Maintaining Your Angles

Provided by Ken Carpenter, Head Teaching Professional and Golf Digest
Instructor for the Westin Keirland Resort and Spa.

To everyone out there trying to become better players in this crazy game of
golf, Just remember one thing. You never own it; You only borrow it for a
short time. But hopefully this article will help you borrow it for longer
period of time.

When I think of all the great golf swings on tour, itıs always amazing how
those PGA Tour Pros can make it look so easy and simplistic. In my opinion
there are quite a few reasons they can do this. But, perhaps the most
important reason is, they maintain their angles.

Maintaining your angles means keeping your set up angles during the entire
swing until just beyond impact. Set up angles include, those made by your
knees, hips, spine and the club shaft. These angles, once established at
address, represent your measurement and distance from the ball.  If these
change throughout the swing, you will certainly have trouble making
consistent solid contact.  Have you ever seen a pitching wedge from a
PGA/LPGA professional which has hit thousands of times?  The center of the
face, the sweet spot, will actually have a worn, smooth look from the
constant dead-center hits made because he/she maintains their angles. So the
club is always traveling through the same path just about every time. Hereıs
how you can start to hit that sweet spot more often, too.

In order to maintain set up angles, your club must be traveling around your
body on the proper plane. (All photos are left-handed) I explain this to
people by placing the sole of a pitching wedge on the ground with my left
hand and then placing the sole of a three-wood on the ground in my right
hand.  You will notice instantly that the shaft of the pitching wedge is on
a much more upright pitch than that of the three-wood. In order for all
angles not to change you must move the club around your body to match that
particular plane. You would want to maintain the steeper incline with a
wedge during your swing for shorter shots and a shallower angle for that of
a three-wood for longer shots. This is called maintaining your angles.
There are two general shaft angle changes that golfers make that force them
to change their body angles in order to hit the ball.  First there is a
steepening of the shaft angle during the downswing, which now causes
compensation to create room for club to swing down. (As shown in the photos
below)  When the club angle is too steep, the club head will bottom out
behind the ball, so the golfer makes the necessary adjustments by lifting
his/her spine angle which we call ³timing your leap.²  This move certainly
does not allow for consistent ball contact.  The second shaft angle change
comes from being too flat or shallow on the down swing.  This will cause the
spine or knee angle to increase so you can get down to make contact with the
ball.  Note:  The only angle that changes during a proper swing is your left
knee for right-handers and right knee for left-handers as it straightens
through impact. If we maintain the proper shaft plane as shown in picture to
the right, our angles would stay the same. This would lead to more
consistent golf shots.


Most of us are trained with good hand-eye coordination and thatıs why we can
make angle changes and sometimes hit great shots. But, the key to solid ball
contact, without compensating by changing your angles, is to set up with the
proper angles, then maintain them throughout both the back swing and down
swing.  This will lead to more consistent hits, which means more enjoyable
golf.  Best of luck with your game!!!

For more information about Ken Carpenter, call (480) 922-9283.