Hitting down on the ball with a driver

Were talking about well hit drives here, not bladed pitches. You will be hitting down on that yellow ball a little bit sacrificing some distance for the sake of consistency. No matter how fast you swing, you can hit shots that hiss off your clubface. Apr 22, 2009 hitting the heel of the driver is most likely as someone said, an over the top issue, as the left arm folds too soon before impact the body comes forward to catch the ball at least on the heel. However, a well hit fairway wood shot feels solid, and the loft of the club does all the work of getting the ball into the air. Hit through, not down on the ball march 12, 2016 the golf fixs michael breed debunks a common myth to hit down on the golf ball. You then rotate forwards with your hips as you hit the ball and extend your arms. Spine tilt in golf posture place your driver directly down against the front of your body so that the driver head is between your knees. After you get good at that, hit a couple of balls with a normal grip. Surge claims that hitting down on the ball is not required.

How do you hit down on the golf ball when hitting irons. How would you like to be able to hit up on your driver. By hitting down with the driver, you will make contact with the ball slightly above the center of the clubface and your ball will launch off the face like a cannon. Jan 15, 2010 hitting down on the ball is a great way to hit drivers. Line the ball up with the inside of your dominant foot in front of you. It is more like hitting it flat but with your head behind the ball. How to hit down on the golf ball for your iron shots usgolftv. To cure your slices and pulls, hit down on the ball with your driver. Hitting down how to improve hitting down into the ball in golf. In fact, the average angle of attack aoa on the pga tour is 1. The key to having this shaft alignment at impact is a matter of experimenting with what iron ball position produces the optimal shots for you.

How i hit drives 56 yards farther with one adjustment golfwrx. I know what a good flight looks like and i already have one playing it off my right foot and trying to hit it just past the low point in my swing. A simple drill for perfect ball position and pure strikes. Simply tilt your spine away from the target until the club head touches the inside of your lead knee.

Use a sweeping motion, instead of a downward angle, to give the ball more lift and less spin. I have seen more than a couple of good players ruin their swing from being obsessed over hitting down. Hit down on the golf ball and take a huge divot its not. You might have been told to sweep the ball off the tee with your driver to maximize distance. Change ball position to hit down on a golf ball video lesson by peter finch when youre looking to strike down on the ball more one of the easiest ways to do that is to alter ball position. The angle of attack whether the club is moving up, down or level with the ground at impact has very little to do with the launch of the ball. The angle in which the ball comes off the club face is called the launch angle. To get the ball up in the air, it may sound silly, you need to hit down on the ball. Golfer a swings at 90mph and hits 5 degrees down on the ball 5 attack angle. What is happening when i hit the golf ball way up with a driver. Hitting down on the ball swing surgeon don trahan peak. I tee the ball pretty low for my driver, only about a quarter of the ball above the driver face. Jun 09, 2019 however, it is a myth that hitting down on the ball causes the ball to go up. I tend to struggle off of the tee because my driver can send the ball in both directions slice and hook.

Most recreational golfers are hitting down on the ball with their drivers for a number of reasons, and because of that they are not optimizing their distance potential for their swing speed. Im pretty sure its not the club, as my ss is 96 with a driver, and i had no problems hitting my buddys tm r7 10 superquad with a stiff shaft. Change ball position to hit down on a golf ball video. Move the ball up in your stance, get some axis tilt away from the target and tee the ball up higher to catch it on the upswing. Hitting down by itself has no direct influence on spin, ball speed, or curvature. The common term used to refer to the vertical movement of the center of mass of the golf club at impact is called attack angle. Presume that one swings slightly downwards two degrees downwards with a driver and that the descending path will functionally deloft the driver, and functionally turn a. In golf posture place your driver directly down against the front of your body so that the driver head is between your knees. One can create the exact same conditions of spin, ball speed, and curvature hitting up or down. A lot of golfers struggle with a really high, weak ball flight. Irons are designed to contact the golf ball while still traveling down.

I thought every players goal was to strike the ball first and then take a nice thin divot, meaning that the player delivered a descending blow to the ball. You hear a lot about hitting up on the ball with your driver good advice but little about doing the opposite. How to hit fairway woods correctly, 3 and 5 wood golf tip. The direction of the ball flight is intermediate between the clubface angle and the clubhead path. Hitting down on the ball with the driver is a distance killer. You need to set the ball more forward in your stance, since the driver is a long club, to allow the driver to square up with it. Hit up or hit down with driver rick shiels is joined by pga golf professional dan whittaker at quest golf academy and are going to. The goal is to feel the club working down, hitting the ball, and then the ground. It seems logical but we have so many people get so worked up over this. Hitting down with the driver is a concept that deserves a post on its own. In irons, the swing bottoms out just past the ball, the evidence is the divot. Pros do hit slightly down through the ball but its because of their proper swing and their ball position, not because they try to hit down at the ball. Michael breed, host of the golf fix, shows you a drill on how to hit down on the golf ball.

