Very often you may sway when you take the club back but you do not sway quite as much on the downswing, so the golf club will be misaligned at the point of impact. You need to check your swing. That' s simple enough to fix. This stance allows you to make a good backswing and downswing through the ball. 2.2 Proper Rotation. 1.6 Releasing the Club Early. This can cause you to slice the ball and in extreme cases it can lead to hitting the ball off the toe of the club. Published: February 18, 2014. Some of my students will get a good scare when they hit balls in my teaching area when they toe one, as it goes off the end of the club and slams into a plastic partition I keep next to the mat for protection. Place your golf ball on the tee as your normally would, and then place your driver behind the ball in your normal stance. Contact with the club's toe. In this video Director of Golf Mike Merchent explains why junior golfer, Clay, is hitting his ball off the toe. If more than half of the ball is above the face, you will likely hit the ball too high on the clubface. Common culprits are: 1) Losing your balance or falling back onto your heels. 3 The … To avoid this, feel as though the hands, arms, and club move away as one piece during the takeaway. 2.1 Correct Weight Transfer. Below are three common causes for hitting shots off the heel of the clubface and an easy way to fix this. Path Is Too Far Right. Lie angles on clubs are too flat. Standing too close to the ball: From this position you’ll extend the arms on the downswing past their address position, pushing the club outward and initiating … So I am now addressing with the ball very near the heel of the club prior to the backswing. Allow the … Too much weight on your toes at set up Good posture is the basis for solid contact. The number one reason is they are coming across the ball or over the top at the last minute. Ball marks high on the clubface will tell you instantly you' ve got a problem. Lifting of the golfers head before hitting the ball can also contribute to the problem. The sweet spot of a golf club is offset about 2 inches from the shaft. Step 2. To fix it, he focuses his student on his left heal because it was also coming up and “flying out”. It goes without saying that something is causing your club to move up and away from the golf ball through impact. Spine angle rises throughout the swing. Gary Gilchrist, head of Swing-U instruction and the first teacher to have three pros ascend to No. Rather than change your swing, instructor Jeff Ritter offers a simple solution: stand a little closer to the ball. Standing too close to the golf ball at set up. Good luck. 3. If you find yourself doing this, take heart, it probably means you're doing a key component of the swing correctly. Watch School of Golf Tuesdays at 8PM ET. Take your stance with a slight bend of your knees, then bow from the hips (not from the waist), and allow your arms to hang from the shoulders. When you address the ball with good spine angle and tilt as described above you will eliminate most of the risk of hitting the ball off the toe of the golf club. This is easy to check before every swing, and to correct if necessary. If you are using the ball forward positioning option and are struggling with thin shots, move to a positioning mechanism that sees the position of the ball vary according to the club in hand. It usually occurs when the arms lose their extension as the club moves into the impact zone -- often the swing path is pulling in because the golfer is … Weak fade, or a weak pull is the result. As your body lifts up, it moves the club slightly away from the ball, causing impact to occur off the toe instead of right on the sweet spot. It doesn’t take much movement from your body to throw off an otherwise good swing, so carefully review your video for even minor movements up and away from the ball. Whether you’re sliding your hips back and not correcting prior to impact or you’re sliding too far forward during the downswing, the result is the same. The flight of the ball is high, with a loss of distance. Hitting shots off the toe, if all other things in the swing are … Where your weight is positioned at address has a huge bearing on how the club works during the swing. Surge gave some good advice but one other idea crossed my mind---Maybe you are releasing too hard on your through swing, causing the club to meet the ball with the face closed. 1. Make corrections if you are hitting the ball with an out-to-in swing. This prevents the upper body from sliding back during the backswing and … 2.3 Shot Set-Up. Answer (1 of 3): From wherever you are at your normal address, scoot your feet back an inch. The good news is, if you are doing this, your over the top is much later than some of your buddies or playing competitors. Picking your head up early can cause you to toe the golf ball. Here are a few solutions depending on what is causing you to top the golf ball: This mechanical error in your golf swing can result in topping the ball. Whether you’re sliding your hips back and not correcting prior to impact or you’re sliding too far forward during the downswing, the result is the same. Address the ball normally, let the club rest on the ground. A common problem is to whip the club inside on the takeaway and over rotate the hips. The third thing that you must do is focus on your spine angle, often times golfers miss hit shots because their core position changes. April 23, 2015. This to Theodore who has the problem of hitting off the toe of the club. Swing Path Errors. Martin Hall talks about sweet spot confusion and what you can do to stop hitting shots off the heel of the club face. In my previous post about the proper golf swing takeaway, I emphasized the importance of taking the golf club back square and not on the inside.The key here is that the clubhead needs to be facing the golf ball on the way back. You need to keep a constant posture throughout your swing, and do not raise up on the golf ball. 2.4 The Follow-Through. This has helped quite a bit (if I … 3. Hitting thin and hitting off of the toe can often be related. You are obviously not hitting the ball in the sweet spot and, most likely, you' re hitting pop ups all over the place. Might help. SWING. Chuck Cook, Golf Magazine's top 100 teaches gives a great tip to help fix your golf toe shots. Things that can cause hits off the toe: 1. 