Why Am I Always Told To Hit Down To Get The Ball Up? (Video) - by Peter Finch
Why Am I Always Told To Hit Down To Get The Ball Up? (Video) - by Peter Finch

Why am I always told to hit down to get the ball up? Now that’s just something which has been spoken about for a number of years throughout the game where people believe they’re striking down on the golf ball will somehow magically cause it to pop up into the air. However unfortunately if you strike down on a golf ball with a steeper angle of attack, you will actually decrease the loft on the club and send the ball lower especially with the irons, not so much with the wedges because there is a lot of loft already on the club. But with the irons and the driver, if you strike down on a ball, the ball will go lower.

However if you strike down on the ball you will generate backspin. So it’s getting the happy balance between this slightly descending; blow but not just hitting the ball down into the ground. Now the easiest way to do this with the irons is just to ensure that the hands get slightly ahead of the ball at impact. Now what that will do is it will achieve the ambition of actually striking down on the ball and creating a very thin divot; it will create enough backspin. But because you're not hitting down on the ball like this, where you can see the loft of the club has been drastically reduced, it won't pop away really, really low. It will just have a nice consistent ball flight. So when you're getting set up for an iron, this is a 7-iron here so the ball just forward of center, the impact condition is you want to be creating a slightly descending blow, hands just opposite the left thigh, striking down on the ball and just taking a nice crisp little divot. And that will help the ball have a true trajectory. So you're not striking down of course it needs to go 10 foot off the ground and you're not hitting up which is going cause the ball to balloon. And that's one of the things. If you're around the green and you’re say hitting a flop shot, you have to put the ball further forward in the stance, get the club underneath the ball as quickly as possible, and then get that ball very, very high. And to hit a successful flop shot, you don’t hit down on the ball. It’s a hit up and away. So if you’ve been told before to hit down on the golf ball to increase height, politely turn around and explain about how backspin and angle of attack work and hopefully you will be educating them as well. 2014-08-19

Why am I always told to hit down to get the ball up? Now that’s just something which has been spoken about for a number of years throughout the game where people believe they’re striking down on the golf ball will somehow magically cause it to pop up into the air. However unfortunately if you strike down on a golf ball with a steeper angle of attack, you will actually decrease the loft on the club and send the ball lower especially with the irons, not so much with the wedges because there is a lot of loft already on the club. But with the irons and the driver, if you strike down on a ball, the ball will go lower.

However if you strike down on the ball you will generate backspin. So it’s getting the happy balance between this slightly descending; blow but not just hitting the ball down into the ground. Now the easiest way to do this with the irons is just to ensure that the hands get slightly ahead of the ball at impact. Now what that will do is it will achieve the ambition of actually striking down on the ball and creating a very thin divot; it will create enough backspin. But because you're not hitting down on the ball like this, where you can see the loft of the club has been drastically reduced, it won't pop away really, really low. It will just have a nice consistent ball flight. So when you're getting set up for an iron, this is a 7-iron here so the ball just forward of center, the impact condition is you want to be creating a slightly descending blow, hands just opposite the left thigh, striking down on the ball and just taking a nice crisp little divot.

And that will help the ball have a true trajectory. So you're not striking down of course it needs to go 10 foot off the ground and you're not hitting up which is going cause the ball to balloon. And that's one of the things. If you're around the green and you’re say hitting a flop shot, you have to put the ball further forward in the stance, get the club underneath the ball as quickly as possible, and then get that ball very, very high. And to hit a successful flop shot, you don’t hit down on the ball. It’s a hit up and away. So if you’ve been told before to hit down on the golf ball to increase height, politely turn around and explain about how backspin and angle of attack work and hopefully you will be educating them as well.