Instruction
Find the bottom of your swing arc for better golf
One of the fun things about watching great ball strikers is observing their divot patterns. The bottom of their swing (and their divot) is in the same place time after time. Fat and thin shots are rare for top-tier players, but for amateurs they are usually the most common mishits. Let’s take a look at why.
First, we have to consider that in golf, not only is the ball beside us, it is also on the ground. That’s different than say, tennis, where the ball is also to the side of the player, but it is up in the air. So the golf swing not only has to go up and down, but it also has to go around.
If you picture a ferris wheel tilted half way down, or a merry-go-round tilted halfway up, you get an idea of a golf swing arc. The swing goes around because the golf ball is beside us, and it goes up and down because the ball is on the ground. If golfers hit off 4 foot tees, there would be no need to swing up and down. And if we played golf with the ball between our feet, there would be no need to swing around. But we don’t.
When the golf swing has the proper amount of around and up and down, it has the best chance to bottom out where it should: slightly in front of shots off the turf. If there’s too much around in the swing, the player has difficulty getting to the bottom of the ball. And if there’s too much up and down, the player can crash into ground. Knowing what side of this conundrum you’re on and what to do about it can be a great help when you’re practicing and playing.
The terms shallow and steep are used to describe the angle of attack. One way to look at shallow is that the golf club swings parallel to the ground for too long, or has a wide bottom. Steep means the club is “in and out” of the ground too quickly, or has a very narrow bottom. Shallow is too ascending into impact, and steep is too descending. Obviously, the desired outcome is between steep and shallow. So how do you get there?
First, you need to know what your attack angle is. In other words, knowing that you hit shots fat or thin is not enough information. You can hit shallow fat shots, steep fat shots, and shallow thins and steep thins. And without knowing what you’re hitting or where the bottom of the arc actually is, you cannot get on to the right correction. And although your swing path can contribute, it is by no means the determinate of your angle of attack. Instructors see in-to-out paths with a shallow attack angles, as well as steep angle of attack from the same inside-out path.
Here are a few things that might help: Draw a line on the ground perpendicular to the target line. You can use some spray paint, or just run a tee along an aim stick several times so the line is visible. Sole your club right on the line. Now, start making some practice swing with a 7 iron. Where are your divots: behind the line, on the line or in front of it? Are your divots deep or not deep? Are you hitting the ground at all? These are all things to know in order to get on to your corrections. I’ll offer a general guideline of corrections I teach for the variety of conditions above.
Shallow Fat shots (aka “drop kicks”)
- De-loft your club slightly at address
- Place more weight on your front foot.
- Swing your hands higher in the backswing
- Focus on getting through the shot and onto your left side (for a righty).
Steep Fats
- Tilt your spine angle slightly away from the target.
- Place slightly more weight on your rear foot.
- Feel that you swing more around (slightly flatter) going back.
- Focus on a much better shoulder turn in the back swing.
Shallow thin shots (usually low skulls to the right)
- Move the ball slightly forward in your stance.
- Open your stance slightly.
- Focus on swinging more DOWN TO THE LEFT through impact (a feeling of coming over the top).
- Getting a feeling that the right side is higher than the left side (for a righty) into impact is helpful.
Steep thin shots
This sounds like a contradiction in terms but if your attack angle is very steep, the bottom of the swing arc CAN get too far in front of the golf ball, and the swing will simply “tick” the top of the ball coming through. That’s what instructors call a “late top.”
- Widen your stance a little.
- Tilt the spine angle to the right a little.
- Turn the shoulders in the back swing and swing a little flatter going back.
- RELEASE THE CLUB as early as you can from the top, staying behind the ball as much as possible.
To clarify: These are all “fixes” for the poor shots you may be hitting. The long-term correction for these attack angle problems will come with working with your instructor on your swing. By having the knowledge I’ve shared above, you may have at least a “tourniquet” to stop the bleeding!
As always, feel free to send a swing to my Facebook page. I will do my best to give you my feedback.
- LIKE20
- LEGIT3
- WOW1
- LOL1
- IDHT0
- FLOP1
- OB5
- SHANK2
Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
- LIKE0
- LEGIT0
- WOW0
- LOL0
- IDHT0
- FLOP0
- OB0
- SHANK1
Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
- LIKE86
- LEGIT13
- WOW6
- LOL1
- IDHT0
- FLOP4
- OB1
- SHANK8
Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
- LIKE0
- LEGIT2
- WOW2
- LOL0
- IDHT0
- FLOP0
- OB0
- SHANK2
-
19th Hole2 weeks ago
Dave Portnoy places monstrous outright bet for the 2024 Masters
-
19th Hole3 days ago
Justin Thomas on the equipment choice of Scottie Scheffler that he thinks is ‘weird’
-
19th Hole2 weeks ago
Tiger Woods arrives at 2024 Masters equipped with a putter that may surprise you
-
19th Hole3 days ago
‘Absolutely crazy’ – Major champ lays into Patrick Cantlay over his decision on final hole of RBC Heritage
-
19th Hole2 weeks ago
Two star names reportedly blanked Jon Rahm all week at the Masters
-
19th Hole1 week ago
Report: LIV Golf identifies latest star name they hope to sign to breakaway tour
-
19th Hole1 week ago
Neal Shipley presser ends in awkward fashion after reporter claims Tiger handed him note on 8th fairway
-
19th Hole1 week ago
Brandel Chamblee has ‘no doubt’ who started the McIlroy/LIV rumor and why
Dennis Clark
May 28, 2014 at 5:20 pm
The bottom of your swing is where the “rubber meets the road”. The one problem I see more than any is hitting behind or on top of the golf ball. The drills I suggested in this piece are meant as both corrections and “tests” for the player to find where the bottom actually is and what to do about it. Thx for all the comments.
