Tuesday, April 13, 2010

New Ball Flight Laws Video with John Dunigan

Here's a nice video on the 'new ball flight laws' by PGA pro John Dunigan.



I try to reiterate the ball flight laws in my blog because I agree with Dunigan...it's one of the very first things golfers should understand.

To me, understanding what's going on at impact after every shot is HUGE. If I can correctly diagnose what the path, face and attack angle are doing at impact then I can start to get myself on the right track to fixing the issues I have.

How big is that? Well for one when an instructor comes along to help with the swing, I can pretty much ask myself if what they are telling me will help my impact conditions.

There are a few things I like to go over though.

- According to Brian Manzella, the face angle is about 70-85% responsible for the initial direction. Some of this goes into the attack angle and how the clubhead moves thru impact. It's still important to understand that the initial direction is mostly due to where the clubface is pointing, but Dunigan saying it's 'at least 85%' is not quite accurate IMO.

- At one point Dunigan shows the face angle pointing at the target, but the path going well right of the target and he says this will result in a shot that starts out at the target and hooks let of the target. Again, not quite accurate. Remember, that 15-30% of the initial direction is due to the path. That shot would likely start out slightly right of the target and then hook well left of the target.

- Remember, attack angle is important as well. Steeper attack angles move the PATH out to the right more. As I like to say, if you have ever hit a low punch under some trees, the ball usually has hook spin to it because you are really increasing the steepness of the downward attack angle which moves the path well out to the right.







3JACK

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