The one other shot that often golfers try and strike off the fairway and actually strike it heavy and it’s probably the most critical of all of the shots and certainly one of the hardest is the fairway wood or a long hybrid club without a tee peg, playing that shot straight off the deck. It’s probably one of the hardest shot, because with an iron it’s a limited length club, it’s got plenty of loft on, you can strike that one off the fairway, hopefully most of the time. With the driver you’ve got the added advantage of having the tee peg so hopefully that’s easier to hit up in the air and not struggle with the bad strike. But with the long hybrid club or a fairway wood off the deck, you’ve really got kind of the worst of both worlds. You’ve got no tee peg and you’ve got quite a long club without a great deal of loft on it. And a lot of people come to see me on a daily basis and ask for golf lessons and specifically, “How can I hit my three-wood? How can I hit my five-wood off the deck?” They can do it on a tee but it’s just that reduction in the height of the tee peg to the other ground that takes away that desired margin of error. And I think a lot of the concerns with this can actually be fixed with a couple of relatively simple check points for you in your setup position.

So quite often when we see people – I mean I’ve got my two hybrid here, this is my longest hybrid club and I don’t currently actually carry a three wood at all, so this is my version of my three wood, my sort of longest shot that I’m comfortable hitting off the deck. A lot of people when they set up to this, because it’s along club they want to hit the ball nice and high into the air. They actually play the ball quite a long way forwards in the stands, taking the ball a long way forward in the stands and then almost leaning back behind it with the rear shoulder creating a setup position that slightly more a kin to how you should be hitting the driver, but not necessarily how you should be hitting a fairway wood or long hybrid. The concern here is by moving your bodyweight back, by moving your sternum back the low point of your swing becomes back. We’ve understood that you’re going to hit the ground under the center of gravity, so if you move the center of gravity back, chances are you’ll hit the bottom of the arc, the ground behind the ball. Trying to help that ball up in the air doesn’t work either and we actually hit the ball more and more fat with that issue.

So actually if you’re struggling with your fairway woods and your long hybrid clubs off the deck and you’re hitting them fat, move the ball position back a little bit and move your body weight forwards a little bit. So if I set up here, I could actually bring my ball position, just line that up for your camera a little better. I can back actually bring my ball position back, so it’s more sort of halfway between middle and left instep, more like a six iron or seven iron ball position, it’s certainly not touching up against my left instep. Now in this position as I set up to the ball I also want to feel my body weighs more 50:50 and certainly as I strike the ball I’m moving more into my left side as I strike downwards and I feel like I’m hitting down on the golf ball. Hitting down on the ball should encourage my divot to be after the ball, so it’s more ball and then turf afterwards.

Now striking down on the ball might feel a little bit counterintuitive because you’ve got these three, these five wood too high but as I have not much loft on the face. You’re thinking, “I want to get behind and help hit up into the air.” But you can't hit something up in the air if it’s on the ground by coming from underneath you’ve got to come down on it, you’ve got to strike the ball first then the turf and then you’re trusting that the loft on the golf club will hit the ball into the sky. So I think, move the ball position back, drive the body weight more onto the left side focus on striking ball and turf, focus on taking a divot still, but the divot needs to be quite shallow and after the golf ball, if you divot before the golf ball that’s why you’re struggling to fat your fairway woods and your long hybrid clubs.