To put it simply, a stock shot is a shape of shot that you can rely on whether that be a fade or a draw.

The best golfers in the world have had a stock shot. For example…

• Jack Nicklaus – fade
• Ben Hogan – fade
• Lee Trevino – fade
• Nick Price – draw
• Berhard Langer – draw
• Tom Lehman – draw
• Bobby Jones – draw

So why would such great players not just hit the ball straight?

Simply because it’s virtually impossible to hit straight shots. Jack Nicklaus has been quoted as saying he’s only ever hit 3 straight golf shots in all his life.

And he’s one of the best golfers who has ever lived!

So what chance do you and me have of hitting straight golf shots consistently?

Obviously very little to none.

The reason it’s virtually impossible to hit perfectly straight golf shots is because the clubhead is traveling very fast and at impact the clubhead has to be moving exactly along your target line. And I mean exactly, it can’t be a fraction of an inch off. Equally the clubface has to be perfectly square when it contacts the ball. Also, you need to hit the ball directly out of the center of the clubface.

But then, even if you achieved all of this you would probably have wind to deal with which would put some sidespin on your ball.

Now the theory with choosing a stock shot is that it will help you to have greater consistency from one shot to the next. So to hit either a draw or a fade you need to put sidespin on the ball. And to do this you need to contact the ball with a glancing or crosscutting blow.

Here is a practical example of why you need to pick a shape of shot that you can hit consistently.

Let’s say you’re faced with a 5-iron to a green. The pin is on the left side of the green just 10 feet from the fringe. So if your stock shot was a fade you could aim at the pin and if you fluked a dead straight golf shot your ball would be right on the pin. If on the other hand you hit your standard fade shot you would probably end up about 10 feet to the right of the hole with a good chance at holing the putt. But if you had a bit more of a fade than you liked then you might end up 20-30 feet to the right of the hole.

That’s smart golf.

So you have to make a decision which way your normal golf shot (your stock shot) is going to fly. And you only have two options:

1. A fade.
2. A draw.

Now there are pro’s and con’s to both shape of shots, and let’s look at some.

The Fade

A fade is a shot that curves slightly from left to right.

Fade Example

• This shot is easier to control than a draw in my opinion.
• It flies higher and lands softer.
• If a lack of distance is a problem for you then this is probably not the best shape of shot.

The Draw

A draw is a shot that curves slightly from right to left.

Draw Example

So you have to make a choice as to which shape of shot you want to hit.

The major factors in making this choice are height and length. If you play on a course that often requires high shots to stop the ball then the fade will be better at doing this. If on the other hand you need to play a lot of lower shots then a draw is better. Then if you play a golf course that is very, very long and you struggle with distance then a draw will give you more distance. For a shorter tighter course, then a fade will do better.

The bottom line is you have to weigh up what will work better for you.

Now by doing this it doesn’t mean that you can’t hit the other shape of shot. It just means that most of your shots will curve one way, and you’ll know that is going to happen before you play the shot.

OK, let’s say you’ve chosen to play a draw shot as your stock shot.

How are you going to make sure you hit a draw shot consistently?

Well, you’re not going to change anything with your swing. Hopefully you’ve grooved a good solid swing by now. o you’re going to achieve a draw shape of shot by adjusting your setup. Here’s what you need to do.

When you’re standing behind your ball I want you to visualize a straight line from your ball to your ultimate target. Then pick out an initial, intermediate target from your ball to your target. This initial, intermediate target should be about 2-3 feet in front of your ball.

Now, you’re going to pick another intermediate target to the right of your first one. Once you have this second, intermediate target you then use that to setup to your shot.

So you setup your body parallel to the second intermediate target. And by doing this all parts of your body will be aligned to the right of your ultimate target. Here is a picture showing you this setup…

Now the only other adjustment you need to make is to square the clubface up to where you want your ball to finish. So for this example, you would have to close the clubface a fraction so that is pointing at the initial intermediate target. Here is a closeup picture of this…

So there you go, that’s the two main things you have to change in your setup to hit a draw (or fade for that matter).

• Body Alignment
• Clubface alignment

Once you have changed these factors you then simply need to swing along the line you’ve setup. And in the example I’ve just given you that would mean that your swing path will be swinging out to the right of your target. The ball should then curve from right to left because at impact the clubface should be slightly closed and your swing path is in to out.

To hit a fade you simply need to reverse those instructions that I just gave you for a draw. Remember, you simply have to change your body alignment to your final target and then align your clubface to your final target. After doing this you then simply have to swing along your alignment line.

Now there are some other things that will help you to hit one shape of shot or the other. Here they are:<

So the main things you need to adjust are your alignment and cluface positioning at setup to help you hit a stock shot consistently. And the other things I’ve mentioned above are things you can try to help you hit a better and more consistent stock shot.

The bottom line of this lesson is that you need to pick one shape of shot that you can almost certainly always hit. Then make the necessary setup changes and learn to hit that shape of shot consistently. When you do that you’ll have much greater ball striking consistency and consequently much more fun playing golf.

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GOLF SWING CONFUSION

For example, you get golf coaches saying you shouldn’t let your right elbow fly out at the top of the swing like Jack Nicklaus (18 Majors).

You get some golf teachers saying we should only swing to parallel because swinging past parallel is bad.  Yep, if you swing past parallel you might only win a major or two like John Daly.

