How to Achieve Pure Ball First Contact

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-22

[00:01:24]Welcome to US Golf TV and BLS Golf. I'm PGA teaching professional Todd Co. And today we're talking about contact. How do we make ball first contact? In my 30 years of coaching this game and over about 15 years of doing uh content on YouTube, the most common question that we get where people want help with their game is contact. They say, "Todd, how do I make better contact with the golf ball?" So, I've got a couple things we're going to focus on here. First of all, we're going to talk about what are the key ingredients to making ball first contact. And there's two specific ones that I'm going to talk about here and how we can control what we call the low point. If we can control the low point, then we can make ball first contact.

[00:02:04]Then we're going to talk a little bit about the setup. What are some things that you can do in your setup to give you a better chance to make ball first contact? All right. And then number three, I always like to give my students a checkpoint at the top of their back swing. Got two golden nuggets that can really help you get your body and the club in a good spot at the top of your back swing to once again give you a great opportunity to make ball first contact. Now, we really want to do this one uh today in our live session because we just launched a new series called the contact series, the ball first contact series. We'll go ahead and throw that in the chat. And what I'm going to be talking about today are a couple of the things that are in that series. It's a 20 video series. It's kind of we've pulled out a couple of the really good ones and we're going to bring them to you here today. And of course, start putting some questions in the chat right away because I'm going to save some time to answer any questions that you might have, whether it's related to contact or putting or chipping, you name it, we're going to go ahead and answer it uh for you. And you know, my favorite question, we love hearing where you're from. All right? It's one of our favorite things is we love hearing where you're from.

[00:03:08]So, let's get into this. Let's help you make some ball first contact. Let's help you improve your game. Now, the first thing we're going to talk about here is low point. Okay, I'm going to define what low point is and I'm going to give you two things that you need to be able to do correctly to control that low point. So low point is this. So when we swing the golf club, all right, we know that of course the club starts on the ground, right? And we know that as we start the back swing and we complete the back swing, the golf club, the head goes from the ground all the way up there somewhere up in the air. All right, it comes all the way back down, hits the ground hopefully, and then it starts to travel back up. Well, that spot, my friends, of where the club hits the ground or is at its lowest point is what we define as low point. Now, in order to make ball first contact to hit the ball before the ground, we've got to get that low point in the correct spot. So, that low point is in front of the golf ball.

[00:04:12]If I want to hit the ball and then the ground, I've got to make sure that the lowest point of the swing is in front of the golf ball. All right, so that's how we define low point. Low point is the lowest point that the club is at throughout the golf swing. And if I want to make ball first contact, that low point with an iron has got to be in front of the golf ball. So, let me go ahead and hit a shot. And I'm gonna go ahead and actually give you two things that you should be looking for to control the low point and more importantly get it in front of the golf ball. So, let me go ahead and hit a shot right here. All right. So, I've got the ball here in the center of my stance.

[00:04:50]We're going to talk a little bit about setup in just a second. We're going to talk about weight shift and all types of other stuff. Let me go ahead and hit one.

[00:04:59]Okay, pretty good there. I got a little bit of turnover. Got a little bit of hook on it, but I definitely hit the ball first and made ball first contact.

[00:05:06]All right. So, that's what low point is.

[00:05:09]Now, there are two things that have a huge impact on where that low point is throughout your golf swing. The first one is what we call swing direction. All right. So, let me go ahead and grab an alignment rod here and let's talk a little bit about swing direction. So, if I take this alignment rod and I'm just going to go ahead and kind of point it at my target. All right. So, let me put a ball here in place.

[00:05:36]And now already start putting some of those questions in the chat. If there's anything that you want to make sure that we cover here today or this evening, we're going to save some time to do that. So, I'm just taking this alignment rod and I don't know if it's exactly lined up correctly, but you get the idea. It's pointed at my target. Okay, they're pretty close to that. When we swing the golf club, and we talk about swing direction, we're talking about the direction that the club is swinging, right? So, when I swing this golf club, I can swing it in three different directions. I can swing it into out, I can swing it at the target, or I could swing it out to in. Okay.

