In this session, the focus is on refining ball flight control by understanding the interaction between clubface direction and swing path at impact. Revisiting week one, the main takeaway is how the clubface’s alignment relative to the path dictates whether the ball fades or draws. This week emphasizes starting the ball correctly for fades and draws, citing the principle ‘face sends it, path bends it.’ Using data from launch monitors, the lesson deep dives into the “D plane theory,” explaining how the ball’s start direction is 80% influenced by the face and 20% by the path. By comprehending this dynamic, golfers will learn to control their shot’s curvature and ultimately align both path and face for straighter shots.
What's Covered: Deep dive into D-plane theory, explaining how the face controls start direction and the path controls curvature.
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Video Transcription:
Alright, so welcome back. Now in week two, we worked on week one. We just worked on getting the ball curve the correct direction, and we talked about in week one. The main takeaway was if this stick on the ground represents the direction my club was moving at impact or where the, the direction the head was moving, right when I hit the golf ball is this white line anytime the face right when I hit the golf ball, if it's open or pointed to the right of that for right-handed player.
It's gonna fade anytime it's closed to that stick or the direction my club is moving, it's gonna draw. We also talked about the more those get further from each other, the bigger amount of curve we're gonna have. And how in this course, our goal is to get control of those to where we can control path and get it to go to the right, the left, we can control face, get it to close more, get it to be more open, and that's all.
So that we have control of facing path and we start to gradually straighten that out. Now in week two, let's talk a little bit about how to get the ball to start on the correct side and then fade back or draw back to the target. If I'm gonna hit a good fade, I have to start the ball to the left and then have it fade back to my target.
If I'm gonna hit a good draw, I have to start it to the right and then get it to draw back to my target. I can't really hit a good fade if I'm swinging to the right, my face is open, the ball starts right, and then slices even more and vice versa. If I'm hitting a good draw again, 90% of this is gonna be ironed out by using the brick and just swinging the correct direction under the stick or over the stick based on our shot shape.
But let's get a little bit more into the computer, the flight scope data, looking at the radar, and see what it tells us. Now what I know is the ball is gonna start about 80 to 90% the direction the face was pointing at contact. So when I come through and hit this golf ball. I see this shot that I hit here before started to the left.
So I know that my face, or the direction that my face was pointing right when it hit the golf ball was a little to the left and it had to be open to the direction I'm swinging to get it to slice back to the right. So I know I had to be swinging even more to the left. So a good fade. I'm gonna have to have my face open to the direction I'm swinging, but all that's gonna have to be to the left of the target.
So here, let's jump over the computer. Alright, so now let's take a look at on the launch monitor. Let's look at some of the real data here. Now what I say is what I, the term that I use, I didn't make it up, but I really like it, is face sends it, path, bends it. So without even looking at the data here, I see my ball started to the left.
I know that's the direction my face was pointing. So my, my face is basically pointing where this, this yellow line starts out. So I can see it's going. This white line right here is my target. I see my face was pointing a little to the left of it right when I hit the golf ball. Now since it curved another 20 or 30 yards, I know my path or the direction I swung had to be even further to the left of this, this, uh, direction.
My face is pointing. If I go back into the D plane like we talked about last time, that's exactly what we'll see. So we'll see that my club face was pointing straight. A little bit contradicting to what I just said. So I said last time my face had to be pointing a little bit to the left. That's not exactly right based on the science, but it is correct that my path had to be going a lot further to the left to be able to get this ball to start left and then fade back.
So in week one I talked about how if the face is closed to the path it draws, if it's open to the path, it fades. Why is it now that my face, when I looked at the radar, is going basically a little to the right. But when we go back and look at that shot shape, it actually started a little to the left.
'cause Face sends it, path bends it. I said that the face was pointing left, but when we looked at the actual data, it's not really doing that. It's pointing to the right. Well, the reason is the ball only starts about 80% or so with a driver the direction the face is pointing, the other 20% is determined by the direction the club was moving or the what's called the path.
