Sergio Garcia hit a driver off the deck this week, and the internet went wild.
While the ball ended up in an ok position, he mis-hit the shot. The slow motion replay revealed something which almost every golf teacher knows, but apparently many amateurs weren’t aware of – watch the slow motion replay at 45 seconds.
Driver off the deck for @TheSergioGarcia…
…but wait for the replay 😲 pic.twitter.com/rsWLjBHowr
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) March 22, 2017
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Twist It
I often use my high-speed camera in lessons, as it can help a player visualize what just happened at impact.
In the vast majority of cases with amateur golfers, we see something similar to what we saw in Sergio Garcia’s shot – a massive twisting of the clubhead at impact. Check out the short video below.
I will often ask my pupil;
What do you think caused the twisting?
In most cases, the pupil guesses that they flipped their hands over or twisted the clubhead themselves. But this is not true – in fact, there is no way your hands could apply that much twist to the clubhead; our muscles are simply not that fast. So what IS happening here?
Sweet Spot
We all know the sweet spot – it feels great when we hit it, and the ball flies a long distance with a buttery feel.
However, when we miss the sweet-spot, the club will twist around its center of mass. This is exactly what happened in the case of our amateurs and Sergio Garcia’s driver.
Sergio hit low and on the heel of the club, which caused the club to twist rapidly down towards the ground, as well as closing (or flipping over) at a rapid rate.
Club twists around the center of mass (green). Strikes low on the face will twist down (left picture) and on the heel will twist the clubface closed (right picture). Sergio Garcia’s driver shot did both.
Good Vibrations
You will report this to me as
hey coach, the club keeps twisting in my hands
And your normal response it to grip it tighter to try and stop the twisting – which is the equivalent of trying to dig your heels into the ground when a car is coming at you 100mph.
The reality is, you need to get better at striking that sweet spot, the point where minimal clubhead twisting occurs. This will maximize the energy transference into the ball (smash factor – more distance) and also greatly increase consistency of accuracy, as off-center hits can get wildly chaotic.
To greatly improve your ability to hit the sweet spot, check out The Strike Plan by clicking the image below. It includes a whole host of drills to improve your sweet spot strike, as well as quality of ground contact – two vital pieces to consistent and better play.
Darryl
IMO gear effect and twisting of the shaft due to impact off center
is caused by deficiency in the golf shaft.
A proper golf shaft is designed tip stiff enough to eliminate gear effect
and to ensure that shaft minimizes deceleration at impact.
If the shaft/clubhead decelerate 20-30% at impact, then that shaft is deficient.
A properly designed shaft will only decelerate 10% at impact and will effectively elminate gear effect and twisting at impact.
Raymond CHASTEL
From the slow motion review of SERGIO GARCIA”s shot with the driver “off the deck”,his was a poorly executed shot ,digging too much dirt from the turf and the clubhead not sliding on top of the grass and ,worse ,closing at impact.It came off well because everybody who has executed this shot knows ,the outcome is a sliced ball .Just look where the ball is heading after impact and where it finally ends :a sliced shot !
Kevin Murphy
Ty Adam,, good stuff not sure why he would even try to execute that shot anyway,, I didn’t watch so idk, anyway iam sure he has a 3 wood in his bag !!! Besides that poorly excited swing he’s has a great swing very very shallow move he has ,,always intrested to pick his swing apart not sure if he uses his rotation to shallow or arms ,,, I would guess alot of both !!! Ok thanks again Adam I wouldn’t be trying that shot anytime soon!!!
Chad Parnin
That Sergio shot is funny and unbelievable at the same time.
He came out smelling like a rose.
Pros…jeesh.
🙂
Dave Tutelman
Adam, good presentation of an important fact.
Darryl, just want to respond to your comment, as someone who has studied shafts a lot. Neither of the scenarios you cite has anything to do with the shaft, and everything to do with transfer of momentum.
(1) The club twisting has nothing to do with the shaft. Any shaft short of a thick steel rod will do what Adam explains. In order to prevent that twisting, you’d need a shaft with way more stiffness than anything a real golfer wants to play with. When you look at the forces and torques exerted by the ball on the clubhead, the twisting WILL HAPPEN if you don’t apply that force through the center of mass. (We’re talking something in the vicinity of 2000 pounds of force. Darryl, if you’re OK at physics and math, I have the analysis on my web site,
(2) The club losing 20-30% of its speed during impact is similarly a transfer of momentum and energy from the clubhead to the ball. Conservation of energy and conservation of momentum says that, if the ball takes off with velocity, it has gained energy from somewhere. The only place that could come from is the clubhead, the thing that applied the force to accelerate the ball. So the clubhead must slow down in response. MUST! Very basic physics. If you work out the equations of momentum and energy transfer, A driver loses about 30% of clubhead speed at the moment of impact, because that much kinetic energy was just transferred to the ball.