Hitting Your Golf Iron And Hybrid Shots Fat (Video) - by Pete Styles
Hitting Your Golf Iron And Hybrid Shots Fat (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if we’ve now identified that there’s a fault when we’re hitting the ball fat and we’ve identified what that fault might look like in terms of ball flight, we could now maybe consider what are the three main issues that actually cause that problem to happen out on the golf course? Now the first main issue is going to be swaying or incorrect movement with the body weight. So what I mean by that would be setting up to the golf ball in the right position, I’ve got my hybrid club here, my Thomas Golf 5 hybrid, nice club I like to use on a tee peg or off the ground, but I still want to make good contact with it. So I’ve got myself in a good set up position, my body weight is 50:50. If I sway back in my backswing and I’m too far over my right leg, my center of gravity is moved back behind the golf ball. If I now swing down and I don’t re-shift back to the other side, chances are, I hit the floor under the center of gravity. The sort of low point of my arc will be under the middle of my body. So I’ve moved the middle of my body too far back and then hit the ground, that’s going to cause a fat shot. So one of your first considerations, if you are fatting the golf ball, are you swaying too much with your body weight and if so look at some videos that I’ve done previously about correct weight shift.

The next element for people that are often fatting the golf ball is they are intending to scoop the ball. They have too much reliance on trying to use the hands to lift the ball up in the air and a lot of this is actually a psychological problem. They set up that ball and they think, “That ball needs to go airborne. I need to help it.” Which is incorrect the club will do the airborne thing, your job is just to deliver the club behind the ball, but if you try and help that up in the air similar thing to the weight shift problem happens, the club bottoms out prior to the ball and then starts to lift up as it tries to hit the golf ball into the sky so we get ground and then up into the golf ball trying to flick and scoop it. And the problem with that is the worse it gets the more that psychological I need to help it kicks in and actually that’s quite difficult to reverse, so if you’re swaying on the golf ball or if you’re scooping on the golf ball quite big concerns with fatting the golf shot. One last area that might cause you concerns is getting too steep on the golf ball. So looking down the target line, now picking out a red flag over in the distance as my intended target, if I swing the club and I’m too steep out this way and over here I should be more this way, but if I’m over the top and steep and chopping on the golf ball the club is coming down quite aggressively as it strikes the golf ball. So a very small margin of error, just an inch or two inches behind the ball will cause the club just to dung down into the ground and I’ll take a big divot with that. So too steep in the golf swing is going to cause me problems. Now we often actually see one or more of those faults in combination. So if you’re a steep swinging, swaying scooper, you probably only have one bad shot in your game and that’s going to be a fat shot. So if we can take those issues and start to work on them individually and start to work to get rid of them your ball striking will improve, the distance you hit the ball will improve and overall your enjoyment of the game of golf will definitely improve. 2016-04-18

So if we’ve now identified that there’s a fault when we’re hitting the ball fat and we’ve identified what that fault might look like in terms of ball flight, we could now maybe consider what are the three main issues that actually cause that problem to happen out on the golf course? Now the first main issue is going to be swaying or incorrect movement with the body weight. So what I mean by that would be setting up to the golf ball in the right position, I’ve got my hybrid club here, my Thomas Golf 5 hybrid, nice club I like to use on a tee peg or off the ground, but I still want to make good contact with it. So I’ve got myself in a good set up position, my body weight is 50:50. If I sway back in my backswing and I’m too far over my right leg, my center of gravity is moved back behind the golf ball. If I now swing down and I don’t re-shift back to the other side, chances are, I hit the floor under the center of gravity. The sort of low point of my arc will be under the middle of my body. So I’ve moved the middle of my body too far back and then hit the ground, that’s going to cause a fat shot. So one of your first considerations, if you are fatting the golf ball, are you swaying too much with your body weight and if so look at some videos that I’ve done previously about correct weight shift.

The next element for people that are often fatting the golf ball is they are intending to scoop the ball. They have too much reliance on trying to use the hands to lift the ball up in the air and a lot of this is actually a psychological problem. They set up that ball and they think, “That ball needs to go airborne. I need to help it.” Which is incorrect the club will do the airborne thing, your job is just to deliver the club behind the ball, but if you try and help that up in the air similar thing to the weight shift problem happens, the club bottoms out prior to the ball and then starts to lift up as it tries to hit the golf ball into the sky so we get ground and then up into the golf ball trying to flick and scoop it. And the problem with that is the worse it gets the more that psychological I need to help it kicks in and actually that’s quite difficult to reverse, so if you’re swaying on the golf ball or if you’re scooping on the golf ball quite big concerns with fatting the golf shot.

One last area that might cause you concerns is getting too steep on the golf ball. So looking down the target line, now picking out a red flag over in the distance as my intended target, if I swing the club and I’m too steep out this way and over here I should be more this way, but if I’m over the top and steep and chopping on the golf ball the club is coming down quite aggressively as it strikes the golf ball. So a very small margin of error, just an inch or two inches behind the ball will cause the club just to dung down into the ground and I’ll take a big divot with that. So too steep in the golf swing is going to cause me problems.

Now we often actually see one or more of those faults in combination. So if you’re a steep swinging, swaying scooper, you probably only have one bad shot in your game and that’s going to be a fat shot. So if we can take those issues and start to work on them individually and start to work to get rid of them your ball striking will improve, the distance you hit the ball will improve and overall your enjoyment of the game of golf will definitely improve.