How to Use an Impact (Smash) Bag to Improve Your Ball Striking

The moment of impact is often called the ‘moment of truth’ in the golf swing. And that name makes sense, as everything that you do in the swing is geared toward arriving at impact in a position that will send the ball accurately toward the target.

You can do a lot of other things right in your swing, but the results will not be what you want if you get impact wrong.

One way to work on your impact position is through the use of an impact bag, or smash bag. This is a large, soft bag that can be placed on the ground in place of a golf ball.

When you contact this bag, your club will be quickly brought to a stop, and you’ll wind up frozen in your impact position. From there, you can evaluate the position you have achieved, and determine if any adjustments need to be made.

Let’s take a look at how you can use this training tool to optimize your impact position.

Getting  Your Hands on an Impact Bag

Before you can use an impact game to work on your technique, you will need to have one in your possession. There are a few options here for you to consider –

1. Ask at the Range

If you are a regular at a particular driving range and know the people who work there, ask if they have a bag you can borrow. They probably have one around for lessons, and they might be happy to let you use it for a bit even if you aren’t taking a lesson.

Of course, this method won’t work out for everyone, and there might be some days when the bag is in use by one of the teaching pros.

2. Make One of Your Own

It’s possible to create your own impact bag out of soft items such as old socks, blankets, etc. While this can work, it might be more trouble than it’s worth given the modest price of our next suggestion.

3. Buy One

This is the way most people will want to go. Impact bags are offered by various golf companies, they are rather affordable, and are built to last. By buying your own, you can not only take it with you to the range for a practice session, but you can also use it at home.

Using a Smash Bag to Feel a Quality Impact Position

The goal of using an impact bag is to help you feel what a good impact position is and how you can get to that point.

Impact goes by in the blink of an eye during a normal swing, so it’s nearly impossible to feel the position of your body and the club at that moment. With an impact bag, you can slow things down and learn how to get into the right spot.

To get started, use one of your short irons and go through the steps below.

1. Take your stance as you would for a normal full swing. Instead of placing a golf ball on the ground for this swing, put the impact bag in its place.
2. Use your normal takeaway to start this swing but only go back about halfway. You aren’t going to make swings at full power when hitting an impact bag, as doing so could cause injury. The club will quickly come to stop after it hits the bag and stopping that fast from a full swing is dangerous (to your health and the club).
3. After making a half-backswing, turn toward the target and move the club into the bag. The focus here should be on using your body to rotate into the bag, rather than using your hands to propel the club forward. This tendency to ‘flip’ the club toward impact with the hands is a common error in golf, and something the impact bag is particularly good at correcting.
4. Once you have contacted the bag, hold your position and evaluate your results. What you are looking for here is a firm, solid left side (for a right-handed golfer). You want your weight to be favoring your left side, and your left arm and wrist should feel strong. Specifically, look at the position of your left wrist when the club stops moving. It should be mostly flat – if it is cupped, you are flipping the club toward impact and need to work on keeping your hands quiet while you rotate through the shot.

If you are at the range, feel free to mix in a few repetitions of the drill above with a few normal swings where you hit a ball off into the distance. As you continue to gain a better feel for a quality impact position, you will hopefully see better results with your full swing.

Using an Impact Bag as a Short Game Tool

You can also use your new impact bag to improve your short game performance.

Many of the same concepts listed above for the full swing carry over into the short game. For instance, you want to feel that firm left wrist at impact, and you want to avoid flipping the hands during the downswing.

Feel free to use your impact bag for some short game practice to confirm that you are getting into the right spots.

Finally, you can use this bag in an entirely different way to keep working on your short game. Instead of hitting it with your club, turn it into an obstacle that you need to clear while practicing your chipping. To work on lofted chip shots, place the bag a short distance in front of you and try to chip a few balls over the bag and onto a target green. Knowing how to hit lofted chip shots can help tremendously when trying to get up and down from tough spots on the course.

An impact bag has many uses. Between improving the quality of your ball striking and using it to work on your short game skills, there is a lot you stand to gain by investing some of your practice time in this piece of equipment. Play well!