You're Correct!

If you are finding that you are hitting behind the golf ball too much with your wedges, it simply means that your centre of gravity is too much on the right of the ball, because basically wherever your centre of gravity is, the low point of your golf swing and your swing arc will be opposite this position.

Effectively you are leaning back and you have got too much weight on your back foot, on your right foot if you are a right handed golfer. You are then trying to get the ball into the air by making an upward movement towards the ball.

The way your golf clubs are actually designed, you need to strike down on the golf ball and make a downward striking action, rather than an upward action. If you make a downward action with your irons and your wedges, you will find that as the wedge strikes the ball and then the turf, the club face compresses the ball into the turf and the ball is forced up the angle on the club face and this is how the golf ball goes in to the air.

Instinctively though, this feels counter intuitive. You can feel that you lean back and get the golf club low before the ball, you can make an upward movement into it and this will give you an upward trajectory. This works if the ball is in the air. However, when you are playing golf and you are hitting your wedges, you are hitting off the ground, so you cannot actually get the club lower than the ball to make that upward movement and then strike the ball up into the air. When you do this, you end up hitting the ground first.

To correct this, let us make sure you are in the right position to start with, before you play the shot. The ball should be played from the centre of the stance with your wedges. Your feet should be slightly narrower than usual, because you are not playing a shot for distance here, you are playing one for accuracy, so a slightly narrower golf stance than usual encourages better stability.

Ensure that your hands are forward. This means that your hands are on the left of the golf ball with the club head on the right. To achieve this, work on creating a straight line from your left shoulder and down your left arm. This should continue down the shaft of the club and if you have got this solid straight line from your left shoulder to the club head, that will set your hands forward of the golf ball.

Position your head so that your nose is placed just left of the ball and that will now put slightly more weight on to your left side, which is where your weight should be, slightly more on the left with your hands forward, to strike a crisp wedge.

Make your back swing and as you swing back down ensure that your body rotates through the shot. This will allow you to drive the hands forward through impact and you will achieve a forward leaning position with the shaft of the club, with more weight on your front foot. As a result of this, you will strike the ball and then strike down into the turf, getting the ball up into the air giving you more consistency with your distance, your height and your directional control.

If you are struggling with this, one thing that you could work on, is to place an alignment pole behind your left arm. Hold the club and the alignment pole together so that the alignment pole extends from the club up the back of the left arm and is just touching your left side and your left ribs. As you

swing back, work on that position we talked about, work on pointing the alignment pole down at the ball and then as you swing through, rotate your body towards the target. Have your weight forward and slightly more on your left side and then allow the alignment pole to rest on your left rib cage as you swing through the shot. This will make sure you are not flicking your wrist at the ball, which can also promote you to lean back and have too much weight on the right foot as you are playing.

If you work on these points, you will achieve a much crisper strike and improved golf shot with your wedges. You will find that you are no longer hitting the ground before the golf ball and you start hitting much more accurately and consistently at the target.

If your hands are forward (closer to the target than the club head is) through impact, this will produce a downward striking action in the club head. However, with your hands forward you will strike the golf ball first and then the ground after this, so this is certainly not the reason you are hitting the ground first.

Having your weight forward in your stance promotes a downward striking action during your golf swing.

But with your weight forward, you will strike the ball then the turf, producing a crisp, clean wedge shot.