What Is A Skyed Golf Drive And How Can I Stop It (Video) - by PGA Instructor Peter Finch
What Is A Skyed Golf Drive And How Can I Stop It (Video) - by PGA Instructor Peter Finch

What is a skyed golf drive and how can I stop it? Now anyone who has played the game for a number of years will probably recognize what a skyed golf drive is, because it will kind of leave a little bit of an ugly mark on the golf club. A skyed golf drive is when the club comes on too steep an angle of attack or it slides right underneath the ball and the club is contacted with the ball above the top edge of the driver. Now what that does, it causes the ball to go onto the top of the driver, it leaves a mark along the top edge, and the ball just flies straight up in the air and doesn’t travel any real distance. It’s certainly a very nervous moment if you happen to drive and you sky the ball, because you’re never quite sure if that mark will rub off or not. But that is what causes the sky is when the club goes underneath the ball, it hits the top edge and it flies straight up in the air.

Now normally skyed drives are kind of created when the angle of attack into the ball, is very steep so the player gets ahead of the ball, chops it down through impact and hits the ball in this area here. Now if you were to catch the ball with this angle of attack striking down it would actually fly very, very low but because it hits the top edge of the club, it just puts pure back spin and it just flies up into the air. You can actually do it from the opposite way and you can slide the club right underneath the ball but that is more of a rare effect. One thing you do need to check before you start altering the technique is also your tee height. You only want the half of that ball kind of appearing over the top edge of the club. If all that ball is appearing over the top edge it’s teed too high and that could cause you to swing underneath and sky. So you just want to have that ball up here and over the top edge, you want to make sure that the ball is positioned just inside the left heel, and as you come through you want to also ensure that you’re not striking down. Try and make sure you hit this drive, keeping your weight in your chest your swing center behind the ball and just try and clip the top of the tee peg as you go through impact. If you can just clip the top of that tee peg as you go through impact, it’s not going to be a steep angle of attack; it’s going to be a nicely ascending blow just clipping the ball away. So if you’re struggling with a skyed shot, check those points and hopefully you won’t be seeing any more ugly marks on the top of your club. 2014-11-19

What is a skyed golf drive and how can I stop it? Now anyone who has played the game for a number of years will probably recognize what a skyed golf drive is, because it will kind of leave a little bit of an ugly mark on the golf club. A skyed golf drive is when the club comes on too steep an angle of attack or it slides right underneath the ball and the club is contacted with the ball above the top edge of the driver. Now what that does, it causes the ball to go onto the top of the driver, it leaves a mark along the top edge, and the ball just flies straight up in the air and doesn’t travel any real distance. It’s certainly a very nervous moment if you happen to drive and you sky the ball, because you’re never quite sure if that mark will rub off or not. But that is what causes the sky is when the club goes underneath the ball, it hits the top edge and it flies straight up in the air.

Now normally skyed drives are kind of created when the angle of attack into the ball, is very steep so the player gets ahead of the ball, chops it down through impact and hits the ball in this area here. Now if you were to catch the ball with this angle of attack striking down it would actually fly very, very low but because it hits the top edge of the club, it just puts pure back spin and it just flies up into the air. You can actually do it from the opposite way and you can slide the club right underneath the ball but that is more of a rare effect.

One thing you do need to check before you start altering the technique is also your tee height. You only want the half of that ball kind of appearing over the top edge of the club. If all that ball is appearing over the top edge it’s teed too high and that could cause you to swing underneath and sky. So you just want to have that ball up here and over the top edge, you want to make sure that the ball is positioned just inside the left heel, and as you come through you want to also ensure that you’re not striking down. Try and make sure you hit this drive, keeping your weight in your chest your swing center behind the ball and just try and clip the top of the tee peg as you go through impact.

If you can just clip the top of that tee peg as you go through impact, it’s not going to be a steep angle of attack; it’s going to be a nicely ascending blow just clipping the ball away. So if you’re struggling with a skyed shot, check those points and hopefully you won’t be seeing any more ugly marks on the top of your club.