Frank Johnson
May 27, 2014 at 11:56 am
Good article, looks like the information was taken from Jim Hardy’s book, “Solid Contact”. Are you a fan of Hardy’s theories and teachings Dennis?
Dennis Clark
May 28, 2014 at 1:03 pm
Sure; same influence. John jacobs. I didn’t read Solid Contact, but I would imagine its in the same vein. Its really pretty simple; there is no other way. The bottom of the arc is either too far forward or too far back.
Frank Johnson
May 28, 2014 at 1:47 pm
Thanks Dennis, again great advice. Not many instructors address this area of the golf swing, or how to fix the problems associated with it. It begins with a better understanding…..
TheLegend
May 24, 2014 at 7:06 pm
A drop kick is caused by your head falling downward away from your target and down toward the ground. When your head goes down toward the ground so does your shoulders/arms. When this occurs you hit the ground (because you got closer to it) your club then bounces off the ground and hits the top of the ball. DROP=head falling down toward right foot. KICK = bounce off ground to top of ball> Ball KICKING OUT LOW. So how do you stop drop kicking? Well you need to make sure your head is in front of the ball at the moment of impact and that it is not dropping down.
Pingback: Consistent, Powerful Irons by Finding The Bottom of Your Golf Swing Arc | Solutions for Golfers Over 50
Alex K.
May 23, 2014 at 1:41 am
This is the greatest area of inconsistency for most if not all beginner/average golfs and despite the writer’s best intentions, it does not address these golfers’ main issue.
My point is, before you can apply ANY of the fixes listed above, you first have to make sure that you have a swing that is centred around a consistent pivot point.
To borrow the above analogy, a golfer first has to either anchor his ‘ferris wheel’ to one point in space or ensure it tracks (forwards ideally), the same distance; and at the same relative speed and time as the club head (to ensure release at the correct time), each time he/she swings.
If you can do this, then you can… “move the ball slightly forward, tilt the spine… etc, etc).
Dmitri
May 22, 2014 at 10:03 pm
Steep thin…I am not the only one!
Bob Gomavitz
May 22, 2014 at 10:52 am
Dennis, nice article. I would have like to have seen you add Divot Direction to the fat shots.
My guess is that a to shallow divot, aka the drop kick divot might be pointing right of target, or is this just from a to early release? My divot points right when I hit it fat more often then not. Thought?
Dennis Clark
May 22, 2014 at 2:08 pm
You have to be careful when observing divots, they are misleading. They do not indicate initial direction OR PATH! But to answer your question, drop kicks are often from an in-to-out path, but not always. A player cash be shallow out-to-in as well. “Left field from the right foot” I call it. send me a video!
Jim Benjamin
May 22, 2014 at 9:50 am
My biggest problem is I don’t take a divot. Every time I try I mess up. I have used a swingbyte analyzer and have forward shaft lean (6.4 degrees forward) and hit down on the ball (attack angle 6.7 degrees down) but don’t take a divot. I’ll try to make a video.
Ryan
May 23, 2014 at 11:16 am
Jim,
You are likely either releasing the golf club too early, or not shifting your weight aggressively enough into your impact position. Click to read this GolfWrx article, I think it may help you: http://www.golfwrx.com/206497/top-two-mistakes-golfers-older-than-50-make/
Ryan
Dennis Clark
May 23, 2014 at 5:08 pm
with 7 down id expect to see some turf, but not always. Id look at posture (more hip bend) and a 60/40 weight distribution (favoring left side) at address.
John H
May 22, 2014 at 7:56 am
Now, if we only had one style of miss, then we might get somewhere! Personally, I have all of the above shots in my bag.
Dennis Clark
May 22, 2014 at 8:52 am
probably not, most swings are either steep OR shallow. Send a video is you like. Thx
Alexander Bernhardt
May 22, 2014 at 12:57 am
This is very detailed. Thanks!
Chris Reed
May 21, 2014 at 10:25 pm
I believe I am guilty of the drop kicks, but thought it was more because I was loading up. Could that be it too? Would the fixes suggested above work for that too? It seems like I makes sense, but just making sure. This seems to be my miss hit on all clubs. Thanks!
Dennis Clark
May 21, 2014 at 11:00 pm
What do you mean by loading up?