The Perfect Golf Impact Position

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Your body starts to unwind. Soon, a surge of pent-up energy will be unleashed. Slowly, it will be transferred from the club to the ball. As your body begins to shift its weight to your lead foot, your hips follow along, then the shoulders. As your torso becomes fully committed to unwinding and releasing its power forward, the arms and wrists finally become involved. This perfect united movement calls to mind the snapping of a whip. The clubface moves quickly from an open position to a closed one. The sweet spot is homing in on its target. Congratulations. You have done everything right to create the perfect golf impact position.

Golf Hands at Impact

The release follows naturally as your hands and forearms turn. If they fail to release and turn in time, the clubface remains open and it will strike the ball at the wrong position. Also, the hands must stay ahead of the club as they travel downward and make contact with the ball. The timing must be perfect with the hands and forearm releasing and turning only at the moment of impact.

Try to keep the backside of your left hand pointing down toward the target line during impact.

To ensure that you release appropriately, pay attention to your grip. It should be firm, yet light pressured throughout the entire swing. Nothing causes a terrible shot more than having too much tension coming from the arms and hands.

At golf impact, it should feel like your right forearm (reverse for lefties) is turning over your left forearm.

Golf Impact Drills for Hands

Practice this movement by swinging in slow motion. Begin with your downswing and complete the motion until the moment of impact. Pay attention to the movement of your forearms as you make contact.

One tip for improving the position of your hands at impact is to use a wristwatch. As you approach the golf impact position, the face of the watch, on your leading arm, should be pointing toward the target line.

Next, rotate the face of the watch so that it is pointing straight at the ground. When you have a club in your hands, this move will make the trailing forearm and wrist flip over to the top of your leading forearm and wrist. Now each time you swing, you should be initiating this move during impact. And be sure that your forearms are working in sync. They should be as close to one another as possible.

Here’s a short video focusing on the golf hands at impact:

Golf Clubface at Impact

The golf clubface at impact should be pointing in the direction of the target. In a split second, it should start its path to closing, moving left of the target line (right-handed golfers; reverse for lefties). Failing to release the clubface is a frequent cause for inaccurate or short shots.

When the swing path momentarily matches the target line at impact, the clubhead arrives at the ball at the proper angle, not too steep nor too shallow, and delivers the entire force of the blow directly forward.

Golf Impact Drills for Clubface Alignment

One way to practice this motion is by using a golf impact bag. The golf impact bag is a training tool for learning the feel of the correct clubface impact. When impact arrives, totally freeze your entire body and then check out the position of your clubface. It will either be square, open, or closed. The goal is to ensure that it is square to your target line. The impact bag will give you great visual feedback on the quality and accuracy of your swing at the moment of impact.

When you swing, the clubface will strike the bag. Look at the angle of the target map on the bag to evaluate your accuracy. If your swing was accurate, the bag will remain aligned. If your swing was off, it will leave a depression in the bag at the point of contact. With practice, you can see how close you are coming to improving your swing and the position of the golf clubface at impact.

A similar drill involves using golf impact tape. With this tool, simply attach the impact tape to the club face. When you hit the ball, it will leave a mark or indentation on the golf club impact tape. You now have visual evidence of whether you are striking the ball on the sweet spot. Golf impact tape is especially helpful for discerning where on the clubface you are striking the ball when it is flying left or right of the target or barely getting off the ground. This is a great inexpensive diagnostic tool.

Also, pay attention to the pace of your swing. Beginner golfers often want to swing for the fence, in the process pulling themselves and the clubface out of proper alignment. Watch this excellent video on how to use golf impact bags to perfect your impact position:

Achieving the Perfect Golf Impact Position

As you can see, achieving the perfect golf impact position consistently is no easy feat. It takes understanding of the mechanics of body, club, and ball and lots and lots of practice to bring them all together at just the right time, each in its own perfect position. But learning to do this until it’s pure muscle memory that executes on its own is just part of the fun of mastering the great game of golf.