And almost everyone agrees you need to watch the ball being struck when you’re swinging because if you don’t you have no chance of shooting 59 for 18 holes of golf like David Duval

And you most certainly have to keep your right hand on the golf club exactly like you had it at address or you’ll be a terrible ball striker like Vijay Singh.

For almost every “should” in the golf swing you’ll find someone who successfully contradicts it.  Here is an interesting video which shows some of the funkiest and most successful swings in golf (apart from the last one ).

I’ve given up on swing positions…apart from one! (mentioned at 5 minutes and 17 seconds in the video above)

You see, for the last couple of years I have  looked at the golf swing from an 80-20 point of view.  And this 80-20 point of view is to find the MOST important things in the golf swing.  To start my quest I turned to the goal of the long game which is…

“To hit each club as long, accurately and consistently as possible.”

Upon reflecting on that goal and looking at the golf swing in terms of results I’ve come to the conclusion that the most important aspect of the golf swing is what happens at impact.   And there are 5 main things that concern us golfers at impact which are…

1. Hitting the ball first.

2. Striking the ball on a path that will send the ball straight where we want.

3. Striking the ball out of the center of the clubface.

4. Contacting the ball consistently with a slightly open or slightly closed clubface.

5. Contacting the golf ball with the clubhead moving as fast as possible.

Now IMPACT may not seem like much of a perfect golf swing revelation to you, but to me it was HUGE and let me explain why because it’s very important…

When I was trying to play on tour as a teenager I was obsessed with swing positions but I never focused on those 5 things above.  I mistakenly thought that if I had perfect swing positions then the result at impact would be perfect.  Sadly the reality is that you can have a great looking swing that hit’s the ball consistently badly. But conversely like that video above showed, you can have a terrible looking swing and hit the ball consistently great.

The only way that can happen is because at impact the great golfers all consistently achieve those 5 impact conditions above.

So now I firmly believe that if we want to improve our ball striking in the shortest amount of time we should systematically work on improving the 5 critical impact elements above.  If we improve those 5 impact elements over what we are doing currently then improved ball striking has to be the result.

This may be a different take on the perfect golf swing than you were expecting so I’d be interested to hear your comments. Just post your thoughts below on the 80-20 perect golf swing.

Did you notice how simple that is?  But there are some very subtle things I’m doing when setting up that will mean I’m more consistent than most other golfers.   And those things all relate to the following three things:

• Grip
• Alignment
• Ball Position

Posture is not on that list because the posture you have at setup is more a result of the habits you’ve setup in the past.  But I’m doing very specific things with my grip, alignment and ball position to help me hit the ball consistently.  Can you guess what they are?  Put your comments below and I’ll see how on to it you are.

]]> http://consistentgolf.com/blog/my-80-20-pre-shot-routine/feed/ 52 http://consistentgolf.com/blog/the-80-20-setup/ http://consistentgolf.com/blog/the-80-20-setup/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:53:13 +0000 nickbayley http://consistentgolf.com/blog/?p=1331 Every hole of golf requires a tee shot first.  I would have thought that would make tee shots rather important!  I think in terms of the 80-20 rule they are.

Now as far as the long game is concerned I’m going to loosely say it covers shots from your driver through to your 9 iron.  Although there is some carry over to the short game.

OK, so what are we trying to achieve with the long game?  Well, here is the goal of the long game I believe:

To hit each club as long, accurately and consistently as possible.

So what is important and needed to do this?

Well let’s look at the setup first because you can’t hit ANY golf shot without first setting up to the golf ball.  And to do this I’m going to quickly cover the major elements of the setup.

The Long Game Setup

Grip – I’ve heard a number of different golf teachers say that the golf grip is not important.  I can’t believe how anyone can say that because without gripping the golf club you can’t hit the golf ball.  So logic would dictate that your golf grip has some importance.  But I think the best thing as far as the grip is concerned is to find the best golf grip for you and repeat it consistently.  The best starting point for this is the vardon grip.  It’s the most commonly used golf grip on any golf tour.  So the 80-20 rule tells us that’s the best place for all golfers to start with.

Alignment – Again, I’ve heard golf teachers saying that alignment is not that important.  But like the golf grip, you can’t hit a golf ball without aligning yourself so you may as well make this as easy as possible.  The most logical and easiest way to align yourself is to have all parts of your body i.e. feet, knees, hips, shoulders etc., parallel with your target line.

Posture – Getting into an athletic posture position is a must if you want to hit the golf ball as far as possible.  Luckily it’s very easy to do as I show you in this video.

Ball Position – Positioning the ball in a good place in your stance is critical to making the golf swing easier and more consistent. As a general rule…having the ball positioned just inside your left heel will serve you pretty well for most golf shots.

OK, with all of these setup elements I’ve outlined you must understand that you are fully capable of still hitting great golf shots if you don’t have these things “perfect”.   But you’ll make golf easier and simpler the better you setup to the ball and a great way of getting close to perfect is to have a….

Physical Pre-Shot Routine

To improve your ball striking you must create a physical pre-shot routine that you use every long golf shot you play.  And that routine must include all the critical setup elements I’ve covered so far, i.e. the grip, alignment, posture and ball position.  OK, finally for today I think it’s important that I say if at any time in your golfing career you start hitting the ball badly…the very first place you should look to for fixing it is the setup.  Make sure your setup is sound by making sure you’ve got your vardon grip, parallel alignment, athletic posture and ball position correct.

That’s a summary of the 80-20 setup.  If you would like more information about how to make an 80-20 pre-shot routine let me know.