[00:06:18]Now, the key thing that I want you to take away from that is is that each one of those directions is going to move the low point to a different spot. Now, that's a golden nugget. You should write that down. Each one of those swing directions moves the low point into a different spot. So, let me go ahead and demonstrate again. So, when I swing this sixiron right here, if I swing it into out, now I'm exaggerating that it's pretty in out, but you can see that the club hits the ground way back here. Now, the more I start to swing the club straight back and straight through, I start hitting the ground more in the middle of my feet. and the more I start to swing it out and across, I start hitting the ground or the low point moves forward. So, that's the first thing I want you to take away from today to help us educate ourselves in controlling that low point is the swing direction because we're going to build upon that as we go through this today.

[00:07:13]Now, the other part here is the weight on our feet. So, let me go ahead and demonstrate that and then once we know what low point is, which we've learned, once we've learned the two things that can actually change it. All right, this is all part of the new contact series uh that we just developed. We got we dive deep into all of these and show you how to change it. The second part of this is weight shift. Okay, so let me just use extreme examples. If I set up here and I make a golf swing and I keep all of my weight on my back foot, which is my right foot, you can see that I hit the ground way back towards my right foot. Now, of course, you're not going to swing like that. I understand that. But you get the idea, right? If I did the opposite back swing and then all my weights on my front foot when I start to swing through the low point moves forward. So here are the two things I want you to take with.

[00:08:10]Matter of fact, three things. Number one is that controlling the low point where the club hits the ground is the key to making ball first contact. Number two is that there are two parts of the equation that determine where that low point is.

[00:08:25]Number one is swing direction and number two is weight shift. All right, that's a lot to digest right there. So, I'm just going to pause, catch my breath here, and we're going to get into a couple questions and then we're going to talk about what can you do in your setup and also what can you do at the top of your back swing to control those two things and make that ball first contact. Craig, let's answer a couple questions for our fellow golfers out there.

[00:08:51]>> All right, so this first question comes from Tom. He asks, "For me, my shoulders sometimes hitch up and that causes weak contact. How do I fix that?"

[00:09:02]>> All right, so Tom, great question. Thank you for asking that. Everybody else out there, start throwing your questions into the chat because Craig's going to compile those and we're going to answer those for you. So, what Tom is basically saying there is that, hey, when I swing the golf club, my shoulders tend to kind of come up and out of it. We might call that standing up in the swing. Okay?

[00:09:20]Coming out of posture. There's a lot of different things, but in essence, this is what it looks like. And I'm going to give you the fix for it. So, what Tom is saying is that as he's coming in, his shoulders are tilting up and he's coming out of posture. Certainly, if you come out of posture, okay, the low point is going to change not only where it is on the ground or relative to the ground, but also the depth of it. You might not even be hitting the ground. So, here's a simple tip that you can do when you finish your swing. When you finish your swing, I want your trail eye, okay?

[00:09:53]Assuming you're a right-handed golfer, that would be your right eye. Your right eye is going to finish a little lower than your lead eye. Let me go through that again. trail eye, lead eye. When I finish the swing, my trail eye is just a little bit lower than my lead eye. When you do that, okay, that will naturally keep you in your pot. Let me go and hit one and see if I can demonstrate this.

[00:10:18]So, when I finish the swing, I'm going to go ahead and pause and hold it.

[00:10:25]Okay, that was really solid. But more importantly, notice my head is tilted slightly like this where my trail eye is just a little bit lower than my lead eye. That will keep us into posture and help us make that ball first contact.

[00:10:38]Craig, let's go ahead and answer another question. And hey, like I told you, start putting your questions in that chat and be sure to tell us where you're from. We love hearing where you're from.

[00:10:46]I'm going to ask Craig here in a couple minutes. Where are some of our fans coming from today? So, let's get into the next question, though.

[00:10:53]>> All right. This next question comes from Mike. He asks, "How can older golfers improve contact and transfer weight without losing balance or falling back onto the trail foot?"

