me through a simple divot technique to give me a feel for where my club should be during the golf swing. Take a look below to learn a few things for yourself.
Try this golf ball drill
As the video begins, Spradley discusses a glaring weakness in my swing.
“Nick is fighting good pressure and getting that dollar-bill divot that goes over the ball,” he says.
But this is something Spradley rarely sees when he's in a lesson with novice players.
“When I do golf schools with people with moderate to advanced handicaps, they need a better understanding of what happens with the hands and wrists through impact,” he adds. “But the key is to loosen my wrist like a hammer, which when I finish, allows the club to come out – which, in golf, means it goes down.
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“A lot of golfers tend to struggle with the scoop, and their wrists don't go out, but, instead, they go up. If I do that, the club takes off.”
This is where Spradley dives into the practice divot to help improve my touch and, ultimately, lead to golf ball stress.
“When we first get involved in the golf swing, we have a clubbed left wrist and a clubbed right wrist – the latter being extension, while the former is flat. As we turn to the ball, there is a rotation of the left arm. It is at this point that the lead wrist begins to loosen and descend. This is a feeling that many people often skip, the exact part of the unhinge. “
Instead of fighting this feeling, Spradley says I need to start digging an edge that leads into the ground – which will help compress the golf ball and produce the correct divot. But it also requires pushing the upper body up.
“The body takes the club out, and the wrist takes it down,” he adds.
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Next, Spradley told me to hit shots, really working on how my wrists hold and how to use the leading edge before first contact with the ball. After hitting decent results, he reminds me to continue the process, which will eventually lead me to press the ball.
“As you get better at that, you'll see the club fly,” he said. “You just need to understand the hammer better [and how to dig that club into the ground before impact].”
By really understanding how to produce the right kind of divot and in the right spot (behind the ball), I can learn to put pressure on the golf ball and start hitting swing shots. So try this yourself to see the same results.
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