Starting a divot before contact.

[WideOpenFairways]

Lately I've been starting divots before making contact with the ball. On better days I'll take unusually huge divots after contact. I've been trying to fix this but I'm not shure what I should be working on. Any suggestions?

[gobber]

Im no expert but it sound to me like you are steep on impact. As always I would suggest have a expert look at you but if you don't get chance it might be worth trying to keep your width in the swing. Concentrate on a wide arc and not collapsing the left arm at the top of the swing.


gobber

[Coach]

Originally Posted by gobber

Im no expert but it sound to me like you are steep on impact. As always I would suggest have a expert look at you but if you don't get chance it might be worth trying to keep your width in the swing. Concentrate on a wide arc and not collapsing the left arm at the top of the swing.


gobber

Originally Posted by WideOpenFairways

Lately I've been starting divots before making contact with the ball. On better days I'll take unusually huge divots after contact. I've been trying to fix this but I'm not shure what I should be working on. Any suggestions?

Not only does it sound like you are steep to the ball, but you may be dipping. Try this: Practice your swing focusing on keeping your chin up away from your chest. this should give you the feeling of keeping more upright during your swing. Soon you will know what it feels like when you are dipping (and the chunky result) vs. hitting with cleaner contact and remembering that feeling as you play.
Good luck.

[WideOpenFairways]

Thanks for the tip. I'll keep that in mind at the range later.

Also, can improper weight shift cause this problem?

[ezra76]

I'd imagine you have this problem mostly with irons. If I had any sort of golf specialty, iron and wedge striking would be it. Here's a few suggestions.

I've showed a few people, my dad incluced this little drill and all started striking irons better immediately. Take 2 tees, broken ones work fine. Put both in the ground with one about 6 inches or so in front of the other. Adress the back tee as if it were your ball. Hit the first tee and then by keeping the hand ahead, maintaining the shaft angle, take the second tee out of the ground through impact. I literally saw my dad correct about 3 faults at once by doing this about a dozen times. He had the back of his hand facing the target perfect. Unfortunately I showed him this right before we played, he broke 90 for the 1st time of the year and beat me.

Give it a shot. It really works.

[demon]

absolutely can be weight shift, weight shifting can cause your spine angle to change causing fat shots. It could also be what some of the others mentioned as well. Post a video and I can tell you.

[cypressperch]

going wrong causing fat shots. I suppose you would trade the fat shots for the better shots with the huge divots, but if they are overly deep, that can also be a problem.

You must have the ball positioned in your stance properly with the hands ahead of the ball. How much ahead of the ball your hands are is determined by the length of the shaft. Shorter clubs are designed so that your hands will be farther ahead of the ball at address and therefore at impact as well since your hands need to return to address position coming back to the ball.

The easiest way to get this correct is to position the club naturally on its sole with the clubface square to the target line, ball in the middle of the clubface. Now just "stand to the club" that is so positioned using good posture.

As mentioned, the hands must return to the address position for impact. If they do, the hands will be leading the way which is what you need to make contact with the ball before the dirt (or BIG BALL EARTH). The angle you see in the right wrist at address must still be there at impact because if it is released early, we will go to the other extreme which is a thinned shot.

With a thinned shot, the front edge of the iron hits into the ball with an angle of attack that is not downward enough. The shot with the deep divot has too much of a downward attack. The fat shot is the same as the deep divot shot but for some reason the hands have not gotten all the way back to where they were at address. Thus the bottom of our swing arc is left of where it should be. Improper weight shift is a likely reason for this.

During any swing, you should NEVER ALLOW ANY WEIGHT TO BE SHIFTED OUTSIDE (TO THE RIGHT) OF YOUR RIGHT (BACK) FOOT. If this happens, you cannot "push off" the right foot to get the weight going back to the left no matter how hard you try. Therefore, you have moved everything in your swing to the right, and you can expect a fat shot to be the result. To prevent this, maintain some flex, tension, or firmness in your right thigh. This creates sort of a brace that keeps the weight between the feet during the swing, where it belongs. Some will put a golf ball under the outside edge of their right shoe to magnify the proper feeling in the right foot when weight is kept under control

The shorter the club, the closer we stand to the ball. The closer we stand to the ball, the more upright we must stand. The more upright we stand, the closer our feet become. The closer our feet become, the less dramatic our weight shift has to be. Thus there is considerable difference in what happens when we swing a wedge compared to when we swing a driver. To be sure, IN A GENERALIZED WAY, the various clubs are swung alike, but if you swing a driver and a wedge exactly the same, there will be problems. To simplify, I would suggest placing the club correctly behind the ball, then "stand to the club" and swing according to the club's length. As to how this concerns weight shift, I actually think in terms of keeping weight on the left foot when hitting wedges and short irons. With mid-irons, my thought is about equal distribution of weight at address. I do not 'pre-load' weight on the right foot with a driver, but I do concentrate on having the right thigh braced since the full swing of the driver will require a fairly large weight shift to the right, and I MUST KEEP THE WEIGHT FROM ESCAPING OUTSIDE MY BACK FOOT.

An additional point. If we stand correctly to the club, our posture will be fairly upright with the arms hanging almost straight down below the shoulders. The hands might have a little reaching out to the ball, but not too much. So we are sort of "standing tall." If we maintain that "standing tall" throughout the swing, two great things happen. We are already "standing tall" so that we cannot raise up which can help to create thinned shots. And if we continue to "stand tall" we will avoid that dipping down which can help to create the fat shot or the shot with too deep of a divot. So MAINTAIN GOOD POSTURE THROUGHOUT THE SWING.

The very best of luck to you with your game. Sincerely, Cypressperch

[cypressperch]

above, I meant to have said that the bottom of the swing arc has now been made to the right (not left) of where it should be. Cypressperch