The Dreaded Fat Shots With A Golf Driver (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Dreaded Fat Shots With A Golf Driver (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now, anyone that has a problem with fatting the golf ball on the golf course probably feels a litter bit of a relief when they are allowed to tee the ball up, because certainly when we can tee the ball up we can actually get it away from the floor a little bit. And with that in mind you would think that the driver is the least prone club to fatting the golf ball and that may be the case, it’s on a nice big tee peg, so we shouldn’t fat it. But if you do fat it, it can be really quite critical, just the nature and the shape of a driver is not intended to hit the floor, it’s not designed to cut through the grass in any way. So if the driver hits any amount behind the golf ball, an inch, two inches, even six inches it's going to cause you some pretty serious problems right now. And because the driver is meant to go 200, 250 yards whatever, anything where you touch the ground before the ball is going to be some pretty serious problems.

Now the issues with the driver are similar to the issues that people have with the irons in terms of the reasons why they hit the ball fat, but maybe with a couple of extra things added in. So set up to the golf ball in a nice position, but if you sway back too far you could hit it fat. If you swing up and down too steep you could be hitting it fat, if you’re trying to help your driver into the air you could be hitting it fat. And that last one is particularly relevant, because a driver doesn’t inherently have a great deal of loft and we know a lot of club golfers are probably using drivers with insufficient amount of loft. They’re using an eight or a nine degree driver and the thing just goes head height. So instinct kicks in and you start trying to help the ball up into the air and start trying to scoop it, you may even start leaning back trying to help lift the ball into the air. All of those things are going to cause you some pretty serious problems with fatting the golf ball and hitting the ground too early. One last thing that’s specific to a driver is actually the height that we tee the golf ball up. For some golfers I think they have a fear of teeing the ball up too high therefore they actually tee the golf ball up a bit too low. Therefore to get under the golf ball or certainly to get the ball to meet the middle of the top part of the golf club, they end up having to hit the ground. Actually what you should do is look at your driver and after six months a year of use of your driver there should be very, very limited damage to the sole plates. If the sole plate is all scuffed and the paint is coming off and you can’t read the manufacturers name anymore, the chances are you’ve been doing way too much damage of actually scheming the ground when you hit the golf ball. So the club as you swing through with a driver shouldn’t really make contact with the ground. If you’ve been making swings and you’ve been bouncing the club off the ground each time, chances are you’ve been teeing the golf ball up a bit too low and always fatting the golf ball too get it up into the air. So if we just investigate very quickly correct tee peg height, nice big high tee peg, I’ve got my black line on my golf ball around about the equator as I bring the club in, you can see about half the ball above the top of the golf club. Therefore as I make my swing there is no need for that club to get anywhere near the ground, I can be maybe 10 millimeters off the ground and still actually strike the ball dead in the center. So I don’t need to be digging this down and lifting and scooping it to get it up in the air. Hopefully following those checkpoints you should start reducing the amount of times you get that dreadful fat shot with a driver of a tee. 2016-04-18

Now, anyone that has a problem with fatting the golf ball on the golf course probably feels a litter bit of a relief when they are allowed to tee the ball up, because certainly when we can tee the ball up we can actually get it away from the floor a little bit. And with that in mind you would think that the driver is the least prone club to fatting the golf ball and that may be the case, it’s on a nice big tee peg, so we shouldn’t fat it. But if you do fat it, it can be really quite critical, just the nature and the shape of a driver is not intended to hit the floor, it’s not designed to cut through the grass in any way. So if the driver hits any amount behind the golf ball, an inch, two inches, even six inches it's going to cause you some pretty serious problems right now. And because the driver is meant to go 200, 250 yards whatever, anything where you touch the ground before the ball is going to be some pretty serious problems.

Now the issues with the driver are similar to the issues that people have with the irons in terms of the reasons why they hit the ball fat, but maybe with a couple of extra things added in. So set up to the golf ball in a nice position, but if you sway back too far you could hit it fat. If you swing up and down too steep you could be hitting it fat, if you’re trying to help your driver into the air you could be hitting it fat. And that last one is particularly relevant, because a driver doesn’t inherently have a great deal of loft and we know a lot of club golfers are probably using drivers with insufficient amount of loft. They’re using an eight or a nine degree driver and the thing just goes head height. So instinct kicks in and you start trying to help the ball up into the air and start trying to scoop it, you may even start leaning back trying to help lift the ball into the air. All of those things are going to cause you some pretty serious problems with fatting the golf ball and hitting the ground too early.

One last thing that’s specific to a driver is actually the height that we tee the golf ball up. For some golfers I think they have a fear of teeing the ball up too high therefore they actually tee the golf ball up a bit too low. Therefore to get under the golf ball or certainly to get the ball to meet the middle of the top part of the golf club, they end up having to hit the ground. Actually what you should do is look at your driver and after six months a year of use of your driver there should be very, very limited damage to the sole plates. If the sole plate is all scuffed and the paint is coming off and you can’t read the manufacturers name anymore, the chances are you’ve been doing way too much damage of actually scheming the ground when you hit the golf ball. So the club as you swing through with a driver shouldn’t really make contact with the ground.
If you’ve been making swings and you’ve been bouncing the club off the ground each time, chances are you’ve been teeing the golf ball up a bit too low and always fatting the golf ball too get it up into the air.

So if we just investigate very quickly correct tee peg height, nice big high tee peg, I’ve got my black line on my golf ball around about the equator as I bring the club in, you can see about half the ball above the top of the golf club. Therefore as I make my swing there is no need for that club to get anywhere near the ground, I can be maybe 10 millimeters off the ground and still actually strike the ball dead in the center. So I don’t need to be digging this down and lifting and scooping it to get it up in the air. Hopefully following those checkpoints you should start reducing the amount of times you get that dreadful fat shot with a driver of a tee.