Now we see on this one, my path was way to the left, 24.9 degrees to the left me. I'm swinging way to the left on this orange line here, and my face was pointing a little bit to the right of my target. Now that other 20% is determined by the path, so since I was so far left, it pulled my start line a little bit more to the left.
So this blue line is actually where the ball started. You'll see it's, it's about 80% to the direction of where the face is pointing. Now, I know we're getting a little bit technical here, but I think this is super important to reading Ball Flight as we get more detailed and go into this course. Again, this is a masterclass on Ball Flight.
I gotta get pretty good at reading it. The way that I read Shot Shape is like this. I'll hit a ball and whatever direction it started, I'll say that's the direction my face was pointing at contact. Now if it curves a ton, like this shot did, it really turned over from left to right. I know I had to be swinging well left of that and I know if I swing well left of it, it's gonna pull the start direction a little further left.
So when I look at this ball, I'm like, okay. It started a little left, but I swung so far left it probably pulled it that way a little bit. My face was probably square and then I swung so far left. It really made it start to left and then curve back. It doesn't matter if it's starting to left, starting to the right, anytime you have these big curvatures.
The face is roughly gonna determine the start direction, but the path is gonna curve a little bit more. Now this one didn't quite curve as much we're gonna see on here. This ball started to the right, again, face sends it. My, my face direction was probably a little bit to the right and then path bends it.
I had to be swinging to the left of that to get the ball to curve that much. Now when I go in and look at the D plane, that's exactly what I'm gonna see. This ball started a bit to the right. My yellow line here, that's the direction the face was pointing, and then my path was to the left of that, or my face was open to the path, meaning that ball started to the right and then curved even more.
If you look at this blue line, that's gonna be the start direction of the golf ball. I can look at it from different angles here, but you again, you can see that the ball starts about 80% the direction the face is pointing and then curves what's called, uh, perpendicular to that or perpendicular to D plane.
So basically, if I take my yellow line, which is my face angle, that's gonna determine roughly where the ball starts. My orange line was the direction my club was moving, and if I make a plane of glass between those two, that's what's called the D plane, my ball's gonna start 80% the direction the face is pointing, and then it's gonna spin perpendicular to D plane.
So again, if we go back here and look from this angle, that ball started to the right, 'cause that's where my face is pointing. I swung, it was open to the path quite a bit so it sliced. And if you put a little plane of glass between those two, that ball's gonna start 80% the direction of that, that face angle, and it's gonna curve the direction of the d plane.
So if I go back and let's just talk about this on a, a full swing now, and let's, let's imagine this golf ball here. Let's imagine this big medicine ball being a golf ball on this shot. My face was a little bit to the right. That's why it started slightly to the right, but my face was way open to my path.
So my path was to the left. That plane of glass or that D plane was kind of tilted this way. So that would be like taking this medicine ball. If it was spinning this way, it would go dead straight, but it's tilted like this and now it's spinning this way and it's starting to curve off to the right. So whatever that angle, that plane of glass is, is gonna be the direction that ball curves as I hit it.
So. I know we're getting into the weeds here quite a bit. We're starting to get into some really detailed launch monitor data. Really all I want you to be able to do in this week is realize a couple things. Week one, if the face is open relative to the path, it's gonna fade. If the face is closed relative to the path or the direction I'm swinging, it's gonna draw.
Week two. We're starting to get a little more refined. With this, we realize it's not perfect. The ball starts 80% the direction the face is pointing. And then finally here, what we're talking about again is the bigger those get separated, the more curvature that you're gonna have, and also the more it's gonna pull the start line toward the direction that I'm swinging.
So, long story short, if I hit a giant snap hook and that ball starts dead straight and hooks like 80 yards, I know my face was probably closed a little bit to the direction I'm swinging. But I swung so far to the right. It kind of pulled it a little more to the right. The ball started straight and then drew back.
Again, we don't have to get wrapped up in the details. The real key takeaway here is introducing you to the D, to the D plane So again, if I just have two alignment sticks and I say, whenever I hit the golf ball and I make contact with it, if my face is pointing this way. And I swung to the left or this way.