1.5 Incorrect Weight Transfer. Point the handle at the ball, get your distance to the ball right and you will hit the sweet spot. 2. The first obvious clue is that you' re teeing the ball too high. Ball too far forward in stance. Hold the club in your right hand, set it behind the ball, and step in with your right foot so your toes are in line with the ball. Play the ball higher in your stance to allow yourself more time to square up the clubface at impact. April 22, 2010. Usually it's #1 which means that the upper half of the body rises (aka "bails outs") through the swing. In most cases the club moves inside the ball, which results in hitting the shot on the toe. It turns out that he is coming out of his posture as he rotates his hips, and as a result is pulling his shoulders and arms up. The ball begins right of the goal and turns left. If this scenario ever happens to you, we strongly recommend taking up tennis. Failure to naturally transfer the weight through the ball and onto the left commonly causes the club to drop behind the ball. Try either weakening your grip or opening the club face a little at address. There are a number of reasons amateurs hit the toe of the club and end up flipping at impact. Golfers learning a one plane swing, or a more rotational rather than upright golf swing can begin finding themselves hitting shots off the toe as a common miss. Because the ball was in play, you must assess a penalty stroke for touching a ball at rest with your equipment. You may hit the ball off the toe because you have a steep downswing path that causes the clubhead to cut across the ball. Tension, tension, and more tension. Guess what —now it counts as a stroke under Rule 9.4. Ouch. All else being equal, a swing path that is more right will send the ball more left – a game of opposites. Without making any particular wrong moves, you’ll strike the ball from the toe all too often. I’m now hitting off the toe and low on the club face, resulting in consistent low pull hooks. The stress of golf too often causes us to grip the club too tightly. The most common cause of hitting off the toe is releasing the club early, the wrists unhinging and the right arm straightening too soon on the downswing. If your club catches the alignment rod on the way down, your swing is too over the top—and a toe strike is likely. 3. Adjust the lie if your strike is good, but your digging the heel or toe. So, why do you always hit it off the toe? FIX: Move the ball back in your stance a little. The face angle or path may be wrong, but you should be on the sweet spot. Releasing the club too quickly, commonly called "casting," throws off the swing plane, causing the club to hit across the impact area. The body and the club must work together in a proper weight transfer. When the upper body moves upward, the club is pulled away from the ball, delivering the toe rather than the sweet spot at impact. Defying a slice A draw to the left is the best-feeling shot. If you are sat back on your heels at address, the momentum of the swing will cause the club to be pulled away from the ball. End result, hitting it off the toe. If you're struggling with persistent toe shots with the golf ball going left and short, then this is the video for you! 2 How to Stop Hitting Behind the Ball. Instruction: Avoid hitting the ball off the heel with this simple fix. The point I am making is that we instinctively swing the shaft at the ball. A second cause of toe hits is the body raising up before impact; in other words, failing to maintain your spine angle. What causes a high ball flight in golf? Since I have taken up the game, I have to address the ball off the toe of the golf club or slightly away from it in order to hit the ball solidly. This mechanical error in your golf swing can result in topping the ball. I’ve gone from an 8 hdcp to >15 (or at least play like it). … I had noticed recently that I was tending to hit irons off the toe, as revealed by impact stickers. So you address the ball a second time and, in waggling the club, bump the ball off the tee. 1.4 Dropping the Back Shoulder. Early Release. Instead, rotate the hips to make sure there is enough room for the arms to swing down at the ball and prevent an open clubface. Cutting out to in cause the club to cut across the ball and catch it on the toe. A number of different reasons could be for hitting the golf ball off the heel, but mostly you'll find there are 3 causes for most golfers.. Put a piece of masking tape along the sole from toe to heel of your club, get something flat like a piece of laminate flooring. The main reason for hitting the Golf ball off the toe of the club is that the golfer is turning his body too soon during the swing, pulling the body and the club away from the ball. This can be super simple to diagnose. A) Over the top swing. If you tend to hit shots off the heel of the clubface – the solution likely lies in your address position. Don’t slide to the body back or forward during the golf swing. When this happens the backswing becomes flat and inside and it’s very easy to hit behind the ball. The toe of the club is the part of the head furthest from the shaft, and it can cause some seriously crazy ball flight, or lack thereof. Swing path refers to the direction the club is moving through impact (more right or left). The first simple fix for your golf toe hits. Bad Posture. If your swing path is coming from outside to inside you may have a tendency to miss-hit the ball. Tip #3:Backswing Over Rotation. Half of the ball should stick above the face of the club. Do you find yourself making contact with the golf ball toward the club’s heel, maybe even the occasional (*whispers*) shank? B) (MOST LIKELY) - standing too far away from the ball - "reaching". But have no fear, the cure is pretty simple. Ugly. Solution: Lean in your right knee as you turn away from the golf ball. Green-to-blue swing path with a closed clubface is the cause. The 3 swing faults that lead to heel shots.