opening and closing the face

Just read an article from September 09 by Phil Mickleson in regards to his chipping. Good read but picked out something that i have never done.

When opening the face for more loft he says he adjusts his grip in relation to this. Is this something i should be doing when i am trying to hit fades and draws as ive always kept my grip the same and just open & close my stance and shoulder relative to the target?

You can do it either way, but out of sand and hitting flops my own preferred way is to open the face and regrip a bit weaker, others just open up and hit a hold off. In either case, the key is to keep the clubface looking mostly skyward on the follow through. On chips, where you want a little run or a bounce or two and check, there are many ways to achieve either result but hands ahead at impact, weight left, and hitting down on the ball are common to all chips. I once had a book with 100 different ways to hit chips, pitches, and sand shots, all done by Chi Chi Rodriquez -- so people do things different ways for different reasons.

Hitting fades and draws is a different beast entirely. Most use their setup position as the primary first step, and then choose whether to hit push fades or out-to-in pull fades, and the same can be said for the draws -- but the pull draw is an unreliable shot for most. You might use it for an escape shot in which you don't mind having a long run out. I'll close the face, regrip, move the ball back and hit a low hooking shot that rolls a long way to escape under a tree or something.

Best to try some things out on the range to see what works for you.

Nope.

The best way to do it is the way Phil describes, the way you describe leads to complete disaster. Firstly, you should always point the club at the target and then grip it. If you want to open or close the face don't grip the club and then manipulate it. You want to manipulate the face to point in the direction you want and THEN grip it accordingly. Try this one next time you practice: 1: Pick out an aiming point about 4 inches in front of your ball and aim the face of your club at that spot. After aiming, take your grip as the club lies, do not square the head up. Just grip it as it sits. 2: Take a stance line that is parallel to that target and take a normal swing along your foot line. Your ball should go generally straight. Next repeat step 1 but instead of taking a stance line parallel to the target in step 2 take a stance line that is somewhat closed to that target line (where your back is pointing more towards the target and your chest is pointing more away from it. Now, this is crucially important, swing a long the same swing plane in relation to your body as you did in step 1. In other words do not alter your swing in any way in relation to your body. Continue to swing along your foot line. If you do this correctly you should hit a push draw. Now repeat step 1 again but this time for step 2 open your feet up a bit and swing along your feet again. This should produce a pull cut. Essentially all you are doing is changing your swing plane by changing where your body is pointing. This is a FAR FAR smarter way to alter your ball flight than trying to swing steeper or more flatly to hit a pull cut or push draw because this method will allow you to make the same move every single time, just in a different direction. As long as you remember to point your face at the target and point your body in the direction you want your plane to take, closing the feet to produce a more outward push/draw type swing plane and opening the feet to produce a more vertical pull/cut type of swing plane, you should be able to shape the ball pretty well easily enough.

Yep someone needs educated in the ball flight rules ;)

I found this out the hard way when i would nail tree after tree after tree. But it made sense to me more, in the short game. I would open the clubface for a bunker shot and i would aim more right and the clubface would point right of my target and i always pushed my bunker shots right. Then i would start with the clubface open and aim it at were i want teh ball to go, boom, my bunker shot accuracy skyrocketed.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but to me this sounds exactly like what he says NOT to do. In his video, he tells us to open the club face and then take your normal grip. Like another poster mentioned, opening or closing the face by changing your grip is a recipe for disaster.

Maybe this will make more sense.

Open the face and THEN take your normal grip.

Don't take your grip and then just turn/twist your hands over to open the face.

Thats how i interpretated the explanation.

As for the other posters.... Ive been practicing ball movement and such and have found the following: Moving the ball in relation to my stance tends to result in very inconsistent shots. Like shanks and pull and fat shots. However i find keeping the ball position the same, but aiming my clubface square to a target and aligning the shoulders, body and toes left or right does allow me to create shot shapes. I do have trouble controlling it....today i thought id try a nice cut into a green around a high tree so i swing along the body line (bout 10m left of the target) divot was pointing there, but because my club was square to the target it started straight and actually ended up cutting over the damn tree. Should i have been aligning 10m left of the target, with the club acutally 5m left of target aswell??