The Only 2 Things That Ruin Your Ball Striking - & How to Fix them

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Transcript Summary - I believe that anyone can achieve consistent contact with their shots off the fairway. In this video, I’m going to share two fundamental things that all great players do—things you can learn and apply too. These are not reserved for elite players; they’re skills anyone can develop. To make it even better, I’ve brought in a PGA Tour coach who’s worked with countless junior golfers, taking many of them all the way to the Tour. He’s created some fantastic ball strikers, and he highlights these two fundamentals as key to consistent ball striking. I promise you—anyone can learn these.

Now, before we dive in, if you’re new to my channel and this is your first lesson, consider subscribing. I release videos like this every week to help you improve your game. Plus, you never have to remember it all because I include a free downloadable practice guide in the description box below. So, let’s get into it!

A lot of players struggle with inconsistency—hitting behind the ball, topping it, or thinning it. So, when we see those beautifully consistent swings from great players, what’s the difference? The biggest factor separating good players from struggling ones is contact. You could actually measure someone’s skill level without even seeing their swing—just by observing where their club hits the ground.

For elite players, if you draw a line on the ground, you’ll notice their divots consistently land in front of the line. The divots are tight, clean, and uniform in depth. On the other hand, less experienced players often hit behind the line, create scattered divots, or miss the ground entirely. A simple test like this can quickly show you where your contact needs improvement.

If you’re practicing on a range mat, you can still work on this. Use a piece of chalk to mark a line and pay attention to where your club makes contact relative to it. This gives you immediate feedback on your striking.

Here’s a simple drill to get started. You need to practice landing the club ahead of the ball in the same spot, consistently. Make a few swings, focusing on where the club is hitting the ground. The key isn’t to force the club to land ahead but to observe and adjust. On the course or range, you can place a towel behind the ball as a guide. If you hit the towel, you’re striking behind. Work on moving that contact point forward, gradually developing a feel for consistent ball-first strikes.

Now, if you’re still struggling, it might be due to two major factors that can ruin ball striking: your pelvis position and your upper body center.

First, let’s talk about the pelvis. The more your pelvis moves toward the target at impact, the more likely you are to strike the ball first and the ground ahead. If it stays back, you’ll often hit behind. To practice, exaggerate the forward position of your pelvis at impact—start with it there and pitch a few shots. This will help you learn what that position feels like and how it contributes to better contact.

The second factor is your upper body center—the area around your chest. If this center drifts too far back, you’re likely to hit behind the ball. If it moves too far forward, you’ll come in steep and struggle to control your trajectory. Ideally, the center stays stable as your pelvis moves forward. This balance creates a solid, consistent strike.

To maintain your upper center, think of the golf swing as a spiral or wind-up rather than just turning side-to-side. Picture yourself coiling up while staying centered, then unwinding smoothly. This keeps you balanced over the ball and allows the pelvis to move forward naturally without tipping your upper body.

Start small with these drills. Focus on getting your weight forward, maintaining a stable upper center, and practicing smooth, controlled swings. Over time, you’ll be amazed at how consistently you can strike the ball.

Thanks to Andreas Kelly for sharing his insights with us. If you’re looking to improve your driving, check out the video linked here for a fantastic drill to stop slicing. Don’t forget to grab your free practice plan in the description box. Until next week, have a wonderful golfing week!

