Judging The Conditions To Avoid Golf Fat Shots (Video) - by Pete Styles
Judging The Conditions To Avoid Golf Fat Shots (Video) - by Pete Styles

When the conditions are very soft and wet out on the golf course, more golfers are going to notice or report back that they are hitting fat shots than when the conditions are dry. Now, it might not be that they are actually hitting the ball more heavy and more fat when the conditions are wet, but it’s certainly a lot more noticeable.

When the conditions are relatively dry as I have them here, the club will almost bounce off the turf into the back of the ball and you will still be able to hit the ball okay. But try that same thing in the middle of winter and the club could hit the ground and just get stuck in the floor and not come out through the ball at all. So you’ve got to consider should you be using a slightly different technique when the conditions are bad, when it’s wet and when it’s heavy and we are hitting more and more fat shots, can we change our technique slightly. There’s a couple of alterations that you might make. The first thing might just be to move the ball slightly further back in your stance by having the ball slightly nearer to your right side. You should feel that you would come down and hit the ball before you hit the turf. And exactly the opposite would apply, if you have the ball too far forwards in your stance, you are probably going to hit the ground before the ball. So dropping the ball back is a good way of making sure that you’ll get better contact when it’s very wet outside. Another consideration might be that we actually just choke down on the golf club a little bit, so we grip down slightly lower on the club by holding the club lower down, you are simply taking the length out to the bottom end of the club, so as we swing down to the floor, we shouldn’t actually be diving the club down into the ground quite so much. It might feel like you are going to hit a little bit half the ball, a little bit higher up on the ball and thin the ball slightly, so it can take a little bit of practice to get used to that difference. So gripping down on the club, having the ball a little bit further back in your stance. The last thing we really got to make sure we do is keep our body weight left and stay super-committed. The last thing we want to do is lean back and try and scoop the ball up into the air in this situation. So we are going to grip down, keep the body weight left and then really hit down hard with plenty of commitment. And if it feels like you want to get an extra bit of helping hand to get a good strike, try and focus on playing a fade because a fade is generally going to be considered to having the club outside the line coming into the ball from out to in where the square will slightly open to path face and when you are in that position, you are going to be hitting the ball from a steeper angle of attack. The opposite would be hitting the ball with a draw, which would be flatter more from the inside, coming in here with a shallower angle of attack and a shallow angle of attack and a tendency to fat the golf ball are never good things that work together, particularly not in wet ground, you might hit the ground before the ball. So a slightly steeper, slightly more from the outside with those other changes we talked about and that’s a great way of encouraging you to hit less fat shots, particularly in wet ground conditions. 2016-08-22

When the conditions are very soft and wet out on the golf course, more golfers are going to notice or report back that they are hitting fat shots than when the conditions are dry. Now, it might not be that they are actually hitting the ball more heavy and more fat when the conditions are wet, but it’s certainly a lot more noticeable.

When the conditions are relatively dry as I have them here, the club will almost bounce off the turf into the back of the ball and you will still be able to hit the ball okay. But try that same thing in the middle of winter and the club could hit the ground and just get stuck in the floor and not come out through the ball at all. So you’ve got to consider should you be using a slightly different technique when the conditions are bad, when it’s wet and when it’s heavy and we are hitting more and more fat shots, can we change our technique slightly.

There’s a couple of alterations that you might make. The first thing might just be to move the ball slightly further back in your stance by having the ball slightly nearer to your right side. You should feel that you would come down and hit the ball before you hit the turf. And exactly the opposite would apply, if you have the ball too far forwards in your stance, you are probably going to hit the ground before the ball. So dropping the ball back is a good way of making sure that you’ll get better contact when it’s very wet outside.

Another consideration might be that we actually just choke down on the golf club a little bit, so we grip down slightly lower on the club by holding the club lower down, you are simply taking the length out to the bottom end of the club, so as we swing down to the floor, we shouldn’t actually be diving the club down into the ground quite so much. It might feel like you are going to hit a little bit half the ball, a little bit higher up on the ball and thin the ball slightly, so it can take a little bit of practice to get used to that difference. So gripping down on the club, having the ball a little bit further back in your stance.

The last thing we really got to make sure we do is keep our body weight left and stay super-committed. The last thing we want to do is lean back and try and scoop the ball up into the air in this situation. So we are going to grip down, keep the body weight left and then really hit down hard with plenty of commitment.

And if it feels like you want to get an extra bit of helping hand to get a good strike, try and focus on playing a fade because a fade is generally going to be considered to having the club outside the line coming into the ball from out to in where the square will slightly open to path face and when you are in that position, you are going to be hitting the ball from a steeper angle of attack. The opposite would be hitting the ball with a draw, which would be flatter more from the inside, coming in here with a shallower angle of attack and a shallow angle of attack and a tendency to fat the golf ball are never good things that work together, particularly not in wet ground, you might hit the ground before the ball.

So a slightly steeper, slightly more from the outside with those other changes we talked about and that’s a great way of encouraging you to hit less fat shots, particularly in wet ground conditions.