Michael Breed's Quadrants

Michael Breed recently talked on his show about how you need to hit different quadrants of the golf ball in order to hit shots high and low and to fade and draw the golf ball. I'm going to take a look at this video, and share with you my thoughts on what he gets right, what he gets wrong, and what is somewhere in the middle.

The video has been demolished online by various individuals, none of whom had a good thing to say about it. And to be clear, it's not a good video. It gets enough things wrong and is confusing enough that I wouldn't recommend you watch it (unless you read the accompanying commentary below), but I don't think it was as bad as people online seemed to act like it was.

The Video

Let's walk through it.

0:00 - 1:08 - Michael draws his quadrants on the golf ball and says that "when I want the ball to go high, I need to hit the ball low on the golf ball." And vice versa - to hit the ball lower, the contact point on the golf ball has to be higher. If we ignore Michael's talk about the equator, then that's all true. Take a look at the image below, as it illustrates what I'm talking about here. Viewed from the side, you can see that more loft creates a contact point lower on the golf ball.

In other words, for a ball to go "lower" the contact point is "higher" on the golf ball and the opposite is true: a golf ball that will go lower will have a contact point higher on the golf ball. That's how loft on your clubs work - it's why your 4I launches lower than your 9I. The loft on the clubface dictates where the ball is contacted. The more loft, the lower on the ball the clubface first makes contact with the ball. If you could somehow de-loft your 9I to that of a 4I dynamic loft, they'd contact the ball at the exact same height.

This is true regardless of path, mind you. This is an important point. A round object and a flat object will always collide at a point perpendicular to the flat object regardless of the path of the objects. I won't embed this image, but if that sentence doesn't make sense, or you disagree, look at this image: http://iacas.org/f/4oclock.jpg . If you deliver 15° of dynamic loft to the ball, it doesn't matter if you're swinging up or down ten degrees, the contact point will be the same .

So again what Michael said there was correct: to hit the ball lower, contact must be made higher on the golf ball. To hit it higher, contact must be made lower on the golf ball. We can change that by adding or removing forward dynamic loft, either by adding more shaft lean (by manually doing so, by changing ball position, by changing how open or closed the clubface is at impact, etc.) or simply by changing clubs.

But mixed in with the message of "lower = higher contact point, higher = lower contact point" Michael throws in some balogna about hitting the ball above the equator. I can't say this more plainly: No well-struck golf shot is struck above the equator!!! Not even a good putt is struck above the equator! If we strike the ball above the equator, it will immediately be driven down into the ground and is likely to have topspin.

1:08 - 2:17 - "When I want my ball to start out to the left and curve to the right, I need to have my impact point on the right side of the golf ball." Again, the opposite is true: to start a ball right, the impact point should be farther to the left. This is all true. Here's an image that should help clarify this:

(Remember that Breed's view, and the "right" and "left" terminology is from down the line, while these first two images are from the side and above.)

As we all know, draws which are playable - I don't care if they're pull-draws per the player alignment or push-draws per player alignment - but all good draws start right of the target and draw back to the target. So that means the clubface points RIGHT of the target at impact, meaning the impact location is LEFT of the center-line. The opposite is true for cuts: they need to start left of the target, so they need to be impacted on the back RIGHT side of the golf ball.

Now, at about 1:48 Michael says that to hit a high draw he's going to hit the ball in the lower-left quadrant. "Lower impact = higher ball flight" is correct. "Left half" so the ball starts to the right is correct too. Unfortunately Michael then confuses matters by saying he's going to "shut the face." Look at the impact positions in the second graphic: which one has the closed clubface relative to the target line? The fade, because it impacts the ball on the RIGHT half. To hit a playbable draw, the face needs to be pointing RIGHT of the target at impact. Michael gets it RIGHT in drawing his X on the LEFT half of the golf ball, but gets the "closed face" part wrong. He'll make this mistake later on as well in a confusing way.

2:18 - 4:04 - In talking about hitting a low shot, Michael says "in order to hit it high on the ball, my angle of attack has to become steeper." No no no no no no! The path is independent of the dynamic loft and thus irrelevant to the impact location on the golf ball. In fact, with the same dynamic loft and thus the same impact location, a steeper angle of attack will produce a ball that starts a teeny bit lower due to the path's small contribution to initial flight vector, but it'll have more backspin and may end up floating or ballooning higher in the air overall.

