Bobby Clampett - The Impact Zone: Mastering Golfs Moment of Truth

Putting:
Dynamic #1The Flat Left Wrist at Impact

Chipping:
Dynamic #2The Forward Swing Bottom (The Aiming Point Technique, and the Sand Drill)

The Pitch Shot:
Dynamic #3Loading

The Full Swing:
Dynamic #4Lag and the Body Pivot (The Golf Swings Workhorse)

The Straight Plane Line (Through the Impact Zone):
Dynamic #5The Guiding Dynamic

The Impact of Equipment:
How Your Equipment Can Help or Hurt Your Swing Dynamics

Mental Dynamics:
Visualizing the Golf Swing Through the Impact Zone

Youve probably heard that the most important six inches in golf is between the ears. Though the mind unquestionably plays a key role in the game, the most important six inches in the swing truly take place through the Impact Zone meaning the two inches before impact through the four inches after it. After all, they dont call impact the golf swings Moment of Truth for no reason.

The Impact Zone represents a unique golf instructional book, in that everything in it either focuses on or applies itself to improving a golfers understanding and execution of impact. Even though top instructors and players unanimously agree on proper impacts supreme status, no one has built an instructional book around it, until now. In other words, here, for the first time, golfers have a book that focuses their attention on the same region of the swing on which the games greatest players concentrate.

But theres something else that makes this book unique. Most of todays golf instruction, either in printed form or administered on the lesson tee, emphasizes swing style over swing dynamics. By style I mean: Does the teacher advocate that both knees stay bent throughout the whole swing; or should the back knee straighten at the top of the swing and the front knee straighten at impact? How much should the head move behind the ball on the backswing? Should golfers swing their hands into a high upright position both at the top of the backswing and at the finish, or should the swing have a flatter or rounder look? How does the club shaft relate to the plane? Is a weak grip better than a strong grip? Where does the toe of the club point at the top of the swing? Does it face the sky in what is called a closed position, or drop straight down in an open one? Does the body pivot swing the arms, or do the arms and hands dictate the motion of the bodys turning action? What is the proper position of the right arm throughout the swing? And the list goes on and on!

Even advocating a slow, smooth rhythm and tempo over a fast one is an example of style-based instructional bias. Simply put, style concerns itself with a series of static, locatable positions or dots that a golfer connects through his or her swing, while dynamics involves the efficient creation, storage, and application of power to the ball via a swing whose wholeness transcends the sum of its parts.

My work as a CBS golf commentator has taught me much. Ive been witness to the greatest golfer to ever play the game, Tiger Woods. Even though he is only thirty as I write this, it is fair to say that no one in the history of the game has played at his level for a ten-year period. My job requires that I study this phenomenal player and analyze what makes him tick. Studying his game has provided me more evidence that swing-style improvements really do not make for better golf.

Case in point, Tiger has now won major championships with three separate swing styles. In 1997 he won the Masters by twelve strokes with a swing that was steep in the middle, the club face shut and crossing the line at the top. In 2000 he won the U.S. Open by fifteen strokes, with a swing that was on a more conventional plane, with a squared club face, while, in 2005, he won two major championships with a club shaft slightly laid off, or flat, in the middle of his backswing, meaning that it pointed slightly to the right of his ball-to-target line than would a technically on-plane backswing. He has also worked on other swing-style changes that perhaps well discuss more in a second book. But one thing that has remained consistent in Tigers game is his ability to maintain his wonderful swing dynamics. He has never replaced dynamics with style, but has changed his style while maintaining his dynamics.

While style has its place in playing good golf, it pales in comparison with working on dynamics. In fact, when I went out on the PGA Tour in 1980 I had excellent dynamics, packaged in my own individualized style. Im certain now, had I continued to focus on improving those dynamics as I learned them from my childhood golf teacher, Ben Doyle, I would have had a better playing career. Instead, I listened to too-many style-oriented instructors, voices that were being heard everywhere on tours, men who were popular among players, starting in the mid-1980s.

These guys told me things like Youre taking the club back too far to the inside, or Your club face is too shut at the top. One top teacher said that my swing had more moving parts than an erector set. Another had the gall to tell me that I had to forget everything I ever learned or knew about the golf swing before he would agree to work with me. Talk about narrow-minded arrogance! Yet, the same scenario continually plays itself out with average players, and, obviously, average teachers on driving ranges, golf courses, and country clubs everywhere.

My game deteriorated as my focus shifted to style changes. I changed my grip, my stance, my backswing, and yes, even my downswing and finish. My swing became golfs version of connect the dots, with each dot representing a static position. My feel for my dynamics was gone, and so was my playing career.

I believe golfers will learn to strike the ball solidly through the impact zone by developing and improving the five essential dynamics of the golf swing that they will learn in this book. These dynamics all work together to create a unified and whole motion. You will learn these dynamics by beginning with the putt, then progressing to the chip, and then the pitch shot, before concluding with the full swing.

Dynamic #1: Putting: The Flat Left Wrist at Impact. You will see that, when you putt, you want to strike the ball with a flat left wrist. This insures that the club and the left arm and wrist move at the same pace and speed through the impact zone. A flat left wrist also provides the structure you need to withstand the force of impact, which, while minimal when putting, becomes quite considerable with full shots.

Dynamic #2: Chipping: The Forward Swing Bottom. As you progress from the putt to the chip, you will see that that same flat left wrist allows you to strike down and through the ball, with a forward swing bottom whose divot is ideally four to five inches in front of the ball. As you shall see when players achieve a successful forward swing bottom, their ball striking improves immediately and immeasurably.

Dynamic #3: Pitching: Loading the Club on the Backswing. In order to apply power to the ball through the impact zone, you first have to establish the physics of power on the backswing. I call this loading, and you create it via a cocking of the left wrist in conjunction with the bodys backswing, or pivot coil, so that the entire backswing is a continuous and fluid loading motion.

Dynamic #4: Swinging: Lagging the Load Through the Impact Zone. Once youve successfully loaded the club with power, you have to preserve or store that power until the very last second, when you apply it into the ball. That conservation process is called lag, and without it, good golf is virtually impossible. In short, load your lag during the backswing, and lag your load during the downswing through the impact zone.