Compress the Golf Ball
February 8th, 2013 | 
Author: 
Jack Nicklaus
One of the most important aspects of great ball striking is compressing the golf ball. Now, we’ve all heard that statement and we know the feel of a purely struck shot, but what really is compression and how can we do a better job with it? Let’s start by understanding the photograph below. This is a simulated shot where the clubface is just about to reach the back of the golf ball. The red line indicates where the loft or upward face angle is at impact and the blue line indicates the direction the clubhead is travelling during impact. The white line connecting the two represents the amount of compression “experienced” by the golf ball.
Spin Loft = Dynamic Loft (Red) - Clubhead Direction (Blue)
The narrower the gap or closer the two lines are the more compression will be exerted onto the golf ball and assuming a decent strike and appropriate launch, the ball will travel further. TrackMan refers to this gap as spin loft and without being too detailed it is the difference between where the face points at impact and where the clubhead travels at impact.
Fredrik Tuxen – one of the founders of TrackMan refers to spin loft as compression itself. To get a better understanding of how the numbers work let me give you a few examples: Jack hits a 5 iron with the face pointing at 16 degrees and the clubhead moving 2 degrees down. Bob swings at the same speed as Jack with his 5 iron and he gets the face pointing 15 degrees up and the clubhead moving 6 degrees down. Jack has a spin loft of 18 and Bob has a spin loft of 21. Both shots are hit well, so which goes further? Jack’s does because he has a narrower spin loft gap and thus compresses the ball more than Bob. What spin loft would create the maximum compression? Zero! However, as we will learn spin loft is in large part responsible for the amount of spin imparted on any shot and a golf ball needs some spin to keep it flying in the air. I have found that a spin loft of 11 is very good for a driver.
Ben Hogan
Some interesting points about compression or spin loft:
- Hitting down will not increase your compression of the golf ball or the spin on the shot. Invariably this only leads to a shot where the face angle and the clubhead direction both move downward – there is no change in spin or increase in distance.
- A higher spin loft increases spin and generally slows down ball speed.
- If you have similar swing speed, but hit your shots far shorter than your playing partners – this is due to a lack of compression on your shots.
- Shots with a lower spin loft will curve in the air more easily than shots with less compression. That’s why it’s easier to keep a 7 iron straighter than a driver.
- Custom club fitting can help to improve your spin loft simply by delofting either your irons or driver.
Now that we really understand what true compression is we can start to look at methods to help us improve our own ball striking. There are two ways we can compress the ball better – deloft the face angle more at impact without hitting down any more or hit down less without increasing the the loft of the face during impact. Ideally we need to deloft the face without hitting down any more. Notice how in the Jack and Bob example I used above – Bob’s face was delofted more than Jack’s, yet he hit down more and this limited his ability to compress the ball.
To get a good sense of what is required:
- Get in front of a mirror with a 7 iron.
- Grip the club and facing the mirror get the clubhead about 3″ off the ground two feet back from where the ball would be.
- Now slowly glide the clubhead through impact while maintaining the 3″ space between the clubhead and the ground noticing that as you go beyond impact how much your hands need to stay in front.
- When you start hitting balls – start small and hit soft shots off of a tee.
- There should be no ground contact, try to leave the tee in the ground and see how low you can hit these little 7 iron shots.
This is the feel you want! Delofting the face without slamming the club into the ground. And believe it or not this applies to the driver as well. I know it may sound strange and it took me a while to wrap my brain around this, but it is entirely possible to hit up on the ball with the handle/hands in front of the clubhead.
If you have gained something from this article please share it with a friend. Let’s be honest, they could most probably do with the help….
Posted in Long Game, Short Game, Swing Philosophy | 
Tags: ball speed, club fitting, clubface, clubhead, compresses the ball, compressing the golf ball, compression, deloft the face, Fredrik Tuxen, great ballstriking, hands in front, hit down less, hit up on the ball, hitting down, impact, improve, jack nicklaus, loft, no ground contact, spin imparted, spin loft, spinloft, straight, swing speed
Another great article Andrew. I guess ‘compression’ is that intangible that separates the great ball strikers from the rest of us.
