In this informative video, Steve Dresser of the Steve Dresser Golf Academy in Pawleys Island, S.C. shows us how a simple homemade device can become an important part of your practice routine. It’s called a descent board; see how Steve suggests you use it for maximum effectiveness.
I always think that some of the best teaching aides are the ones you make yourself. This is something we call the descent board. And yes, perhaps at one time it was a cutting board, and now it's just built onto a ramp like this. We put it a little bit to the right of the ball for the right-handed player. The reason for that is, particularly with your irons one of the most important angles at impact is that the shaft leans forward. That's basically what hitting down on the ball is. You don't have to be steep to hit down on the ball. You have to be into your left side and the hand's left of the golf ball to compress it against the ground.
So, by having this thing here what we see so much of is people will hang back, and try to scoop and flip the ball into the air, and when that happens a lot of people call that casting. We're casting our fishing line back here instead of down here. You will literally hit this thing, so if there happens to be a point in the golf swing where you don't want the club to be, the easiest thing to do is to put an obstacle in the way. In this case, we put the descent board there to increase the odds of our coming into the ball more like this, and not like that.