Instruction
The key to stopping your ball on the green
For most average golfers, stopping the ball on the green with anything but their shortest irons is an issue. There is nothing worse than hitting a great shot into the green — and then watching in horror as the ball cascades over the green.
Most people believe that you need spin to stop a ball on the green. This is correct to some degree, but I can assure you that a ball with 10,000 rpm of spin that lands on the green with a flat landing angle at MACH 1 speed will NOT stop as quickly as most golfers would like. In fact, most bogey golfers do not have the necessary speed to produce spin rates that will seriously impact the ball’s stopping power with anything longer than an 8 iron.
In this article, I would like you to put the ball’s spin rate aside and focus only on the ball’s landing angle. Yes, I know that spin rate is a vital piece of creating a better landing angle, but let’s break it down even further for simplicity’s sake.
Let’s examine two different Tour Players and their respective landing angles.
Tour Player 1: A low-ball hitter.
Photo 1
- Club head speed was 90.2 mph and the spin rate was 7552 rpm.
- Overall height was 71.5 feet high giving us a landing angle of 44.4 degrees.
- The carry was 145.2 yards and the total was 150.8 yards — a difference of 5.6 yards.
Tour Player 2: A high-ball hitter.
Photo 2
- Club head speed was 93.2 mph and the spin rate was 7521 rpm.
- Overall height was 120.8 feet high giving us a landing angle of 51.5 degrees.
- The carry was 171.2 and the total was 174.8 yards — a difference of 3.6 yards.
As you can see, the steeper the landing angle caused the ball to settle quicker. The question now is this; If you cannot increase your club head speed to increase spin, how can add height so your landing angles are steeper?
The key component? Dynamic Loft, which measures the loft of the club at impact.
Photo 3
Photo 4
Let’s examine the data for the trajectory ladder I put together with 7-iron shots for Photo 3.
- The Dynamic Lofts ranged from 10.6 degrees to 26.7 degrees, giving us a height difference of 36.6 feet versus 118.0 feet. That’s a difference of 81.4 feet!
The Heights, Carry Distances, and Landing Angles were as follows:
- 36.6 feet 147.0 yards 28.7 degrees
- 64.2 feet 158.5 yards 39.2 degrees
- 80.3 feet 166.7 yards 43.3 degrees
- 102.8 feet 169.6 yards 48.9 degrees
- 118.0 feet 163.0 yards 51.0 degrees
What does this all mean?
We’d like to hit the ball higher so we can land it softer on the greens. Ninety percent of the people I see on a daily basis have a ball flight that is too flat. In order to hit the ball higher you’ll need to add more dynamic loft at impact.
The easiest way to add dynamic loft — and more stopping power — is to put the ball up in your stance slightly and try and hit the ball higher. That increases the loft of the club head at impact, which leads to higher-flying shots.
How do you know when you are doing it correctly? It’s simple. Your ball will flying higher and carrying farther than it was before.
Be careful, though, because if you hit the ball too high it will fly a shorter distance. You can see that this happened for me when my iron shots hit the 118-foot mark.
Experiment and enjoy!
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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!
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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
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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?
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tom stickney
Feb 12, 2015 at 4:31 pm
Capt– most ams don’t hit the ball far enough…hitting knockdowns would only cause them to hit it shorter. Know any am’s who like to hit it shorter than they do now?
Capt Hook
Feb 12, 2015 at 9:31 am
Completely bogus article. Most AMs need to hit 3/4 knock down shots at the front center of the green and have the ball hit close to the front fringe and roll on. This means taking one extra club, putting the ball back in your stance and hitting down on it. Also every AM should be using a urethane cover ball to assist in this strategy. Just this strategy alone will improve their scores more than any other. Trying to aim for the flag and hitting a high shot at the pin is a recipe for disaster – except for the very best players 2 handicap or better. AMs should be trying to make 2 putt pars not pin seeking birdies. An average 10 handicap who makes 16 2 putt pars and 2 bogeys in a round would be more ecstatic than one who makes a single birdie but shoots 88.
Tom Stickney
Feb 11, 2015 at 7:50 pm
Hudson- if you can get your landing angles on your irons above 45° you’re going to find her not gonna roll out quite so much I wouldn’t know the exact percentages for each club because everybody’s different. Slightly means half a ball
Tom Stickney
Feb 11, 2015 at 7:49 pm
Donnie that’s a question for track man sorry I can’t give you any more information
Tom Stickney
Feb 11, 2015 at 7:48 pm
Skip– if the distance is not an issue that might be a good choice
Tom Stickney
Feb 11, 2015 at 7:48 pm
Ed…less speed=less spin with all things equal. Most Am’s have a faulty pivot causing the low point to move around during the golf swing. Awful hard to hit a wedge with a forward ball position if your low point consistently is around your sternum or even behind your sternum
Hudson
Feb 11, 2015 at 5:44 pm
Great article as I believe that my shots are too flat with a few clubs: see the % of roll below on SW, AW and 9i…
What would be the “ideal” roll percentage per club ?
Roll % Launch Club
Angle loft
SW 11% 33 55
AW 11% 33 50
AW 12% 28 50
PW 6% 30 45
PW 5% 31 45
9i 13% 18 40
7i 7% 19 31
H5 7% 16 25
H3 9% 14 19
Last question : can you please precise the “slightly” in the sentence ” is to put the ball up in your stance slightly”. The equivalent of “one ball” forward ?
Thank you and I love your analysis !
