Mastering Your Impact Location With SkyTrak

There are certain fundamentals that must be met in the golf swing in order to hit quality shots on the course. One, in particular, that is not talked about often is impact location. Where you are striking the ball on the face of your irons, hybrids, fairway woods, and drive are critically important. Modern golf equipment has certainly made off-center strikes more forgiving, but if you want to become a better ball striker you need to find a way to make contact with the center of the clubface.

In this article, we'll show you one of the best drills any golfer can do to improve their impact tendencies. Additionally, we'll show how using one of our most popular products, SkyTrak, can help make your practice sessions more effective at home.

Why It's So Important

Golf equipment manufacturers have done a great job of helping golfers with off-center hits. More than ever, if you don't strike the ball towards the sweet spot, you can still hit decent golf shots. However, if you want your best opportunity to play well, you need to improve your impact tendencies.

Modern drivers have enormous club faces now. While this helps with forgiveness there are still several factors at play that make center contact crucial. Here are examples of two shots hit with a driver that were measured on a SkyTrak launch monitor.

The first was struck towards the bottom of the clubface towards the toe. It launched only 6.2 degrees (low for a driver), had 2606 rpms of spin (more than usual for this player), and carried 213 yards with a total distance of 241 yards.

Now take a look at the next swing. It's from the same golfer, with the same clubhead speed, but a much better impact location.

This ball launched at 14.3 degrees (optimal), had 1864 rpms of spin, carried 250 yards and a total of 281 yards. That's more than 40 yards of difference in distance based on impact location!

So whether you are hitting driver or your irons, it makes a difference where you make contact.

The Best Training Aid

The golf industry is filled with tons of training aids that promise to fix your swing. The truth is that most of them don't really work for a number of reasons. If the product is too difficult to use, golfers fail to stay engaged with it. Additionally, since all golfers' swings are unique it's difficult to address their specific problems with only one product.

Impact location is something that all golfers struggle with, and there are two ways to help improve it:

• Find out what your tendencies are
• Experiment with trying to hit the ball on different parts of the face

Luckily, the training aid I'm talking about is very inexpensive and easy to use. It's actually something you wouldn't expect - Dr. Scholls Odor X Spray.

That's right! Foot spray can help fix your golf swing.

How To Use It

The process is as simple as it gets. Your first order of action is to determine what your impact tendencies are with various clubs in your bag.

Spray the face of your iron or driver, and start hitting shots. After about 5-10 shots start taking note of the shot patterns. Are you hitting it more towards the toe or heel of the club? Are you striking it too high or low on the face?

Most golfers are very surprised when they perform this test because they have no idea what their patterns are. Once you recognize what's going on, then you can take steps to self-correct the issues.

Next, you should start to experiment with doing the opposite of what you are currently doing it. If you are striking the ball too far towards the toe, start trying to strike it on the heel or vice versa. On top of that, you can try to randomly strike different parts of the face from one swing to the next.

Something interesting usually happens with most golfers. They start to make subtle changes to their swing in order to self-correct without thinking too much about swing mechanics.

Smarter Practice At Home With SkyTrak

This is one of the best drills you can do whether you are on a driving range or practicing at home. A lot of our customers are looking for better ways to practice with the SkyTrak launch monitor, and working on your impact location is a great idea.

Because SkyTrak can measure your ball flight data so accurately, you can get instant feedback on how your impact location is affecting your launch conditions.

If you can start becoming more skilled at moving your strike location around the clubface, then it will be easier for you to make contact with the center more frequently.

Part of any great practice session is experimentation, and doing this kind of exercise will yield great results in your swing. On top of that, you can start to learn how your impact positions will affect your ball flight, and that knowledge can help you self-correct on the golf course during a  round.

So if you just purchased a SkyTrak launch monitor, or have had one for a while, working on your impact location is a great way to get the most out of this product during your practice sessions.

You can view our SkyTrak packages here, or if you have any questions don't hesitate to call or email our helpful staff.