[00:11:05]>> This is a great question. So, the question is basically this. As an older golfer, how can I still make ball first contact and learn to shift my weight without without feeling like I'm going to fall over? This is a common question that we get a lot because the truth is is that as we age, our balance isn't as good as it used to be, right? So, here are a couple things that we can do. The first one is we can go to a slightly wider stance. When the stance is a little bit wider, you feel more stable and secure on the ground. Okay? That naturally will improve your contact, improve your balance, a lot of things.

[00:11:39]But here's a real golden nugget for you.

[00:11:40]What you can do in your setup, okay, is I want you to feel like your lead foot, okay, which for me is my left foot, just go ahead and take that and just flare it and point it out a little bit. Okay. See, I'm kind of just flaring and pointing that out there just a little bit. When you take your lead foot and you flare it out a little bit, okay, that allows you to rotate and find balance. Let me give you an extreme example. If I took my lead foot and I pointed it way in like this, which I would not recommend, and I try to get into my lead foot, because of the angle of that foot, I almost feel like I'm going to fall over and I'm going to outra my foot and fall forward. Not a good feeling. All right. So, if I take it, don't point it. Now, I feel like I can just rotate into that and make a nice easy swing and get into a simple and easy balance finish position. All right, let's talk about the second thing here and let's talk about the setup. All right, how can we change our setup? How can we modify our setup to help us make ball first contact? Well, let's start building on a couple of these things that we just learned about controlling the low point. The first one is what we call the 60/40. This is in our book, The Bad Lie. We've got it right over here.

[00:12:51]You can find that on Amazon. But it's one of the cornerstones of the vertical line swing. We call it the 6040 setup.

[00:12:59]Now, what I mean by that is that when you're set up over the golf ball here, I want you to feel like you've got about 60% of the weight on your lead foot and you've got about 40 on the trail. Now, these numbers are general. They don't have to be exact, but the basic concept is you want a little bit more weight on your lead foot than you want on your trail foot. Now, why would I want that or why would I do that? Well, you would want to do that because we understand and we just learned that the shifting of weight from lead to trail foot, but more importantly back to lead foot, okay?

[00:13:36]Helps us move the bottom of the swing forward, i.e. the low point forward and can help it make it much easier to make ball first contact. Now, the second part of this 60/40 is that when we shift weight from lead foot to trail foot back to lead foot, it's a great way to generate club head speed and power. And we talk about the three power sources or the three ways to create club head speed in the vertical line system in our book, The Bad Lie. And one of them is the shifting of weight from lead to trail foot. And then of course back to Leafoot. All right. Now, the second thing that I would tell you is we got to get the ball in the right spot. Okay?

[00:14:16]And I'm going to give you a little golden nugget here at the end of this second part here. But the second tip that I would give in the setup is we've got to get the ball in the right spot.

[00:14:23]So, here's what I want you to do when you're hitting an iron. I've got a sixiron. I want you to put your feet together. I want you to put the ball in the center of your heels like this. And you're going to step towards the target.

[00:14:35]and you're going to step away from the target equal distance. Okay? That will position the ball for the most part in the center of your feet or the center of your heels. So, let me give you just some numbers as a reference point. So, I set the club behind the golf ball. If I step towards the target five, I'm going to step away from the target five. I'm just using those as numbers. The point is is that they're equal. All right. If I have a wedge, okay, maybe a little more narrow stance, right? So now my steps might be three and three. If I've got a four iron, they might be more like five and five. But you get the idea. You want to step towards and you want to step away from the target equal distances because when you do that, that will help get the ball in the correct spot. All right, let me share with you a golden nugget and then we're going to get into a couple more questions. When I say gold the nugget, these are the things that we believe are directionally correct, meaning they pretty much apply across the board to every golfer and they can really point you and get you going in the right direction. And here's the golden nugget.

[00:15:42]The bottom of your swing or what we have learned today called the low point is basically equal to the buttons on your golf shirt. Okay, let me say that again.

[00:15:53]the low point or where the club hits the ground is basically equal to the buttons on your golf shirt. So if we know that basic concept, let's tie that concept into what we just learned. So if the low point is equal to my buttons, where do I want the golf ball to be? Well, equal to my buttons, right? Because that's where I want the club to hit the ground, where the ball's at, right? If my buttons, okay, move back.