Full Transcript - So I believe everybody can achieve consistent contact with their shots off the Fairway and in this video I want to share with you the two fundamental things that all great players do that you can do too anybody can learn it and in fact what I'm going to do today is I'm going to bring in a PGA Tour coach that takes Junior golfers lots of them takes them to the PGA Tour and has created so many wonderful ball Strikers and he talks about these two things being primary to them achieving great ball strikes and consistent ball striking time and time again I promise you anybody can learn these but before I get into the video look if you're new to the channel your first lessons of mine please consider subscribing at least videos like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game but you never have to remember a thing I'll always put a free down order practice guide in that description box below let's jump into the lesson so the audience people are going to want to know there many people are struggling with contact yeah inconsistency striking the ground behind the golf ball topping it thinning it when you're creating these beautiful looking gol swings that are really consistent what is the first thing you kind of look for when somebody if somebody starting to struggle yeah with this ball striking um biggest differentiator between good and bad players is contact okay it's without a doubt the biggest differentiator we could measure skill level without even seeing people swing by just having them hit take 10 swings on a line yeah and you would at least you would find the elite players and you would likely find the worst players what would you know so with a with an elite player versus the average handicap player what are you going to notice I would notice if the ball's on the ground I would notice a divot pattern in front of where the the line was so we drew a line here yeah if I just scratched out a line right if I just took this T and scratched out a line right here y you would find the best players would have a very very tight divot pattern on this side of the line Y um you would also actually notice the depth of it would be very very consistent okay so you could kind of start going through like even like the size of the divot and like the depth of the div and but most importantly where does the club enter the ground okay and then as the as the players get worse and worse first of all the divot pattern will start getting more scattered you might find one that was in front but you'd also find one that was behind got it or you'd find no divot at all and you could probably find honestly the worst golfer in the world if everybody took that test the worst golfer in the world would be the person who took the divid like the behind that they don't have a chance right yeah so this would be a great test for so if somebody's starting out or somebody or anybody who's wanting to improve the contact you know maybe starting with a simple test yes what happens if they're on a um a lot of people play range mats yeah what would you do on a range mat uh you would pay attention right you could even you could actually take chalk okay uh chalk line would be good just to start with but it would be a very good place of looking at okay where do I need to improve yes if I can't make proper contact or at least even can't get the club to hit the ground in the right spot yeah that would be the play i' start so in a second Andreas is going to share with us a couple things that tends to ruin most golfers ball striking than anything else but before we get into that let me show you how you can apply what he just said so ultimately you got to get used to Landing the club ahead of the golf ball in the same spot time and time again so all I want you to do and you can take straight to the golf course next time you're playing I want you to make some swings backwards and forwards paying attention to where your Club is landing relative to the ball you do this in the practice swings now I said paying attention this is a really really important point I'm not saying try to hit ahead of the golf ball because when I do I see people chopping down at it I want you look to make a swing this club is swinging back it's swinging on a beautiful Circle I just need you to pay attention to where that club is landing if it starts to swing and you start Landing it here you're going to start to kind of I've got a towel here I put a towel here because you can this is something you can do on a driving range you'll make creases in the towel or on a golf course you'll start to see marks behind the line of the ball and if it is all you do is keep moving further and further forward until you start to look start striking the ground ahead now once you've done that once or twice you simply get yourself up you take that same feeling right and you get up to the golf ball and you think right I've got a feeling of what I need to do I'm going to make a flowing switch

Wing just like this and we're going to notice look 4.5 in comfortably look ahead of that golf ball so start with that first now that is super super simple but it doesn't work for everybody there are a couple of things that tend to get in the way of your striking if that's the case let's jump back in the video and let's see what those are where would somebody start so they understand now that they've got to strike the ball then the ground yes um what would be the first thing you would do you'd find the most people they don't sway their hips enough towards the target yeah at impact compared to where they started can you show me give me example that if I basically stand up right here and just take this line right if I took the center of my pelvis the more I had that towards the target the higher the chances are that I'm going to hit the ground for closer to the Target yes whereas the more my pelvis was away from the target the higher the chances are I'm going to hit behind or I'm going to bottom out before the golf ball so the pelvis has probably the highest correlation between where the club hits the ground got it where is it placed from side to side in space yeah um would be the very first thing absolutely if somebody has no idea on where to stand I would have no problem to start out with and just say Okay impact is here how about we just start there just to start with just to get a feel of it yeah just to know like okay crap that's a lot of weight on the Lead Foot yes that's way more than I've ever had

