Shot Shaping Old School Style – Setup Advantages
One of the biggest advantages of using the swing arc as your engine is the ability to perform shot shaping through setup adjustments.
By simply tweaking your clubface, ball position, and stance, you can produce any shot shape—whether it’s a draw, sling hook, fade, slice, or your stock shot—without altering your swing motion.
Standing on the Shoulders of a Golden Bear Giant
Jack Nicklaus used a similar approach, keeping his swing engine consistent while adjusting only his setup to shape shots. There are many ways to control ball flight, but this is my preferred method and the natural outcome of performing the FMM Swing.
He actually took it to even more approachable levels through only using the same ball position for all his shot shapes. Myself, I find it easier to tinker with the ball position too.
Shot Shaping or Stock Shot? Ball and Blade Position Goodness
Let’s be honest: shot shaping is slightly overrated from a scoring perspective BUT it’s a lot of fun and it holds some other advantages too. If you actually train different positions and keep the engine going on “normal mode” you will build a better awareness of your impact area. Training fade and draw shots (or bigger curves) will just make your normal stock shot easier to perform.
I even teach a low stinger hook shot for my students that work wonders in gale force headwind. Being able to create shots like this is just an outcome of using the same engine for all shots and understanding the ball and blade position relationship.
Another cool benefit from shot shaping is that you can start “securing” a never miss right or never miss left shot. This is pretty darn cool from a confidence perspective.
Check out the Forgotten Master Moves homepage here.
The FMM Swing System – the swing style that I teach – has it’s overview page here.