Michael says that in order to get the AoA steeper he has to get the shaft in a more upright position. That doesn't even make sense. The vertical swing plane (VSP) will not appreciably change the Angle of Attack. Steepening the shaft a few degrees might change the AoA up to a degree, but again, the path is irrelevant to the contact point on the golf ball.

(Quickie Math: if we change nothing about the circle on which we swing a club and impact a ball at an AoA of -3°, but shift the VSP of that circle from 60° to 45°, we'll change the AoA to a whopping 5°. That's a two-degree shift in AoA with a 15° shift in VSP!!! The sarcasm is free on this one folks.) (P.S. Assuming the golfer's HSP is 0°, a -3° AoA is going to produce a 3° club path at 45°. Constraining club path and shifting VSP to 60° gets us a 5.19° AoA. So that's how the math was done. Simple geometry - at 45° the adjacent and opposite sides are equal length and at 60° their ratio is 1:1.73.)

After talking about gripping down on the club (to facilitate your steeper VSP), at 3:33 Breed slips in the key piece here: "we're going to move the ball back in our stance." This piece is what changes the impact location to be higher on the ball, not anything else he's said! Moving the ball back will tend to cause the shaft to lean farther forward at impact and thus to reduce dynamic loft. Reduced dynamic loft = impact location higher on the golf ball. Still not above the equator (unless we have negative loft on the clubface), but "higher" then a "stock" shot with the ball farther forward and less shaft lean. Breed again states that moving the ball back in the stance causes the AoA to be steeper. While true, it's basically irrelevant to what he's talking about in regards to impact locations. A 2° change in AoA (and that's with a 15° change in VSP!!!!) is not going to produce a noticeable (to humans) difference in launch angle.

4:05 - 4:44 - Now we're hitting the ball higher. So naturally we widen our stance and get farther from the golf ball. I believe if anything Michael might drop the rear foot back a bit more than he moves the front one forward, thus effectively moving the ball up in the stance, decreasing shaft lean and thus hitting the ball with more dynamic loft. This is the only way to hit the ball higher, as in fact flattening the shaft will actually move the contact point higher on the golf ball (see the pedantic aside if that piques your curiosity - if you don't care then just know that the added dynamic loft is more than enough to compensate for the 2 or 3° flatter shaft angle).

4:45 - 5:35 - Now we get to talk about curving the ball. First up is a fade, so Michael says he has to open the face (point it to the right). Then he says he has to impact the ball on the right side of the golf ball. As we know, this is in direct opposition to opening the clubface, which will move the impact location to the left side of the golf ball (again, remember the frame of reference - straight down the target line from behind the ball). Michael correctly states that opening the face adds loft and moves the impact point lower on the golf ball, and he wants it higher and to the outside (which is correct for hitting a low fade - though obviously it still won't be above the equator, ever). So he opens his stance and then, sadly, tells you to steepen the shaft.

This is where Breed's failure to understand the practical application of the Ball Flight Laws leads to incredible confusion. His clubface is "open" to his body but he's "opened" his stance so much that he's pointing well left of the target. In my terms, he's hitting a push-fade if he keeps the impact alignments the same (the face is open to his body). This shot will, if everything else is the same, launch higher because opening the face increases the dynamic loft.

At about 5:30 Breed says something about how because he's "chopped down" on the ball more it'll have less spin. This doesn't make much sense, because as we know, he's increased the spin loft. The dynamic loft is higher because he opened the face. Assuming his AoA increases the same amount he moved the ball back in his stance, the spin loft will thus be higher due simply to the open face.

5:36 - 6:20 - Now we hit a high draw. He closes the clubface (draw spin with a neutral path, yes, but not a playable draw unless we shift that neutral path WELL to the right of the target). He notes that this moves the impact point to the right side of the golf ball (correct), so he alters his stance to point well to the right. In effect, he's going to hit a pull-draw (which, on the screen doesn't draw at all).