How to hit down on the golf ball the golf fix golf channel. Almost all of them have hit down on the ball with their driver instead of up. How to hit the golf ball with higher trajectory driver. Place a tee flush into the ground 12 inches behind the ball and ask the golfer to brush the ground there no divot. The ultimate guide to ball position at address usgolftv. Hitting off heel of driver instruction and playing tips. Everyone wants to hit their driver as far as possible that is no secret. When you teach kids to swing down, they actually, literally swing down.

The key, imo, is to realize that you are merely pinching the ball between the clubface and turf for a very brief moment in time. May 10, 2017 clubbing down is a great way to put the ball in play, and it is the right choice in a variety of situations. A heel hit is a killer for distance, as it dramatically lowers smash factor and increases spin rate through the roof. If you find yourself hitting the ball too fat or too thin at times, you need to check the position of the ball in your stance. Strike down on the ball and visualize the club clipping the tee after impact. A good thought is to try to take a little divot after impact or to hit with the shaft leaning toward the target top photo.

I know that in the past i have made it known that it is okay to hit down on the ball with the driver. If you are teeing too high, during the downswing, the driver hits the bottom half of the ball, which will cause an increase in loft and decrease in distance. But basically, people struggle with the driver because low point and the ball overlap. I have since come to learn that the vast majority of us could g. This also means that the driver will hit the ball on the upswing, which creates less spin and straighter drives. No need to club down how to hit more fairways with your driver. How can i stop my driver from hitting the ground before. Aug 06, 20 this doesnt necessarily mean hitting down steeply onto the ball. How i hit drives 56 yards farther with one adjustment. They swing an average of about 95 mph and hit up on the ball about 5 degrees. The basics of hitting up vs hitting down with driver dwg golf. The goal is to keep the same feeling as the swing gets larger. Make sure you are still in your same stance, and keep the club hovering in the air. During the swing, your arms remain still same as iron as you come through to hit the ball.

So i hit a few balls with trackman and realised that i do hit down on driver, attack angle was like 0. Hitting down causes more spin and therefore more control. When golfers tend to think about hitting down, we usually. How much distance are you losing with your driver adam. Remember that you dont need to hit the ball at full force to send it far.

However, when utilizing your driver your swing plane should be more of a sweeping stroke and it all starts during your backswing. Hitting a driver with too much backspin will cause the ball to balloon up in the air and land. Many players struggle to hit their fairway woods solidly. The golf club should work down, hit the ball, and then the ground. For the rest of us, just look to the lpga averages.

This leverage is obtained by maintaining a mandatory flat left wrist and a bent right wrist for righthanded players. You want to be hitting down on the ball and trapping it between your club face and the turf. Mar 12, 2016 the golf fixs michael breed debunks a common myth to hit down on the golf ball. Teeing the ball correctly is the simplest solution to hitting your ball too high. When you hit a few balls, youll understand the feeling of hitting down on the ball. If an upward hit is desired, as with a driver, the ball should be placed up in the stance and the golfer told only where the swing is to bottom out. This video shows the viewer how to hit down on a golf swing. Hit down on the ball is a phrase that has been told to golfers struggling to improve their ball striking for decades. Players who are struggling with hitting driver inevitably start to feel awkward when they address tee shots.

This is achievable for even the most casual golfers if you make small adjustments to move the low point of your swing forward. With recent advancements in golf technology, we now have the ability to track this information. You just need to try and groove your swing so you can hit the sweet spot or centre of the club. Hitting the heel of the driver is most likely as someone said, an over the top issue, as the left arm folds too soon before impact the body comes forward to catch the ball at least on the heel. Amateur golfers commonly hit down with their drivers, like an iron shot. Our goal is to get enough spin to achieve lift, while minimizing hopefully eliminating drag.

Play the ball where your righthand fingers point when hitting driver. Use the swing keys below if you are seeking to improve a critical aspect of good ball striking, i. However, that concept does not translate to the driver. Go ahead and hold the golf club maintaining this tilt. I dont think that a lot of times they even realize that its a high, weak ball. Most recreational golfers are hitting down on the ball with their drivers for a number of reasons, and because of that they are not optimizing their distance. Essentially, you want to make impact just before hitting the low point of your swing.

