Bubba Watson taught me how to hit hooks and crazy slices

Bubba Watson had no choice but to agree with me. I was offering a compliment – stating him probably the best player in the world to work the ball in extravagant measures – and he stopped for a second to get it.

“Do you agree with this?” I asked.

“… Yessss,” he said.

And it’s true, right? It would feel bad to say that any other professional has created a reputation to curve the golf ball as much as Watson has during his career. the most iconic moment of your career will do that.

The whole idea of ​​complimenting Watson was to present our task for the day: Can we use the intell of the workability of one of the most imaginary players of the game to help Ol ‘work the ball as much as I can? Can he teach a gifted pro this joe how to do what you do best?

Short response? Yes.

Long answer? You can read below and watch our action video.

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My first question about Watson was simple: Where do you start?

Before we had turned the cameras, he had already explained how the longer the club, the more curve you can create. At first, this felt anti-intent. The trajectory of a shorter club – like the wedge of fraud – means more time in the air and theoretically more time to curve, right? Watson agreed with that concept, but the longer the club said, the more speed you can approve in it and the more rotation you can create.

So the first answer to the question “Where do you start” is another question: How many curve do you need? After that, Watson asked me to focus less on my hands and more on my feet. How your feet are positioned affects your body’s ability to rotate, freeing you to exaggerate any direction you hope to start the ball. A closed stand – with your leg pushed slightly forward and your back leg was pulled slightly back – allows you to play more a draw, and prevents a pallor. Inverse – an open attitude – allows your body to rotate through contact to create more a cut.

Before plunging deep into his process, Watson wanted me to prove first that I could work the ball in any direction, period. So we’ve lined my legs properly, and then He made me a little fixed in the club, turning it a few degrees To hit a big, forth stroke. In Bubba Talk, this is called hood The club, turning your face down a little. (It must be clear, but if it is not: without manipulating the club in influence, the work of bending the ball falls differently on the route. Think of the club as the curvature vehicle and the route of its fuel.)

My first swinging? A duplicate at the top 30 yard ahead.

My second swinging? A shock kick that began straight and immediately came out left. A success! Yes but only a minor because we wanted to see the ball start fair Before turning left. I was still swinging beyond that attitude closed than further It, limiting the distance and height of my attacks.

With the ball just inside my lead leg I was doing a little more MILESTONE for the ball. I felt difficult to try and turn my hands with a 7-Herkuri in a ball position more connected to my driver’s swing. Bubba entered inside and transferred the ball back to the center of my swinging Just to make sure I was more comfortable attacking the ball with a rhythm down and out. And, although Watson admitted that placing the ball further in my attitude should lead to lower trajectory, the club’s corner did a lot of work, starting the ball up and drawing.

Now, there is a reason we are doing this in a range of direction. Because for Watson, hitting a draw is easy. He knows where the club center is at all times. He can apply changes to his game at any time. For me, I tell him, to swing along my legs on that outside road makes me feel like I will introduce the sock to the ball and create an arm.

“This is the beauty between the amateur golf and the Pro Golf,” he shakes, unfortunately very accurate.

But this is step 3, or step 4, depending on who you are counting. We would manipulate my attitude, understand a comfortable ball setting, and we would make me return the club to the area of ​​influence. The missing part was changing my rolling path.

The route of swing is often the hardest part of this equation for amateurs to understand. An exaggerated swing path can only be a few inches of hands from the norm, and for Watson, this descends into a certain feeling. When he visits the ping headquarters on Scottsdale, “they are checking the numbers and I am watching visual,” he told me. He prefers to see trees, flags or bunkers as elements he can work in the course Rather than what a rotation rate would show you through a trackman.

As we rejected the configuration for everything, hoping to produce a large cut/slice, he offered some simple tips to call the right track: Some of the first inches of your intake should be the opposite movement of how you intend to get down and hit the ball. In other words, if you intend to hit a cut, and cut the ball across the influence area-to the right, creating a left-right rotation-start taking the club away to the right of the ball during your backwardness.

After all, you are simply opening a back trail, ultimately trying to imitate along the way down when you return to the ball. The final question of the day, however, is… How much?

Watson looked at carefully as I hit soft cuts in the air. I had created a path of cutting, but not a slice supported. “You’re trying to hit my club here,” he said, placing his club’s head a few inches back in my pickup and at least three inches in his direction. This checkpoint was uncomfortable away from my body, I said and made me think about getting Jim Furyk’s loop. But as is often the case in golf instructions, Feeling is not true. Movements will always feel much larger than they are in reality.

And that’s mostly the point, Bubba said. You want to cook a cut on a slice? You should emphasize the way. As you can see in the video, I only had two words for my teacher when I finally sent one, high in the air and cutting with 64 feet of curve:

“Wow, Bubba.”