Skip
Feb 11, 2015 at 5:17 pm
Why don’t I just use clubs that aren’t jacked (lofted down). Wouldn’t that produce a higher dynamic loft at impact?
JP
Feb 12, 2015 at 1:13 pm
True dat.
Donnie
Feb 11, 2015 at 11:50 am
Tom, I’ve always found those Trackman shot height figures ludicrous. Your highest shot, 118 feet, would roughly be what, a 10-story building? I know I get similar figures on Trackman, but I’d imagine I could hit the windows on 4th, maybe 5th floor of a building…what gives?
Pooch
Feb 11, 2015 at 11:15 am
Its called Urethane and technique.
Ed
Feb 11, 2015 at 11:00 am
Tom, I’m interested in further understanding your comment: ” most people don’t have the pivot action necessary to use only one ball position”. Thanks
Tommy
Feb 11, 2015 at 3:00 am
You want to hit it higher stop leaning the shaft foreward in your setup….try this one that even works on those dang mat driving ranges….take a 7 or 8 iron set up with the ball maybe one ball forward of center and sole your club right behind the ball and see that your hands are right over the ball, hit several balls, now move your hands foreward a balls length ahead of the ball, hit several balls. Keeping moving the hands foreward and watching your ball flight come down…(your learning how to hit some good into the wind shots while doing this also) then do the same thing moving your hands right over the club face and then some with hands behind club face….
Tom Stickney
Feb 11, 2015 at 12:46 am
Bla- how so?
Tom Stickney
Feb 11, 2015 at 12:45 am
J- Am’s can’t geberate enough clubhead speed to reach the tour spin levels
Bla
Feb 10, 2015 at 11:39 pm
This is a bad article! Really bad!
J
Feb 10, 2015 at 9:12 pm
I was under the impression that tour players get added height from their higher spin levels compared to amateurs (and the ball therefore ballooning), is this factored into the need for increased dynamic loft…or are you saying it’s an amatuer’s better bet than trying to get the impact that will result in the added spin of your players?
Tom Stickney
Feb 10, 2015 at 7:54 pm
Keith– correct sir.
Tom Stickney
Feb 10, 2015 at 7:54 pm
M-siz- rather you read my articles before you comment. If not, don’t bother.
Tom Stickney
Feb 10, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Dave– works on the lesson tee
Keith
Feb 10, 2015 at 3:57 pm
This makes a lot of sense, thank you for sharing. Outside of moving the ball forward slightly, will an increase in secondary tilt away from the target help?
Trying to apply this logic to my own game as a lower hitter…flat shoulders tends to be a fault of mine.
tom stickney
Feb 10, 2015 at 1:47 pm
Ryan– most people don’t have the pivot action necessary to use only one ball position
tom stickney
Feb 10, 2015 at 1:46 pm
Thanks alex
tom stickney
Feb 10, 2015 at 1:46 pm
That– if you want to hit it higher that is one way…not saying to have your hands way behind the ball…but you know that already, right?
That guy
Feb 10, 2015 at 12:34 pm
Yea, great idea…let’s tell amateurs to keep their hands behind the ball more in order to add height. *conpletely sarcastic*
Dave S
Feb 10, 2015 at 3:35 pm
I had same thought. One of the biggest problems amateurs have is artificially trying to lift the ball into the air instead of hitting down on it and letting the club’s loft do the work. Now we’re suggesting that they actually TRY to hit it higher by moving the ball up in their stance? Doesn’t seem like a good move to me. Maybe in theory, in a lab, the numbers work out, but in practice, I think we’d see a different outcome… one littered with chili-dips and skulls.
Al
Feb 10, 2015 at 8:50 pm
I don’t think that’s as big or frequent problem with amateurs as it is so frequent a “tip” from instructors. I didn’t have any problem understanding “hit down on the ball” or “before the bottom of the arc”. I’m almost a perfect idiot, I understood immediately.
I only posted this because I’m sick of hearing/reading it. Maybe it provides an epiphany to many rank amateurs, but when Teacher X is describing hitting a high draw, then segues into “I see so many amateurs trying to lift the ball”, I find it an odd and jarring juxtaposition.
That guy
Feb 11, 2015 at 2:17 am
In my work, I see a LARGE segment of amateur golfers. The number one mistake I witness, day in and out, is scooping. Even if they are hitting down on the ball, or trying to, they continuously scoop their low hand under instead of driving it through. It would be a rare occasion, and long explanation following my telling of an amateur to shallow his swing and try to lift the ball
Alex
Feb 10, 2015 at 12:28 pm
YES!
When I did fittings daily, despite most claiming their ball flight was too high across the bag, most people I saw actually hit it way too low and with too little spin to be able to stop the ball on any sort of medium to fast green.
I can appreciate this article, for sure.
Interestingly, the higher ball hitting didn’t really increase spin, but I guess tour players probably have a consistent spin loft and just aim the dynamic loft differently so it would be pretty easy to have the same spin rates despite different dynamic loft values.
Ryan
Feb 10, 2015 at 12:16 pm
So Tom, I ask this more out of curiosity from a teaching perspective (though I’m not a teacher). Do you think that this changes common wisdom – that amateurs and pros alike should work from a middle of stance/chest ball position for PW and then move upward? In your opinion, should all of us mere mortals actually be taught to play all shots just back off the left heel (more like what a Jimmy Ballard would suggest) or that the standard ‘middle of stance’ PW should just be taught slightly more forward in general?
I understand the experiment yourself line, of course. But found this article very interesting.