[00:16:22]Okay, cuz my weight goes back. Where does the bottom of my swing go? It goes back. My cuz my buttons are back. If my buttons go forward, the bottom of the swing goes forward because my weight is going forward. So, understanding this concept of how the buttons on the golf shirt are a pretty good indicator of where the low point is at and where the club hits the ground can be really helpful. And we call it one of our golden nuggets. All right, Craig, let me pause there. I'm going to get a drink of water. Catch my breath here. Give us another question. For those of you who are just getting here or you're logging on right now, we're talking about controlling low point. We're talking about ball first contact. How do we hit the ball first and then the ground? So, start throwing in your questions in the chat and we're going to answer those for you.

[00:17:09]All right. So, this next question here is from Jim. He says, "How does low point change when feet are uphill, downhill, etc. that that type of thing.

[00:17:22]>> So, Jim wants to know, when we're hitting off an uneven lie, uphill or downhill, how does the low point of where the club hit the ground change relative to that? This is a great question. All right, so the answer to this question is the buttons on the golf shirt. All right, remember how the low point or where the club hits the ground is pretty much equal to the buttons on your shirt. So, let's go through that.

[00:17:44]If we're hitting a golf shot and it's really uphill, okay, it's really this way. Where do my buttons go? Well, my buttons go back, right? Because they want to match the slope, the angle of the slope. So, if your buttons go back, you got to move the ball so it's equal with the buttons on your shirt. So, this is one of those situations where I wouldn't worry so much about where is the ball relative to my feet. be thinking about where is the ball relative to the buttons on your golf shirt. On the flip side, if you're really leaning this way on a downhill lie, okay, you're probably going to have the ball a little bit more forward in the stance, but once again, pretty equal to the buttons on your golf shirt. If you follow that basic guideline of get the ball equal to the buttons on your golf shirt, you're going to be pretty close.

[00:18:36]>> All right, so we've got another question here. This is from Gary. He wants to know, "What's the best way to shift weight in the down swing without coming over the top or dropping the trail shoulder?" All right, so Gary's asking here, "How do I properly shift my weight from my trail foot to my lead foot without dipping behind it or coming over the top?" This is a great question. All right, here's a simple thing and a simple drill that you can do to help you with that. The first thing is let's train the body to understand what we want it to do. So, what I would recommend is this. Go ahead and put your feet together like I am here. Make a back swing and then as you start your down swing, go ahead and just step towards the target. So, let me do that again. I'm here back. Okay. Now, we can even hit golf balls like that to kind of train that process. And in order to do that, take your regular setup. All right. Then bring your lead foot back to your trail foot. Go ahead and swing it to the top. and then go ahead and step forward as you start to swing the club down. When you do that, what'll naturally happen is as the weight starts to go forward, the arms will naturally drop into place. They won't drop too far underneath. They certainly won't go out over the top. They'll fall right into the slot, and you should be able to get that weight going forward and control that low point and make that ball first contact. Let's go ahead and answer one more question here before we get into the third thing I want to talk about here today, which is the top of the back swing.

[00:20:07]>> All right, this question comes from Steve. He says, "If my lead knee stays too bent through impact and follow through, how does that affect my contact and consistency?" All right, so the question here is the lead knee, the lead leg, if it stays too bent too long through the strike, what can happen?

[00:20:26]Typically, this is what I see is is that if the lead leg, if the lead knee stays too bent too long, you're probably sliding through the golf ball because when the lead leg starts to push up or straighten, okay, that's a breaking mechanism that allows the body to quit shifting towards the target and start to work more up and what we call vertical and around. All right, so it's a powerful move. Now, let me say this a couple things here. It's a move that's a high-skilled player move. All right. If you look at tour professionals and really good amateurs and young golfers, you'll see a lot of this kind of pushing up and off the ground in the lead leg straightening. And ideally, absolutely, when we're hitting a golf shot, we love seeing the weight into the lead foot, the left foot. We love seeing the push up and off the ground. Okay? and getting into a position like this where I got some forward shaftling. All right, and I've straightened the lead leg. Now, I will say this also though, it's not a move that's easy to do physically.