Oops. So I'm gonna go swinging to the left. So this is the direction I was swinging. This is the direction my face is pointing. That creates a plane of glass called the D plane. And that's actually what makes the curve. So this tilts this way and my ball fades if I do the other way, where I swing to the right, my face is closed to the direction I'm swinging now it tilts this plane of glass the other way.
My ball is gonna spin perpendicular to it and it spins over to the left. So I'm really not adding a lot more detail here that we didn't already cover other than it's going over a bunch of scientific mumbojumbo. But I just wanna show you like there's some real science here that we're working on, and whenever your ball curves, it's just what that plane of glass gets tilted on.
And the whole goal of this course is to learn how do I swing to the right, how do I swing to the left by using the brick? And then by doing that I can learn to swing dead straight. I also learn with my release, my draw release or my hook release or uh, fade release. I learn how to get that face angle. So say I get this swinging straight, my path or the direction my club is moving straight.
I'm learning now how to have the face open. How to have the face closed until I can toggle in on that. And eventually we're gonna get to where we have both of these going straight. That plane of glass is straight up and down. And that ball just curved straight up and down. It doesn't really curve at all.
So that's the real science about what's going on. I think in a masterclass, I kind of wanna go over some of these details. Don't worry about if you have this correct. This is a kind of a confusing concept that you know to me, I had to look at it 15, 20 times, look at a bunch of different shots, think about it for a few weeks before it really sunk in.
But really just know there's some science here that we're working on. We're working on straightening out the path so it's dead straight. Straightening out the face angle, so it's dead straight. There's a plane of glass between those two and the ball curves to that we're just straightening everything out.
So if you take away nothing else, just realize the ball starts wherever the face is pointing roughly. If that's to the right of where I was swinging, the ball fades. If it's to left of where I was swinging, the ball draws. And all we're doing in this course is we're trying to get all these sticks lined up perfectly straight so we can go there.
Another key takeaway for this course, I think is important with the masterclass is realizing, it doesn't matter necessarily what I did in my backswing. It doesn't matter if I, you'll see PGA tour players that loop the club to the inside. In the backswing, you'll see players that, like a Matt Wolf that takes it way out here, or Jim Fur takes it way out there.
That doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation to where your club moves through contact. I spend so much time in this course talking about how you release the club through impact, how you get the face to release more, how you get the path more to the right or the left. The only reason I spend so much time talking about how the club moves through impact and getting control of that is because that's truly the thing that matters to straightening out your ball flight.
You may be asking yourself, "Clay, you know, we've gone through this course and we haven't talked about the takeaway. We haven't gone over the fundamentals of where I am at the top of the swing." What I found is I've coached a lot When I work on that stuff with players, especially in-person lessons, I can fine tune and tweak ball flight.
But when I work on how the club moves through the ball and moves through impact and we focus on that, we really get control of ball flight. I can get as much done in in-person lesson working on how the club moves through the ball. That would take me four or five or six lessons if I worked on takeaway backswing, all these things.
And what I've also found there too is once you start to learn how the club moves through impact and start controlling that, a lot of these swing positions will start to clean themselves up. It's very difficult to have this bad over the top steep motion and hit a draw. So by doing these drills, you're gonna learn to slot it more to the inside, shallow it out to hit that draw, it's gonna feel good, and then you're gonna kind of get rid of that steep over the top move or vice versa.
All these kind of crazy downswing positions are like really weird, uh, positions. We can get in with our technique. A lot of that is gonna iron itself out. If we just focus on how to move this club through impact and we get better and better at that, everything starts to get better. Technique gets better, ball flight gets better, we get more consistent.
So bear with me a little bit. I know it's a little crazy to have a whole course, just talking about impact and how you work through there. My experience though, I find that you'll get at least three to five times faster improvement by working on it this way than working on set up takeaway, backswing, even the start of the downswing.
If we can focus on this impact stuff. Learn to adjust it. We're gonna straighten everything out. We're getting a lot better shots, a lot straighter shots, and it's just gonna get better and better every week as we do this. So hopefully I didn't get too scientific on this one. Hopefully enjoyed this. I'll see you soon in the next video.
