Motion capture technology is helping Justin Rose change the spec of his clubs – and his shot shapes.
A TaylorMade staff player, Justin Rose is quick to make use of the company’s Motion Analysis Technology (MAT-T) whenever he can to tune up his club set-up. But he admits that what he really loves about the system is its ability to hone his technique. “It bridges the gap between feel and real,” he says. “MAT-T tells you how much you need to exaggerate certain moves you are working on. It quantifies your game, and that accelerates the learning process. Shot shaping is a great example of this. Sometimes you feel you are swinging in-to-out, but this software shows you that, actually, you are not. Here, I am going to show you my approach to draws and fades, and how the system helps me achieve accuracy with both.”
Understanding The Draw and Fade
Not so long ago, when we wanted to learn to shape the ball, we were told “the path sends it, the face bends it”. In other words, the swing path through impact would set the ball’s initial direction, while the position of the face at impact would apply the spin.
However, thanks to launch monitor technology like TrackMan, we now know this is not quite right. TrackMan has demonstrated that, in fact, the aim of the clubface at impact dictates 85 percent of the club’s starting line. If my face is well open, the ball is going to start to the right, irrespective of the swing path. It turns out that the face pretty much sends it and bends it.
To understand what this means for shot shaping, we must first make sure we understand the draw and a fade.
Let us take the draw. For the right-hander, the idea is for the ball to curve left through the air, in towards the target. This of course means the ball must first be sent right of that target. As we now know, the face is the major contributing factor in setting that line. This means, somewhat paradoxically, that to hit a draw, the face needs to be open to the target at impact.
Equally strangely, the face should be closed to the target at impact to hit a fade, which requires the ball to start left. Things start to make a little more sense when you consider the swing path. For that “open” clubface to apply drawspin, it must be closed to the path the face is moving along through impact. So to hit a true draw, the face at impact must be open to the target, but closed to the path. Of course the opposite is the case for a fade – the face is closed to the target but open to the path.
I sense I’ve confused you enough, so let’s see how this works in practice, with a little help from the MAT-T system.