What Causes Senior Golfers to Thin Golf Shots (Video) - by Dean Butler
What Causes Senior Golfers to Thin Golf Shots (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay, what I'm going to talk about now is what causes thin golf shots, so first of all what is a thin golf shot. A thin golf shot is where the club comes in and hits the top half of the ball. So it hits it from the middle to the top, it’s that area that’s hitting down and as we do with that ball, as you can imagine a thin shot is, sometimes you get a vibration in your fingers because of this because as you hit it, you're not hitting the sweet spot. So as you hit the middle of the ball, vibration comes up and the ball tends to fly in a very low sort of trajectory.

There are many, many things that can cause thin shots, oh don’t think for minute, it's just that one thing or the other, it isn’t. So there is certainly few areas, the most common reason why people thin the ball is when this, as you can see head on here, they tend to have the ball position too far forward for the actual club selection. And of course if I have the ball too far forward, and in this case, it's a 7 and it should be more in the middle, then the club as it comes in, is actually going to come in and it's going to hit the ball too late and by late I mean that the club is actually on its way up. So as it comes back up, it's going to scalp the ball, it’s going to hit that middle point of the ball, it’s certainly not going to hit down and through. So that’s one simple reason why you could actually thin the ball. The second reason you could thin the ball, very simply, if we actually sway, we sway off the ball and don’t sway back in time. Very simply we can thin the ball, we can also do it by actually reverse pivoting and then from here, coming into steep and again and so there is lots and lots of reasons. Another one is actually swinging from over the top and what I mean by that, is imagine my setup here is going down the sticks; we take club back in a nice positions. But from here, I come over the top as my shoulder throws the club out. And as I throw that club out, you can see I'm over towards the basket and as I come over the top, and coming in very, very, very steep. So again thin is the iron about, the ball being too far forward, which is scalping. I remember this is most probably I would say 80% of why people thin the ball. It’s too far forward, you are reaching forward, the club is coming back up. Coming over the top, is a definite possibility, but I would say maybe just 20% not the – this isn't a big fault. But if you come over the top of it, and you find yourself doing this by setting up the sort of two sticks and the basket just outside and you think I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Well by doing this and if I did, and it came over the top, then you would soon know by hitting that basket, that that’s your problem. But I would send you on this one first of all, so you setup into the position, put the ball a bit further back and you could actually put a head cover opposite your right foot and concentrate here on hovering the club, taking it over and above the actual head cover and coming back down and hitting down and through. So we are trapping the ball, so hopefully some good tips there for you, nothing too complicated. Find out which one is causing you the problem, eliminate them by what I’ve just mentioned to you and you should see some good progress coming on.
2013-10-28

Okay, what I'm going to talk about now is what causes thin golf shots, so first of all what is a thin golf shot. A thin golf shot is where the club comes in and hits the top half of the ball. So it hits it from the middle to the top, it’s that area that’s hitting down and as we do with that ball, as you can imagine a thin shot is, sometimes you get a vibration in your fingers because of this because as you hit it, you're not hitting the sweet spot. So as you hit the middle of the ball, vibration comes up and the ball tends to fly in a very low sort of trajectory.

There are many, many things that can cause thin shots, oh don’t think for minute, it's just that one thing or the other, it isn’t. So there is certainly few areas, the most common reason why people thin the ball is when this, as you can see head on here, they tend to have the ball position too far forward for the actual club selection. And of course if I have the ball too far forward, and in this case, it's a 7 and it should be more in the middle, then the club as it comes in, is actually going to come in and it's going to hit the ball too late and by late I mean that the club is actually on its way up. So as it comes back up, it's going to scalp the ball, it’s going to hit that middle point of the ball, it’s certainly not going to hit down and through.

So that’s one simple reason why you could actually thin the ball. The second reason you could thin the ball, very simply, if we actually sway, we sway off the ball and don’t sway back in time. Very simply we can thin the ball, we can also do it by actually reverse pivoting and then from here, coming into steep and again and so there is lots and lots of reasons. Another one is actually swinging from over the top and what I mean by that, is imagine my setup here is going down the sticks; we take club back in a nice positions. But from here, I come over the top as my shoulder throws the club out. And as I throw that club out, you can see I'm over towards the basket and as I come over the top, and coming in very, very, very steep.

So again thin is the iron about, the ball being too far forward, which is scalping. I remember this is most probably I would say 80% of why people thin the ball. It’s too far forward, you are reaching forward, the club is coming back up. Coming over the top, is a definite possibility, but I would say maybe just 20% not the – this isn't a big fault. But if you come over the top of it, and you find yourself doing this by setting up the sort of two sticks and the basket just outside and you think I'm not sure what I'm doing here.

Well by doing this and if I did, and it came over the top, then you would soon know by hitting that basket, that that’s your problem. But I would send you on this one first of all, so you setup into the position, put the ball a bit further back and you could actually put a head cover opposite your right foot and concentrate here on hovering the club, taking it over and above the actual head cover and coming back down and hitting down and through. So we are trapping the ball, so hopefully some good tips there for you, nothing too complicated. Find out which one is causing you the problem, eliminate them by what I’ve just mentioned to you and you should see some good progress coming on.