A lot of attention gets paid to controlling the clubface during the swing so it returns to the ball as square as it was at address. I’m all in favor of that.
Just as important is the sole of the club. Where it strikes the ground is uber important.
The one thing that makes golf hard is the ground. You can hit a tennis ball an inch or two off center of the racquet and still get a good shot.
If the sole of the golf club is that high (whiff) or too low (chunk), you’re screwed. Even a quarter of an inch matters, and that is with a club travelling, say, 80 mph.
What this gets to is the depth of the swing—where the bottom of the swing is. You have to get that right and fortunately it is really easy to do. At least I think it is.
Here’s how. Just keep the sole in mind when you swing the club forward. Learn to feel where the sole is and visualize the sole sliding underneath the ball, which directs your subconscious mind to direct your body to do just that.
I don’t mean the leading edge. I mean the entire sole.
When you chip, you take a few practice swings and just brush the grass with the sole of the club, right? Then you step up to the ball and make the same stroke, brushing the grass underneath the ball (at least I hope you do). That’s the expression I’m suggesting.
Joyce Wethered, one of the greatest female golfers in history, explained it this way in her book, Golfing Memories and Methods: “It is as well to visualize the iron club, not as a spade with which to dig into the ground…nor, on the other hand as a kind of scoop with which to lift the ball into the air. Rather the clubhead should be thought of as a knife, a cutting instrument with which to sever the ball from the ground, dividing the two clearly apart at their point of contact.”
When you do this, the club will hit the ball cleanly at just the right height on its clubface—the height that the clubface was designed for.
You will also find that striking the ball this way encourages you swing the club through the ball (good) instead of hitting at the ball (bad).