Consider the two shots I just mentioned. Michael Breed wanted to hit a low cut and a high draw. He chose to hit a push-cut and a pull-draw. If all else is equal, do pulls go higher or lower? Do pushes go higher or lower?

Yes!

He chose the exact opposite types of shots for the trajectories he wanted! Pull-cuts go lower than push-cuts. Push-draws go higher than pull-draws.

Breed is close (that's being kind) but yet so, so far away.

Here's an image which represents the truth of the matter:

I don't know what club this is, but let's just say it's a 6-iron. In reality it's probably a wedge because the impact locations are pretty low on the ball, meaning there's a lot of dynamic loft, but ignore the overall placement for now except to note that they're definitely below the equator.

The green dots both represent impact locations with a clubface pointing right.

The red dots both represent impact locations with a clubface pointing left.

Breed gets these things right.

The darker dots represent impact locations which will produce a lower ball flight than the lighter dots, and vice versa.

Breed gets this right as well (except for the fact that they're all going to be below the equator).

But if we're truly looking down the target line, and we're hitting shots that end up at the hole, the green dots represent push-draws and the red dots represent pull-fades . You'll note that because I'm keeping things like the amount of shaft lean, etc. constant in these images that the push shots have an impact location lower on the ball than the pulls due the subtle changes to dynamic loft. If we were to keep dynamic loft constant as well, we'd get impact locations like this:

No balls are struck in quadrant 1 or 2. The balls that start left are struck in quadrant 4, and the balls that start right are struck in quadrant 3. The balls that are hit higher are struck lower on the ball (light dots) and the balls hit lower are struck higher on the ball (dark dots).

I've said before and I'll say again: I like Michael Breed. I want him to succeed, because he's got a BIG platform to educate golfers, and he's a passionate, energetic guy.

But unfortunately he routinely wastes his opportunity by muddling the message and confusing the heck out of people. He gets some things correct in this video, but good luck figuring out which parts to pay attention to and which parts to ignore if you're the average golfer. The fact that it takes a post like this to explain it shows just how confusing he's made this segment, how confusing it is to separate the accurate stuff from the inaccurate stuff.

Here's how I'd have done this segment if I really wanted to talk about impact locations on the golf ball.

1. I'd have said that every golf ball is struck below the equator because our clubs have loft and no properly struck golf ball is hit with negative loft (the rare exception might be when you chop down on a putter to pop the ball up in the air intentionally).
2. I'd have said that to hit the ball higher or lower we must change the dynamic loft, and that's most easily done by changing the ball location.
3. I'd have said that if we contact the outside of the golf ball the ball will start left, and if we contact the inside of the golf ball the ball will start to the right because contact location left and right is entirely dependent on face angle at impact. How it curves from there is dependent on the path relative to that face angle.

That's it. Would I have done this segment at all? No, because I think it gets too muddy. It's too confusing, and there are better ways to cover these two topics (vertical and horizontal launch angle). If you want to talk about contact location vertically (as it relates to vertical launch angle), go right ahead. De-loft the club to hit the ball lower, add a little loft (be careful) to hit it a bit higher.

The left/right stuff is just the ball flight laws in two dimensions, and there are WAY easier ways to cover that than to talk about impact locations on the golf ball.

Is this video completely wrong? No. But the bad outweighs the good by a wide margin.

P.S. Will reading any of this make you a better golfer? It's highly unlikely. I just felt the need to get this off my chest. Again, people behaved as if the video was atrocious and got nothing right, but I think some people can learn a little from considering impact locations on the golf ball, and Breed didn't get everything wrong. Just most things.

Yeah, well, like you've said: you'll leave the science and geometry and all that jazz to us, and we'll just tell you what to do. Happy to do so, too. :)

That's not bad.

We just say this: "The ball starts where the clubface is pointed at impact and curves away from the path."

Your face should always be pointing right of the target if you're going to hit a draw. Your path just has to be farther right than that to make the ball curve left in the air.

So yes, regardless of where your stance is aligned.

The problem with that is that path doesn't actually change the impact location. It might (or might not) work as a mental image, but it obviously doesn't actually or "literally" work the way they say.