Welcome to play Smart, a regular Golf.com game improvement column that will help you become a smarter and better golfer.
It’s great to rely on a stock swing in ideal conditions, but sometimes you need to make adjustments to get the ball close to the hole. The most popular of these “unorthodox” shots is the knockdown.
When you hit the knockdown shot, you are essentially trying to get something out of the yardage you normally hit. This can be useful when the wind is strong, requiring less spin, or you just want to hit more clubs and swing easily.
It’s easy to learn to hit and shoot down, which we introduced before. However, if you really want to shoot successfully, you need to remember the key adjustments in the settings. Colt Knost provides more explanations in the video below.
1 key adjustment to knock down
The basics of knocking out the lens are simple. Move the ball back to your stance, get more clubs, and swing easily. However, if you really want to turn this lens into a weapon, you need to remember another setting tweak.
“One thing I learned this from the great Randy Smith and that will help you with the starting line – you have to open the stance a little,” Knost said. “I’m going to do a normal setup, move the ball back a few inches and then turn on my stance, which means moving the left foot back a little.”
When you move the ball backwards, you create conditions for the swing path. So just open the stand and you can offset that path and let the ball start more to match the goal.
“When you move the ball backward, open the stand and it will improve your starting line,” Norther said. “When they try to hit the knockdown, a lot of people hit Datol because your stand is too closed. Turn it on a little bit, swing the ball backwards is normal and you’ll see a beautiful knockdown shot.”