[00:21:33]Not every golfer can do that, especially as we get a little bit older or we become what I call more experienced.

[00:21:40]All right. So, what I would say is that if you want to feel that a little bit, just feel like you're pushing up. Okay?

[00:21:47]Feel like I'm pushing up off my left leg. I think that's a good feel to have.

[00:21:52]Go ahead and do that. Then hit a couple golf shots and you should be off and running. However, I wouldn't be too focused on it unless you're really sliding through there too long because more than likely you're probably still going to hit some good golf shots if you do that a little bit and you need to be have some physical strength in order to get vertical to stop from doing that.

[00:22:12]All right, let's go ahead now and talk a little bit about the top of the back swing and what are a couple things that you can do. Now, we're talking, of course, about contact. All right? And we really wanted to do this today because number one is it's probably the most common question we get. How do I improve my contact, Todd? And it's one of the reasons why we did the whole new contact series. And and if the guys haven't already, hey, please guys, throw that in the chat. Somebody might be interested in it. It's over 20 videos long. Um it's it's an an hour or more worth of content and some really good stuff. Some of it we're talking about here today, but we also go a little deeper into some of the drills and some things. So, when we talk about the top of the back swing, let me give you two just simple things that you can do to help you control that low point. What you've learned today is where the club hits the ground and make that ball first contact. The first one, of course, has to do with the eyes. All right. So, what I want you to do is that as you swing the club to the top and as you get the club to the top, I want you to feel that you're looking at the golf ball out of your trail eye.

[00:23:18]Okay, it is amazing the progress that we can make in a golf swing by just simply focusing on the position of the head, the position of the eyes, simple things like that. So, let me go ahead and demonstrate it for you. If I take my setup here, all right, and I get the club to the top of the back swing, all right, but I feel like I'm looking at the golf ball out of my right eye.

[00:23:42]Naturally, my head will stay a little bit more centered. my buttons. Remember the buttons? We talked about that in the golden nugget. The buttons stay more over the golf ball. Now, the opposite of that to just make show you the extreme would be if I got the club to the top and I felt like I was looking at the golf ball out of my lead eye. Notice when I feel like I'm looking at the ball out of my lead, my head is really shifted. Notice where my buttons are at.

[00:24:09]All right. Now, some golfers get into this position. You can hit some decent shots from there, but it does require a lot of movement forward. So, the tip would be at the top of the back swing, feel like you're looking at the golf ball out of your trail eye, and instinctively that'll move the low point a little bit more forward and help you make more ball first contact. Now, the second part, okay, the second thing I want to talk to you a little bit about is the once again the buttons on the shirt. We're really kind of hammering this concept of the buttons on the shirt because it's such a good one. It's such a simple thing but a good one. So, when you get to the top of your back swing, all right, just feel like your top button, which is right here, I'm just going to demonstrate. Here's my top button. Here's my bottom button. When I get to the top of my back swing, I'm going to feel like my top button is a little bit in front of my bottom button.

[00:25:03]See that? That would be different than my bottom button being here and my top button being over there. Okay. Now, I want to be a little careful here. I'm not advocating that you reverse pivot because I know some of my golfers out there who are pretty high skilled watch a lot of like, well, isn't that a reverse pivot? It could be. It could be a reverse pivot if we overdid it 100%.

[00:25:26]But bear in mind, what we're talking about here today is people who can't control their low point. If you're not hitting the ball first, you're not controlling where the club's hitting the ground. And typically, nine times out of ten, it's probably hitting the ground behind the golf ball. So, if I can have you feel like at the top of the back swing, your top button is in front of your bottom button, yeah, you might get a little reverse pivot going there, but I can tell you this, you're going to start hitting the ground in front of the golf ball, and you're going to definitely improve your contact. All right, let me go ahead and pause there for a second. Let's get into a couple more questions. Greg, what else we got?

[00:26:02]And hey, also, do we have anybody kind of logging in from a crazy place today?

