Why do I hit pop up drives? (Video) - by Pete Styles
Why do I hit pop up drives? (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now we use the word pop up to describe a shot that has gone higher than it has done forwards, it’s a pretty awkward shot you know you stood there on the tee, you’ve pictured it 250 yards down the middle, you have made an almighty great swing and the thing just goes straight airborne, comes down about 10 seconds later 50 yards ahead of you, and we class that as a pop up, sometimes we call it a sky golf shot and often you’ll see a marking around the top of the clubface that’s evidence of what has just happened.

Now for most people the biggest reason why they hit the pop up drive shot is they just have the ball teed up too high. You know they see the guys on the TV on the long drive competitions particularly teeing the ball up super high, trying to sweep it up into the air, but unless you’re making a good impact and a good contact on the ball, teeing the ball too high can be disastrous and create the pop up shot. Here I’ve got the ball teed up at the correct height, we can see from the camera angle there about half a ball sitting above the top of the golf club head and that’s the correct height. Next door to it here I’ve got a tee peg on top of the mat , that’s way too high, the risk is here I would sweep the tee peg and the ball would hit the top of the golf club and just spend all its energy going upwards rather than forwards. So next time you are teeing the ball up and you are conscious that you want to avoid the pop up golf shots make sure you’ve got half the ball visible above the top of the top of the club and no more than that, then ensure that when you take a swing you don’t actually ground the club. I could effectively still pop that up but I would have to have to have taken a divot, taking a divot with a driver is definitely not a place you want to be, we don’t want to be digging down creating the skied or popped up golf shot. So to avoid the pop up tee the ball at the right height half the ball about the top of the driver, learn to sweep the ball into the air and you’ll eradicate the embarrassing pop up tee shot. 2015-03-26

Now we use the word pop up to describe a shot that has gone higher than it has done forwards, it’s a pretty awkward shot you know you stood there on the tee, you’ve pictured it 250 yards down the middle, you have made an almighty great swing and the thing just goes straight airborne, comes down about 10 seconds later 50 yards ahead of you, and we class that as a pop up, sometimes we call it a sky golf shot and often you’ll see a marking around the top of the clubface that’s evidence of what has just happened.

Now for most people the biggest reason why they hit the pop up drive shot is they just have the ball teed up too high. You know they see the guys on the TV on the long drive competitions particularly teeing the ball up super high, trying to sweep it up into the air, but unless you’re making a good impact and a good contact on the ball, teeing the ball too high can be disastrous and create the pop up shot.

Here I’ve got the ball teed up at the correct height, we can see from the camera angle there about half a ball sitting above the top of the golf club head and that’s the correct height. Next door to it here I’ve got a tee peg on top of the mat , that’s way too high, the risk is here I would sweep the tee peg and the ball would hit the top of the golf club and just spend all its energy going upwards rather than forwards.

So next time you are teeing the ball up and you are conscious that you want to avoid the pop up golf shots make sure you’ve got half the ball visible above the top of the top of the club and no more than that, then ensure that when you take a swing you don’t actually ground the club. I could effectively still pop that up but I would have to have to have taken a divot, taking a divot with a driver is definitely not a place you want to be, we don’t want to be digging down creating the skied or popped up golf shot. So to avoid the pop up tee the ball at the right height half the ball about the top of the driver, learn to sweep the ball into the air and you’ll eradicate the embarrassing pop up tee shot.