Getting more out of your driver august 07, 2011 andrew rice. Ive seen a number of drills out there to increase angle of attack, and i think this one from andrew rice is one of the best. Sean foley on how to hit down on the ball with your driver golf. Recently i came across this article written by sean foley, hitting down with a driver promotes greater consistency like tiger and hunter mahan do. The idea of hitting down on a gold swing is that when you take your club back you do not move backwards. With the golf ball being teed up so high with a driver, the most common strike pattern is a heel hit due in part to something called diagonal strike effect which i explain in the strike plan. I guess i will play the driver in the middle of the stance and try to take a divot.

Poor setup and swinging down on the ball can cause golfers to hit drives with a high launch angle. The main technique remains the same, but with the driver your body is positioned slightly different than when hitting an iron or wedge. Many golfers will look away from such a shot, not wanting to watch it inevitably fall down short of the green. Sep 06, 2019 bring the driver back down at the ball and shift your center of gravity to your front foot as you make contact. The yellow ball in the photos shows how you would set up for a normal stock shot. Hitting down on the ball is what leaves those nasty. However, it is a myth that hitting down on the ball causes the ball to go up. This will help promote a more neutral angle of attack but hopefully still help you strike the ball first followed by the turf. If you were to play the ball on the ground instead of on a tee and provided you perform a geometrically perfect stroke, there would be no divot. Ideally, you will hit the ball first and the turf second. All these catchphrases relate to something about the design of golf irons and the proper way to use them to hit a golf ball. Really work on flattening the swing by making practice swings 6 inches above the ball.

For instance, if you are facing a par four which has a fairway guarded by bunkers and trees but is also 430 yards long clubbing down really isnt an option. Basically, lessskilled players were hitting down on the ball while golfers who shoot in the 70s hit up on the ball. When using your driver, kolb says the most common cause of power loss is hitting down on the ball. In a simulation with all other factors equal, hitting just 12 34 below. The reason for this belief is that when hitting optimal drives with a downward angle of attack, we also have to deliver a higher dynamic loft loft at impact. Hitting down on the ball is vital to produce good swing dynamics and to use the full leverage of the leading arm plus club which in turn translates into power. Hitting down on the ball is a great way to hit drivers. We know without a doubt that in order to maximize your distance when hitting the driver, based on whatever your club head speed is, that you want to hit up on the driver. Watch the best of sean foley hit down with the driver. The driver is unlike all the other clubs in your bagyou really dont want to hit down on the ball at all. This will help you shift to your front side on the downswing and swing into impact from inside the target line.

Now ive already spoken a little bit about the kind of motion the club takes around the body. Im just wondering how many of you guys hit down to the ball with your driver. In golf swings that are using a downward angle while hitting a driver, two outcomes are likely, and neither of them are positive the pop up. How to lower the launch angle of my drive golfweek. What scares the devil out of me is hitting a driver from a tree lined, narrow space tee box in order to get the ball to the fairway. Instead, you want to be hitting up on your driver, using the advantage that the tee is giving you.

Butch harmons best driver tips will get you hitting it straight and long. The key to hitting the ball farther with the modern, 460cc driver and modern golf ball which spins much less off of a flat face than balls of the past is high launch angle combined with a low spin rate. We have the golf swing and your total game boiled down to the 5 most important. The most common mishits come from an individual swinging the driver like they are trying to hit the ball 3 miles. While trackman stats for the pga tour may show that on average tour players hit down on their driver 1. Many golfers lose distance with their driver because they hit the ball with too high a launch angle. This was primarily due to the fact that the pga tour average for attack angle hitting up or down was 1. Where the ball strikes the club face affects distance more than anything else. They make the mistake of trying to sweep the ball off the ground, sometimes even trying to lift the ball with the club.

You stay over the ball and simply rotate back using your hips. Remember, teeing it high will not result in skyballs. How to hit down on the golf ball golf practice guides. Nov 10, 2011 shots struck off the ground need to be hit with a descending blow and shots struck off an elevated tee are better when hit with an upward blow fact. The aoa is simply a measurement of whether the club head is moving upward or downward through impact. If you have a pga swing speed of 110125 mph, you can get away with it. Jul 10, 2018 thats the technical explanation of what happens when an iron face correctly impacts a golf ball while the iron head is still traveling a downward path. I do not recommend they be told to hit down or up on the ball as the swing changes that result make things way more complicated. This doesnt necessarily mean hitting down steeply onto the ball. There can be various contributing factors that cause this so we have decided to look at 3 ways that can help you hit more up on the ball in order to maximize your distance of the tee. Although a softer flex may have a better upkick when the club hits the ball, the shaft alone shouldnt be enough to cause a super severe issue, especially with a 10 loft. If you slice the ball you know about an outsidein downswing path. This is because the club is longer than the other clubs, and it has a lower loft angle.