You mentioned that shots with a lower spin loft will curve in the air more easily than shots with less compression. Right, it’s much easier to hit your driver off-line that say a wedge.
I was wondering to what extent spin rate has some influence? For example, which do you think will curve more easily a driver shot with a spin loft of 11 and a spin rate of 3000 rpm or a shot of spin loft 14 and a spin rate of 2000 rpm?
Excellent website, look forward to your articles and twitter nuggets.
Many thanks, Paul
Andrew,
Great article on how to properly compress the ball. I see so many students trying to hit down and they do with a A of A about -7 degrees but the handel is back and their spin loft is very high. They try to hit down like a cave man would kill his lunch with a club I am going to share this with all my students
Thanks for reading and sharing Paul!
Hi Paul,
A spin loft of 10 will curve more easily due to the d-plane than a spin loft of 20, but it has less spin on it due to the narrower spin loft and thus some of that effect will be negated….make sense?
Thanks for the kind words!
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for replying, your explanation of role of spin loft was great, I understand that with the d-plane you would expect spin to be less for a narrower spin loft. However with vge, you could have a higher spin loft with low spin and vice versa. Wondering how this increase or decrease in spin rate would affect any curvature on the shot.
Looking at another example, if you have two driver shots with the same spin loft but different backspin rates, am I correct in assuming that the shot with the lower spin rate will curve more easily than the shot with the higher spin rate?
Is it best to tee the ball high or low to improve accuracy with a driver?
Quite a complex subject and I expect difficult to answer without going into lengthy detail. Maybe a subject for a future test.
All the best
Paul
Great post and great information as usual Andrew thanks. Regarding the driver I suspect you have set yourself up for your next post. Hitting up on drives with hands ahead of shaft can reduce spin……..hum!
Nice article. But Spinloft is nearly a “fixed” number for a given club/player. Science has shown that the hands slow appreciably just before impact. Its nearly as if the hands come to a stop and then the club “releases” around the hands. So in essence, you have a single pendulum action (the club) with a fixed collision loft. I think a player should seek an optimum attack angle for clean, centered contact and optimum trajectory and not worry about Spinloft or compression.
Interesting approach Todd…
Great post Andrew!
Todd,
Ahhhhhh, science. In the words of George Bernard Shaw, “Science never solves a problem without creating ten more”.
You cannot have “optimum trajectory” without Spin Loft, and how much fun is the game for golfers who don’t care about compression?!?
Impact is totally dynamic, making an all together different position than static address. The “Gamma” rotation of the shaft (JSSM.org) peaks through impact, but not because the swing is a single pendulum action.
Understanding the kinematic sequences of the swing and how body segments both accelerate & decelerate to deliver the club is important, very important, but as Andrew posted CLUB FITTING IS ESSENTIAL to spin loft.
Andrew’s point about compression is spot on – I am certain you did not mean players should not worry about spin loft or compression. If not, please share. Kudos to our host. JP
Thanks for chipping in Joe! Your thoughts and input are always welcome here….
Great post, Andrew! These tips will be very helpful for my game.
-Gasper
Pro, great meeting you in Orlando. Another great article. As I’ve said before, you are a credit to the profession. Looking forward to more laughs and thought sharing in the future. – MC
Thanks so much MC! Wish we were closer so we could hang out more often. Stay in touch mate – AR
Very nice video. This is definitely the part of my swing I need to work most on because I have an awful steep attack angle. My long irons have no more than 3-4 yards of roll on the greens and my 5-wood, 3-wood and driver have mostly the same carry distance. I lose so much distance to my high spinrates.
Also I found a nice clip of Tiger’s 2-iron swing from last years U.S. Open which perfectly shows how long he’s able to hold the shaft lean before and after impact, shallowing the attack angle. Magnificent “shot”
Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL76OQ7ITmw
- Sebastian
Hi Andrew, another great video and practice drill. I’ll be sure to share it with a couple of friends and my club pro always enjoys them too. As for me — still working on impact. Hope to see you again before you head north.
Good to hear from you Kathy! Hope you are well….
Hello Andrew,
Fantastic explanation and a great way for students to think about what is going on at impact. I believe this will stop quite a few weekend golfers from trying to dig their way to backspin(and since most don’t hit to or past the flag, shouldn’t try)!