Mike Malaska: First Golf Swing Lesson
Watch Lesson #1 Below
When it comes to your first golf swing lesson, the first and most important thing to understand is the club face. It’s how the club face runs into the ball. Because all we’re trying to do is get the club on a certain path with the face in a certain position to make the ball go where you want it to go. That’s really the game.
Understanding the Club Face
A club face basically fits in your hand. So, if you’re looking at a ball on the ground and you want to hit a ball lower than this club’s designed to hit it… all you have to do is take some loft off the face. Keep in mind, you’re not doing anything with your hips or shoulders. You just take loft off the face.
If you want to add loft, simply add loft with the hands. Also, the clubhead fits in my left hand like this. Same thing low, high, left, right. If I put both hands, low, high, left, right.
How Golf Shaft Reacts to Clubface
Now if I take this club and I were to hold it in my left hand, it’s the same thing. I want you to watch what the shaft is going to do and this is something for you to practice at home. If I’ve got the club face in my hand, I say okay I want to hit the ball low. Where’d the shaft just go? Lean forward. So that’s lower. I want to hit it a little higher that adds loft I want to curve it left. I want to curve it right. So you see where the shaft is aiming, with what I do with my hands.
So basically, we’re learning how to aim that shaft, which is going to make the ball curve different directions. So all of a sudden hit a low draw. Hit a low fade. Hit a high hook. So the shaft is showing me what I’m doing to the face. So you’re getting a you’re getting a feeling in your hands for what you’re doing with the face.
Grip
Here’s the deal, with the club we haven’t talked about grip. We’re going to talk about that next. But first what I want you to do the first week is you go out. You get your clubs. You set up, same grip every time and all you’re going to do is now when you’re hitting these shots, you’re no longer holding a club. You’re not holding a round grip. See when I play golf when I set up to it, I’m holding that club face in my hands.