The driver is one of the most difficult clubs to hit in golf. If you are wholly focused on hitting down on the golf ball, it can cause you to lead your swing with your upper body and come over the top of the golf ball. A fairway wood swing bottoms out almost exactly at the point of impact, with players catching the ball cleanly and just bruising the ground afterward. Hitting down on the ball is what creates that pure, powerful feeling of flush contact.

Fix your golf swing to stop hitting behind the ball. So maybe instructing golfers to hit down on the golf ball, is not the most ideal way to phrase this piece of instruction. We can move the ball just a hair forward to remove some of that negative angle. As for hitting the drive on a lower trajectory with the negative aoa, i dont consider the analogy another commenter noted of it being like a skulled pitch over the green or hitting a ball thin as reasons why the ball runs further as an accurate analogy. In the driver, the swing bottoms out just before the ball. This is the main problem that we are trying to avoid. A great way to think about the angle of attack in to the golf ball with an iron is to imagine the club head is an airplane coming in to land on a runway. Jun 10, 2014 hitting your driver with a sweeping motion rather than a downward angle will help to bring down the spin rate and give you a better, more penetrating ball flight.

If you are a beginning golfer, make sure your driver has a flexible shaft, a large clubface with a large sweet spot and a loft of at least 10. In this segment of swing clinic, pga pro jimmy hanlin shows elise lobb how to properly hit down on a golf ball, presented by clean hit golf. Hitting down into your irons shots is a great thing because it imparts spin onto the ball and allows the loft of the club to do the work of getting the shot high into the air. Tips on hitting down with irons golf tips team titleist. I dont know of any good player who does not hit the ball as i described.

If your ball striking is struggling, one of the most common tips youll hear instructors tell you is that you need to hit down on the ball more. Many golfers fail to get maximum distance with their drivers. The club should connect with the lower half of the ball. On the pga tour the average downward hit with a 7 iron is just 3 degrees. I see too many people teeing the ball way too high and swinging up at the ball. If you are hitting golf driver too high on a regular basis, there is a good chance that you are swinging down into the ball. The path any club travels into the moment of contact with a golf ball is called the angle of attack. Alternatively, the driver arc bottoms out just before the ball, most good players and long drivers strike the ball with a slightly ascending arc. Many beginners tend to place the ball exactly in the middle. However, i dont like the term hitting down on the ball. If youre feeling uncomfortable on the tee, check your distance from the ball. Hitting down on the golf ball with irons liveabout.

Golf instructor sean foley shows you how to cure your slices and pulls by hitting down on the ball with your driver. The golf fixs michael breed debunks a common myth to hit down on the golf ball. Hitting down on the ball is encouraged with most iron shots. Compressing the golf ball is the actual term that should be used. Dont get too cute with the sweeping stroke, and follow through with your right elbow if youre righthanded pointing at the target. Where you hit the ball on the bat is going to have a huge effect on whether or not the ball goes up or down.

But if you frequently hit slices or pulls, this swing. Rating is available when the video has been rented. Remember, the goal is to hit the driver on the upswing as it will result in maximum ball flight and translate into more distance and carry. Hitting down on the ball is the key to better iron shots. Indeed, hitting down using your irons and wedges will help make sure you get as much distance as you can out of your shots and should improve your consistency and protect you from fat, thin and other shot errors. This causes the ball to come off the driver with too much backspin. Hitting the driver straight duke university golf course. Mar 19, 20 hit down with the driver sean foley show you how to cure your slices and pulls by hitting down on the ball with your driver.

A good thought is to try to take a little divot after impact or to hit with the shaft leaning toward the target left. When you hit a shot fat fat being a golf term to describe hitting behind the ball you instantly know that the shot is going to come up short of the target. When i say hit up, i mean hit the ball just past the bottom of the swing. This causes the ball to float in the air and land with minimal roll.

The secret to hitting your driver better the left rough. Yet, you must aim this way on the golf ball, from wedges to driver. The conventional wisdom has always been that better golfers will take a huge divot with their iron shots, and the key to compressing the golf ball is to. The basics of hitting up vs hitting down with driver dwg golf swing tips in order to have the. But many amateur golfers have a misunderstanding of what hitting down on the golf ball actually is and they do it wrong. Why you shouldnt hit down on the golf ball adam young golf. Hit down on the ball means your iron should contact the ball before it hits the ground.