divots

Question
QUESTION: Eddie,

My divots are fairly shallow and I can clearly tell the toe close quickly after impact.  The divot usually starts before the ball.  I'm a 1 to 2 handicap and struggle with putting.  Ball striking is my strength with typical ball flight as a high draw.  My misses are typically blocks or too much hook.

My questions are what shoud my divot tell me and after reading a prior response of yours I'm thinking I may be using my hands improperly and have success due to good rhythym and timing. I don't feel like I'm trapping the ball and am curious how to best get the feel for this? What would you suggest?

Thanks,  



ANSWER: Hi Steve:

I am curious of something you mentioned "your divots are usually before the ball".  I hope what you meant to say was that your divots are after the ball.  You must strike the ball first, not the ground.  I know you know that, otherwise, you wouldn't be a 1 or a 2 handicap.  In reference to your shot pattern, you describe a swing path that is too much in to out.  This produces a draw type motion, relying on your hands to square the face.  If your timing is good, you strike it great.  If your timing is not so good, you hit pushes, blocks and hooks.  The tendency when you approach the ball too far from the inside is to catch ground first, simply because any time the club is approaching the ball from the inside, the clubhead is too shallow.  Too shallow means bottoming out too soon and if you miss the ground, you'll hit thin shots to the right.  So you never get a feeling of trapping the ball or smashing the ball into the turf.  What I have just described Steve is me.  This is how I played golf for the first half of my life.  So, what would you do if I asked you slice a ball around the trees, starting the ball way to the left and slicing it way to the right?  If you were like me, you'd aim left and push it back to the right.  But I am talking about a true slicing motion of the ball.  In order to hit that shot, the club must be moving or swinging to the left as it strikes the ball.  You cannot do that coming from the inside.  So make some swings with a 9 iron, no ball.  Swing the left arm back until it is parallel to the ground and then stop.  Your left arm should be over your toe line.  Then, swing the club to the left as if you are going to swing at a target that is 50 yards to the left of yours.  Try to take a divot up near your left foot.  Feel how the club moves down and to the left hard.  You will feel as though you let the club come over the top.  Your hands will feel as though they brush against your left hip pocket.  It's really drastic at first, but it won't take long to see a divot (once you can find the ground) that goes to the left.  Once you start seeing divots go more to the left, you are no longer swinging too far from the inside.  Then, start by placing a ball on a low tee, put the ball up inside your left toe, and try to swing the club down and to the left to cut across the ball.  Once you start making solid contact with the ball, you should see the ball go straight left.  As it becomes easier and easier to hit it solid and hit it straight left, begin to move the ball back towards the center of your stance.  As long as your ball is not curving from right to left, it means you have controlled how much your hands turn over.  If the ball is curving from right to left, picture how your hands move through the impact zone on a bunker shot.  You don't turn over the face on a greenside bunker shot do you?  If you can control your hands and produce a swing that goes more left, your angle of attack to the ball will be more on plane, producing a steeper angle of attack, a better divot and feeling as though you are hitting the ball more flush.  Good luck.  

Eddie

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Eddie,

I actually used to teach and was just the oral interview away from getting my class A license.  All of your feedback makes sense and I did meant at the ball or before the ball (fat shots).  I recently played (our season just started here in Maine) with someone who used very little lower body movement and hit a fade which made more sense after reading your feedback.  

The feeling I get when I'm playing well is that my arms and chest work in unison with my lower body which promotes a draw as my lower body initiates my swing and promotes he inside out swing with the clubface closing down.  I have started working on what you asked me to do and it makes sense, but it feels like too uch effort to swing as I feel like I cannot initiate my downswing with my legs to get the club swinging more square or outside to in.  It feels like it requires too much upper body which creates tension and incosistency

That being said I have stiffed 2 shots this season when I needed to hit a 60 yard fade around trees since your intial feedback.  I feel your initial feedback helped get ,me started in the right direction, but I think I missing the connection with the lower body and upper body to get the club swinging more down the line rather than below the line.

Is there anything you can add that might help me tie this together?

Thank you for all your help and I apprecaite your professional opinion!

Thank you,

Answer
Hi Steve:

It's a fine line with better players, because the whole goal is to have your body and your swing timed together...that is why they call it timing.  What you have to do is find the happy median point to what we are discussing.  If you understand the concept, which you do, then you are home free.  It won't take much Steve, but you have to address how the club contacts the ball.  I tend to get drastic when I am changing something.  I want a completely different result.  So I am not afraid to do this with any of my students.  They come to me with a problem and I am going to fix it.  I will have them do the opposite for awhile, so they literally can feel and see a change.  This gets their attention.  Then they will settle into their own routine.  Another great drill for you is to set an old shaft in the ground about 2 feet behind the ball, about a foot inside the target line and at the same angle as your shaft at address.  Make some swings.  If you approach too shallow, you'll hit the shaft.  It won't be as drastic, however, it will get you a little steeper.  Keep working on syncing up your swinging motion and the body rotation, I think that is great.  You'll find you'll end up right in the middle of where you were and where my drill took you.  The result is what we want anyway.  Good luck Steve.  Let me know if I can assist more.  

Eddie Kilthau
PGA Member