have where I just know okay this is there and I'm just going to learn how to coordinate mov I love that because I think is there's so many players that will probably be surprised at how forward they need to be yes to actually strike it for sure so I suppose that what you're saying is a drill like that is going to give them that experience really early on yeah knowing it's you know it's not natural to be there at at the start of the golf but actually just getting that sensation of what okay got to be some at some stage in my golf swing I've got to get right there exactly right and it's earlier than most people think yes so again let's just start there and let's just pitch some shots and just get a feel for that and then maybe we can start if if I know that okay 4 to 5 in in front of where I start is where I need to end up y okay I need to get there soon and maybe if I've already if I already know what that place feels like then I can set up more normally and I can start moving towards that earlier

yes so I absolutely love that drill starting with your pelvis Way Forward just as a drill to learn the feeling of where it needs to be at impact and then gradually once you've got that feeling starting back here in your normal setup position knowing that that somewhere the pelvis has to be somewhere over here I just think it's absolutely brilliant and you can see why it's the main factor that basically causes you to either strike the ball or not strike it however so you've got the line drill you've now got the pelvis working over but you're still not striking it the second and final factor to look at is where your upper Center is here this kind of central part of your chest here so you could have for instance your pelvis way over here but if this Center gets way back here we can look still strike the ground a long way behind the golf ball I think see this a lot conversely if this Center is way over here we can definitely strike the ground a lot further ahead so I would much prefer that than that right however both are not functional so if we have this too far behind we're going to strike the ground too far um behind the ball and if this upper Center is too far ahead we're going to be coming too steep the balls are going to come out too low both are not very functional so when we're setting up to the golf ball this Center stays Central it's right pretty much in the middle of your stance here and what we want to do is is we want to look after it so when we're swinging it stays pretty much where it is as the pelvis naturally moves forward this stays where it is and as we're coming through look it's still there in the same spot this is going to massively help your contact it helps the stability of the Swing but how do you maintain it without thinking about it for me it's just I think it's just pure concept A lot of people when they're making a golf swing and I I want you to watch out for this are simply moving they're turning and turning the're turning to the the trail side turning to the lead side and this just gets the body moving all over the place the golf swing is basically a wind up so look at this here look at my body's working it's working on this angle it's almost spiraling look up when it spirals up what happens to the center I'm able to make a beautiful turn but I'm still look right over the ball as I come back down now onto the golf ball here where's my Center still here the pelvis is gone a little bit further fur forward I'll get out of spit out a second further forward as I'm coming back into impact look I am now reversing that process so it looks a little bit like this one two not around and around so as I'm winding up I'm coming back down and then I'm firing downward so as my right side fires down my left side pulls up and I create this motion much almost like it's almost like a scissor effect and this keeps me very very Central all things that are beautiful for improving your strike so just like the pelvis forward do things like this that keep it nice and slow nice and small to start with we get ourselves set here and my lead foot is pointing out about 30° here I'm going to wind up from the ground wind up I'm still over the ball here coming back down to where I started almost here and then look fir ring pull back this way firing through the shot so I keep it really simple it's just like I feel I almost see like it's a just like a scissor effect really super super simple keeps me right over the top of that

ball hey prestor look at that look 3.8 in after the golf ball you'll always strike it like that so get a pelvis forward get the body working more like this versus around and around and what you're going to start to see is much much more ball first Contact but more importantly consistently Landing the club in the right spot time and time again go and practice it it is tricky to start with so start small like the drill get that weight forward learn that drill get a feel of where it should be each and every single time you'll be amazed at how far forward you need to be to strike a really good golf shot I hope you enjoyed this video huge thank to you for Andreas Kelly for joining us on the channel look if you if you want to improve your driving check this video out right here Andre gives us a brilliant drill to stop anybody slicing the golf ball free practice plan is also down below but until next week have a wonderful golfy week.