Fix Your Swing Path On Command

Your swing path plays a huge part in influencing the direction of your golf shot. An out to in swing path causes a pull and alternatively an in to out swing path causes a push. An ideal swing path travels along your target line coming into impact. Assuming you have proper fundamentals, your feet, hips, …

Your swing path plays a huge part in influencing the direction of your golf shot. An out to in swing path causes a pull and alternatively an in to out swing path causes a push.

An ideal swing path travels along your target line coming into impact. Assuming you have proper fundamentals, your feet, hips, knees and shoulders should all be parallel to this line. The result is a straight shot, every time. Now, keep in mind that we’re solely talking about path here, not club face angle.
path differences pull push golf

The degree to which you push or pull the ball is based solely on how big of an angle difference your path is to the ideal path. The smaller the angle the closer the ball will land to your target line and vice versa. It’s a rather simple formula.

Swing path determines the initial direction of your golf shot. The key word here is ‘initial’. Clubface angle determines the final direction of your shot. How is this fact beneficial? Simple… imagine this scenario. You step up to the third tee, it’s a straight-away par 4 of 420yards with water on the left side of the fairway. You need a solid drive to reach the green in two and have a hope of par. You set up for the middle of the fairway and make your swing. The thought of the water forces you to hit a straight push into the right trees. You have to re-tee.

Looking back, you are aware that your push was caused by an in to out swing path and since the ball didn’t slice or hook, your clubface was in perfect position; you can now compensate slightly on your next swing to avoid the same result.

path golf differences target pull push

With some practice you will be able to fix your own swing based on your symptoms. If you suffering from a pull, you will need to swing into impact on a path a little inside of your current one. Likewise a push is fixed by swinging slightly outside your current path. Take a look at the picture above for a better idea of what I mean.

This is an amazing tool to use out on the course. Yes it’s simple, but it’s rarely used. Most players will just suck-it-up and play their pull for the rest of the round, but this tends to create poor habits and bad results.

Work on hitting balls on the range using a slightly different swing path and notice the difference in the direction of the ball. You will notice how a very slight difference in swing path can change the direction of your ball dramatically.

Give it a try guys, the next step is learning to use each swing path on command.