Do you know where you hit the ball?

I know what your thinking. Of course I know where I hit the ball – left, right, fat, thin and everything in between. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about whether you know where your hitting the ball on the clubface. Ah, I thought as much, you really don’t have a clue and yet this is one of the simplest things you can practice and will have a surprisingly profound effect on your overall performance.

I don’t know where I heard the statistic, or how true it is (although I suspect it’s pretty close) but every ½ inch you miss the sweet spot on the clubface translates to about a 7% loss of power, and it doesn’t take much imagination to realize what is does to your accuracy. So, it would make sense to me that if you wanted to hit the ball farther and straighter then the first thing you need to make sure of (regardless of what swing issues you may have) is to make sure that your hitting the ball squarely on the sweet spot every time.

Where is the sweet spot? Probably not where you think it is. Try this – take any iron out of your bag and hold it in front of you, loosely between the thumb and forefinger of your left hand, about ½ way down the shaft, with the face pointed towards you about eye level. Now take a tee and tap it around the clubface. You will notice the club rebounds with each tap and the clubface torques differently as you tap in different areas of the clubface. What your looking for is the spot on the clubface where the club will rebound directly away from you without any torque. That is the sweet spot on your club. You probably thought it would be in the middle of the clubface but I suspect your findings will show that it is closer to the hosel than to the toe of the club.

Now, here’s what I want you to do. Repeat this test for each club in your bag and put a small piece of masking tape (maybe a quarter inch around), or one of those sticky dots found at most stationary stores, on the clubface where the sweet spot is. Now, go to the range and practice striking the ball on that exact spot. If you find your having trouble striking that spot you might want to back down to a half swing until you begin to strike that spot with some consistency and then work your way up to a full swing. Trust me, it will not be as easy as it sounds.

I don’t care what kind of swing issues you may have, I will guarantee that if you learn to strike the ball consistently on the sweet spot of the clubface it will reduce your margin of error and improve your scores.

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