Fat Golf Shot Drill: Towel 6 inches behind ball (Video) - by Pete Styles
Fat Golf Shot Drill: Towel 6 inches behind ball (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now if you have a regular practice on the driving range and you get the feeling that you are suffering with the fat shot where you hit the ground first, here’s a really great tip and exercise to help eradicate that shot from your game. You take a towel and I'm going to lay the towel fold it up, just around about six inches behind the back of a golf ball. So I'll lay the towel on the turf here. Now, if I was to make a swing and catch the towel. I'll probably having my body weight too far back and hitting the towel and the towel would ruffle up and stop me from hitting the ball particularly well. But if I get my body weight into a good position, I can strike down on the golf ball correctly and the towel is left unaffected. So if you can practice by having a towel or maybe even a lie board, a plastic lie board back behind the ball about six inches back. Anything where you lean back, you'll catch the towel. Anything where you get your body weight more forwards, you'll leave the towel there.

You can also work, sort of nice and visually, that you're looking down and you can see that there’s no point in being back here. This can't work. So it will encourage you to drive your body weight more into your front leg on your down swing. So, it’s picking the club up, driving the body weight towards the front leg in the down swing then bring in the club down. Feel like it’s a little bit steeper. Hitting the ground is still positive. But it has to be after the ball are not hitting back down into the towel. Start off trying that exercise with a shorter golf club, maybe just a pitching wedge or a nine-nine and do tunnel 15 repetitions of that until you've got it nice and consistent. And try gradually going up to about a six aim. Keep trying it with a five, four and three aim. It’s going to be very difficult to miss the towel. So maybe stick with your short aims to start with. Get the repetition of doing that correctly, leaving the towel where it is. And that should help eradicate your fat shots.

2012-11-28

Now if you have a regular practice on the driving range and you get the feeling that you are suffering with the fat shot where you hit the ground first, here’s a really great tip and exercise to help eradicate that shot from your game. You take a towel and I'm going to lay the towel fold it up, just around about six inches behind the back of a golf ball. So I'll lay the towel on the turf here. Now, if I was to make a swing and catch the towel. I'll probably having my body weight too far back and hitting the towel and the towel would ruffle up and stop me from hitting the ball particularly well. But if I get my body weight into a good position, I can strike down on the golf ball correctly and the towel is left unaffected. So if you can practice by having a towel or maybe even a lie board, a plastic lie board back behind the ball about six inches back. Anything where you lean back, you'll catch the towel. Anything where you get your body weight more forwards, you'll leave the towel there.

You can also work, sort of nice and visually, that you're looking down and you can see that there’s no point in being back here. This can't work. So it will encourage you to drive your body weight more into your front leg on your down swing. So, it’s picking the club up, driving the body weight towards the front leg in the down swing then bring in the club down. Feel like it’s a little bit steeper. Hitting the ground is still positive. But it has to be after the ball are not hitting back down into the towel. Start off trying that exercise with a shorter golf club, maybe just a pitching wedge or a nine-nine and do tunnel 15 repetitions of that until you've got it nice and consistent. And try gradually going up to about a six aim. Keep trying it with a five, four and three aim. It’s going to be very difficult to miss the towel. So maybe stick with your short aims to start with. Get the repetition of doing that correctly, leaving the towel where it is. And that should help eradicate your fat shots.