If you think that you can just move the ball back in your stance and make your normal swing, you are going to be a bit disappointed in the results you achieve with this technique. In order to make the most of this idea, you are going to have to make some minor adjustments. You don’t need to overhaul your entire swing, of course, but a few tweaks will be needed. You can only expect to get good results from this type of tee shot if you have a specific plan for how you are going to swing the club.
Specifically, there are three adjustments that you should think about making when hitting a tee shot with the ball back in your stance. Let’s take a look at those below.
Choke down on the club. This is an important point, so it is a good place to start our list. When you are going to hit this kind of shot, you’ll want to come down at least an inch or two from the top of the grip at address. By shortening the effective length of the club, you are going to make it easier to control your swing – and control is the whole point of this shot. In addition to improving your control over the club, choking down is going to help you avoid getting ‘stuck’ in the downswing. If you chose not to choke up, you’d have trouble finding room for the entire club between your body and the ball at impact. With slightly less club to work with, it should be easy to swing through the hitting area aggressively.
Stay over the ball throughout the swing. This is actually good advice for all of the swings you make during a round of golf, but it is especially helpful when playing this type of tee shot. During the backswing, focus on keeping your body directly over the top of the ball – avoid lateral movement as much as possible. Managing to control your center of gravity in this way is going to make it easier to achieve a clean strike, and you’ll find that you can do so with more consistency than ever before. This is especially important when hitting a shot under pressure. If you are a bit nervous, you might struggle to time your swing properly when moving side to side. That shouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem when you are making a rotational swing with little-to-no lateral action.
Flat left wrist at impact. On the way down into the ball, you are going to feel like you need to help the shot up into the air. That isn’t true, of course, but it is likely the feeling that you will have in the back of your mind. You need to resist this temptation. The loft on your club is going to help the ball up into the air, so you don’t need to do anything at all. Just continue to swing down into impact, and hold your left wrist firm and flat at the point of contact. Importantly, this is going to help you keep the backspin rate down on the shot, which was a point we raised earlier in this article.
There isn’t anything dramatic that you need to do with your swing, but you should be aware of the points listed above. Beyond these points, the next more important thing you can do is simply to practice. By working on this shot from time to time, you will gradually increase your confidence and you’ll be more willing to pull this shot from the bag during a round. No part of your game is going to improve without practice, and that certainly applies here.
