Ken is a 62-year-old, self-described 'born-again-golfer.' He wasn't talking about religion. Ken also has something very essential in his bag that we all could use a little more of: humor. The subject of his email was: 'Thank you from a sceptic.'
Then he wrote: 'Well I signed up for your free stuff and my first thoughts were that promises of an instant fix sounded a little hyped. It wasn't an instant fix at all. On the range it took me at least 10 balls to start hitting crisp and down the middle using the PPGS as best as I could replicate it off your free vids. That, however, was enough to prompt me to order the whole enchilada from you as soon as I got home.'
He prompted me to come up with another saying about the PPGS versus any other swing: '10 balls or 10 weeks.'
He did, however, have a question about ball position and spinning the ball. Here's what I wrote.
Ken,
Thanks for the kind words about the PPGS and for purchasing the program.
Ken. Ten balls? You gotta be a slow learner. Just kidding. But 10 shots does prove what I say about the PPGS, “Learning is instant, today.' When you swing using the laws of physics and physiology, you have them on your side, helping you. The swing is simple and easily learned.
You know the old joke, 'What is golf spelled backwards?'. It makes me wonder if, when the Scots invented the game, they actually called it FLOG. But, because they were playing the new game when they should have been at work or in church, Presbyterian guilt and superstition got to them (since that might be what would happen to them if their boss or minister found out) they flipped the letters. Webster's dictionary describes FLOG as “to beat with a stick, whip etc'. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of folks are still playing FLOG. But I am confident that those who learn the PPGS will flip their golf swing and game around.
Now to your question. First and foremost, backspin is a product of the grooves on the club and the turf you hit the ball off of. Next year, the USGA and the R&A have outlawed the square grooves on the professional tours throughout the world. There is a grandfather clause for the amateurs to keep using square grooves for, I believe, 10 years. I would suspect most major amateur golf associations will likely outlaw the use of square grooves in their big amateur events.
It seems amateurs have a fascination with backspin on the greens, much like wanting to draw or hook the ball, as being the trademark and sign of being a player. The key to getting backspin, and it is one of the primary and necessary elements, is the turf condition. That is, firm fairways and closely mown grass offer the best combination for getting backspin. The only better thing than firm fairways is hitting off of a hard as a brick hard pan, like a dirt road. The reason is that a correctly stuck ball on a descending blow will pinch the ball against the turf if on grass or against the ground on hard pan. What happens is the firmer the surface, the more the ball is held in place by the grooves and gets spinning off the ground before launching off. The best way to picture this and understand it, is to place a golf ball on a table top or on a pool table. Lift your hand up and kit down on the back of the ball and watch the ball spin. The steeper the descent, the more spin. The problem in golf is that too steep an angle of attack can cause hitting the ball chunky or heavy. So you have to find and learn what attack angle works, when it becomes too steep for chunks or too shallow for less to no spin.
Now, let's look at why many amateurs can't produce any backspin. For many who have the outside-in steep downswings, and those who like to hit down big time, or even pound the ball into the ground (see FLOG, above), should get backspin galore. But they don't. For most of them, it is because their angle of attack was too steep as well as outside-in. The big reason was their turf grass conditions. Simply put, the length of the grass was too long. I don't know the exact cutting length of the fairways for PGA Tour events, but I think it is safe to say it is lower than the fringes on most all golf courses throughout the world primarily played by amateurs. Why is that so? Because most amateurs would run the superintendent out of town if he ever cut the fairways as short as for professional events. Amateurs, for the most part, especially high handicappers, want the grass long because it is easier to hit the ball off, especially with fairway woods and hybrids.
The ball is sitting up so high on the longer fairway grass that when the club strikes the ball with a descending blow, the ball first touches the clubface higher up on the face, so it has less groves to hold it on the club longer as it rolls up the face. But the big issue is that the higher or taller grass cushions the ball from ever reaching the ground or if it does, it is so high on the face there is no chance of producing any measurable spin. So most amateurs are doomed to no spin because of the lush, soft, green and taller length of grass they play on. Backspin for them is only something to see on TV and dream about.
Last point about backspin for most amateurs, especially high handicappers, ladies, seniors and any players that don't hit the ball with power and height, is that it won't really help them. In fact it could hurt them if they could hit backspin. Ask any professional who plays with amateurs from mid to high handicaps what the number one problem is. They say they all usually under club and come up short. There is a story that Lee Trevino, one of the best ever for spinning a golf ball, was playing in a pro-am on Tour and was asked by one of the ams how to spin the ball back on the green. The tale is Trevino, in his comical demeanor, said something like, “Why the heck would you ever want to put backspin on your ball. You can't ever get it to the hole in the first place.”
Now for my take on downswing and backspin. Reading my instruction material you know that I am a big believer in a shallow angle of attack. I like nipping or pinching the ball off the grass. I want divots to be small and shallow. My motto is “Thin to win,' so I want my divots to be shallow, like tearing the grass out of the ground, not digging it out. I like to see and feel the club bouncing or ricocheting off the ground, never digging and trenching, and certainly not chopping (or 'flogging'). Moe Norman, the great Canadian golfer and pure ball striker, described a good divot as, “bacon strips not pork chops.”
As for ball position, you ask if I like the ball back toward the back foot. Absolutely not. I teach that for wedges to 7 iron, the clubs played farthest back in the stance for normal or regular shots, I teach that we place those clubs in the middle of the stance. If your turf is short and firm, and your downswing is pinching or nipping the ball, you can get all the spin you want or need from there. With the ball too far back it will only lead to chopping down, digging trenching and good old hacking down on the ball and likely hit what I call “Chunky Monkey,” shots of deep, gouging divots and trenches.
My motto for a good angle of attack and the depth of divots is, “SHALLOW IS HALLOWED.”
The Surge!