[00:26:05]I mean, we got fans from all over here.

[00:26:07]What do you think?

[00:26:10]>> Um, I will have to take a look and see where where folks are from. Um, but uh the next question is from Jeter Street.

[00:26:18]I am going to hazard a guess that that is from a Yankees fan. Um, but Jeter Street asks, "Low point for irons is different than for driver, right? So, what difference should be made with setup and swing to get that low point where it needs to be?

[00:26:34]>> This is a great question. This is a great question. And that is like, is the low point different for an iron than it is with a driver? The short answer to that is absolutely 100% yes. But the truth of the matter is that you can use the concepts that we learned here today to help us with both of that, right?

[00:26:52]Remember the buttons on the golf shirt?

[00:26:54]So, let's just go through. So, let me go ahead and grab one of our drivers right here. And let's let me just kind of walk through this. All right, let's take a second and walk through this. I'm going to grab one of my alignment rods right here. Okay, I'm going to position this alignment rod equal with the golf ball.

[00:27:08]Just kind of going back this way. Well, when we're hitting the iron, we want to hit the ground in front of the ball.

[00:27:16]When we're hitting a driver and the ball is teed up, we want to brush the ground behind the golf ball so that we hit it slightly on the upswing.

[00:27:26]But if we know where the buttons on the golf shirt are and we understand the relationship between the buttons on the shirt and where the club hits the ground, we can use that information for any golf club. So, if I'm hitting a driver, I'm going to get the ball more forward because I want my buttons to be behind the ball because that's where the club is going to brush the ground so I can hit it on the upswing. If I'm hitting my iron, I want that ball more in the center. So, here's how I would simply answer that for you. When you're hitting your driver, get the ball more positioned off the inside of the lead heel. Feel like your buttons are tilted a little bit away from the target. when you're hitting your irons, get the ball more in the center of your heels and feel like your buttons are more equal or neutral with the golf ball and you're going to be off and running. All right, Craig, let's get into one or two more questions before we go ahead and wrap it up here today.

[00:28:16]Well, first and foremost, I see that Jeter Street is actually a fan of Chicago teams, uh, not the Yankees. So, um, as a fellow non Yankees fan, I I deeply apologize. Um, well, you know, I I I I know this about you. Uh, and I I forgive you for this.

[00:28:35]All right. So, our next question is from Ron. He says that he used to be a good ball striker, but he now really struggles with fat and weak shots. What are the first checkpoints that you'd look at to rebuild solid contact?

[00:28:49]>> All right, Ron, this is a great question. The question is, hey, I used to hit the ball pretty solid, but now I'm hitting them thin. I'm hitting them fat. I'm just not making good contact.

[00:28:57]Where do I start? Okay, two places.

[00:29:00]Number one, and the simplest is ball position. Check and see where the ball is at. It could be something as simple as the ball is not in the right spot.

[00:29:08]Remember, all right, that we want the ball to be equal to the buttons on your golf shirt. So, if you've got a 6iron, a 7iron, and you head to the driving range tomorrow, put the club behind the golf ball and go ahead and step towards the target and step away from the target equal distances. That's the first place that I would start. The second place that I would start is make sure that you're aware of your weight shift and where the weight is at on your feet.

[00:29:32]When you finish your swing, make sure you get your weight into your lead foot.

[00:29:37]When you finish your swing, you should have almost 80 90% of your weight on your lead foot to a point where you can literally almost tap your trail foot. If you do that, that will move the ball that excuse me, if you do that, that'll move your low point more forward. and you combine that with where the ball being in the right spot, you're going to be off and run. Let's get into another question there. We got some great questions coming in here. The crew is really lively today. They're firing in some good questions. I knew Hey, listen.

[00:30:05]I knew they were going to want to talk about ball contact, right? We knew that.

[00:30:08]All right, Craig, what else do we >> All right, so this next one comes from Dennis. He asks, "How can senior golfers maintain balance during the swing while still creating enough rotation and power for clean contact?" Okay, so Dennis wants to know, "As an older," And we're not older golfers, Dennis, right? We're experienced golfers, my friend, right?

