Dazed and Confused: How is it possible to hit a straight ball that is not a "push"?

[Bigwill]

Originally Posted by Deadly_Scope
"Absolutely - the clubhead force is tangential to the orbit around the left wrist center and for a straight hit to be achieved the clubhead force must match the same forwards direction towards the target as the clubface.

This leaves two possible ways for the ball to be struck completely straight

1)Hit the ball at low point
2)Hit the ball prior to low point with an open plane line

There must be some reason why Moe Norman didn't ever take a divot and was considered the straightest ball striker of all time - wonder why that was ."




Yeah, it was. A side note is that this is also the reason people (especially myself a while ago) hook knockdown shots with a square stance/path. Because with the ball back in the stance and the low point that much farther ahead of the ball, the path at impact is going that much farther right and the clubface is square. The result being a ball that keeps drifting left and a golfer saying wtf to themself.

Is this why better players tend to hit short game shots from an open stance?

 

[Chris Sturgess]

Yeah, that is one reason why. It's definitely why they have an open stance on a back in the stance chip or pitch. The other reason is just that they open the clubface sometimes when they need need height on the shot and the open stance allows them to do that without leaving the ball out to the right.