[00:30:28]How does an experienced golfer still rotate and pivot and make good solid contact when maybe they don't have the mobility, the strength, the coordination that they maybe had when they were in their 20s? All right, two couple here's a couple things that you can do. Number one is in your setup, make sure that you take your toes, your lead toe and your trail toe, and just flare them a little bit. It's better to have your toes flared out a little bit than two straight on. Why do I say this? For two reasons. Number one is when the toes are flared a little bit, it just helps with overall balance. Okay? You just feel more balanced and and therefore it's more likely and easier for you to move.

[00:31:08]Number two is that when your toes are flared out a little bit, it makes it way easier to pivot and to rotate. It's easier to pivot into the back swing and easier to pivot into the finish. All right, so just simply by taking your toes and flaring them out a little bit can drastically help. The last thing that I would tell you is that in your address setup, make sure you get that 60/40. All right, it's one of the cornerstones of the vertical line swing.

[00:31:33]It we hammered in our book, The Bad Lie.

[00:31:35]We hammered in our videos because when you get that 60/40, when you start with a little bit of weight on your lead foot and you shift it to your trail foot, you're going to be off and running because it's going to get some rhythm and some coordination into your swing.

[00:31:48]Let's get into one more question here.

[00:31:49]We're talking about ball first contact.

[00:31:52]How do we hit the ball? Get that flush feeling where the ball is right in the center of the face. And it's a feeling that we all love and one of the reasons that we love to play this game. What do we What else do we got over there, Craig?

[00:32:03]All right. So, our final question here for the this afternoon is from Paul. He wants to know, "What causes golfers to start hitting off of the back foot? And then, how do you retain proper pressure shift without losing stability?" All right, Paul, thanks for that question.

[00:32:20]Paul wants to know, "How do I keep from staying on my back foot? And how do I learn to shift the weight on my feet and the pressure on my feet?" a couple things because this is a very common mistake we see in the golf swing. All right? And we've learned here today, folks, that if the weight stays back, the bottom of the swing stays back and you're not going to make solid contact.

[00:32:41]So, the first thing that I would say is I'd go back say, "Hey, make sure you got your toes flared a little bit and pointed out a little bit." You got to make sure you have stability and balance. Your body's not going to want to move. It's not going to want to rotate if it doesn't feel like it has good footing stability on the ground.

[00:32:57]That's number one. Number two is we've got to learn to just train our body to move a little bit in the way that we want it to move. All right? So, I would do two things. Number one is I would start to make some swings with your feet together and as you swing the club away from the golf ball, just go ahead and step away from the golf ball or i.e. away from the target. Just do you don't even have to make a forward swing. Just kind of boom right there. Okay. Now, when I just take my foot and I move it and I plant it, it naturally creates the right pressure position on the foot.

[00:33:34]Keeps it on the inside of the foot. It allows you to push down into the ground a little bit and creates a really good motor pattern. What I would do after that, okay, is hit a couple golf shots.

[00:33:45]You've got that feel. Then I would transition into the second stage, which would be once again feet together, but this time back swing and then go ahead and just step forward. do a couple of those back step forward. And through that process, then we have been able to learn to shift our weight from the trail foot and then over to the lead foot.

[00:34:07]Today we talked about how do we improve ball first contact? How do we hit the golf ball and then the ground? We've talked about controlling the low point.

[00:34:15]If you can control the low point through your swing direction, through the weight on your feet, you're going to be off and running. We talked about some really good things in the setup. the 6040, the top of the back swing, where are the buttons at? Remember that golden nugget.

[00:34:30]Remember that golden nugget. The buttons on the golf shirt are a great indicator of where you're going to hit the ground.

[00:34:36]And then I gave you a couple really good ideas around the top of the back swing with your trail eye. And of course, also feeling like the buttons are almost tilted a little bit towards the target.

[00:34:45]If you do those couple things, it can help get your back swing in the right position. And remember this, my friends, here at VLS Golf and US Golf TV, we truly believe that in order to play great golf, you do not have to swing like a tour professional.