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How do you hit a power fade?


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I have been working on this shot. The hard thing for me with this shot is aiming far enough to the right. I have my eyes so trained to line up down the left side and hit a hook.

I hit some great ones with this but also pushed a couple right and hit a couple true slices (haven't done that for years).

I want to have both the fade and draw as need be and it takes good alignment and a good swing to have that control.

Brian

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I struggle with hooking the ball too, so I tired this today and it worked quite beautifuly. It was almost impossible to hit the ball out of play. It did feel wierd teeing the ball low though, and having my body aimed left...it was very unomfortable. I did pure one attempt accidently when my hands released... and I never did find that ball, it just sailed straight as can be...into the wilderness.

If I am honest with myself though, I cannot really call it a power fade...its more like a 230-240 yard bananna ball of accuracy. I lost a lot of my rollout yardage, but I think this will be a good shot for me when I am struggling with driver.

So thanks for the tips all, and the OP for starting this thread.
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I tried the set-up described by Drifterland. What I don't understand is this. How is lining up to the left with the clubface down the target line any different from lining up to the target line and opening my stance? In either case I am going to swing inside-out. It really seems the same to me, just a different way of describing it. Open stance, weak grip, swing inside-out. Am I missing something here?
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On a normal fade, you don't aim as far to the left. You aim slightly left and aim the clubface at the target. You then swing along the body alignment, which will be outside to inside relative to the target line. You cut across the ball and must be careful not to roll the arms too much over and hook it.

On a power fade you aim even further left. If you swing along the body line , it would curve a lot from left ro right. Instead, you make sure to swing like when hitting a draw, club into the slot, inside to outside and full release through the ball for more distance.

As far as I've understood, the reason a draw is longer is because the clubface is closing on the ball, rotating from open to close. On a fade you are holding off the release to cut it. You lose distance because the clubhead is moving off the ball, pushing it out. On a draw, the clubhead is closing on the ball and giving the clubhead greater speed, which will give greater distance.

The purpose of the power fade is to combine a draw and fade. You take the accuracy of a fade and combine it with the distance of the draw. To close the club on the ball, hitting a draw, you must come from the inside, or you'd pull it. If you align like a normal fade and swing inside to outside, you are swinging along the target line and the ball can only move from the target line and to the right. With the slightly more open stance you can swing inside to outside which will be a few degrees inside of the target line. The clubface is aimed at the target, so you can hit a full release, closing through the ball, swinging inside to outside, launch the ball left and curve it 5-10 yards back. You'll have to experiment some with how much you aim left and how to aim the clubface.

I didn't pick up the part about tee height, but are you supposed to tee it lower with the driver?

If I'm wrong about something here, please correct me so we can get this topic straight.

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On a normal fade, you don't aim as far to the left. You aim slightly left and aim the clubface at the target. You then swing along the body alignment, which will be outside to inside relative to the target line. You cut across the ball and must be careful not to roll the arms too much over and hook it.

Very good explanation Zeph. Teeing the ball lower may help players hit this shot with the driver, but I think it's best to try and work the ball from a pretty high tee.

The reason we get more distance from A draw or power fade is because we are hitting the ball and releasing fully, creating max clubhead speed and control by using our natural golf swing. When the dude above you (Calboomer) hits the fade as he is describing he unintentionally holds off the release by swinging out to in relative to his body. When anybody on any shot holds off the full release that player will lose 5-15 mph. And at about 2.5 yards per mph with the driver nobody wants to lose 15-35 or so yards by hitting a normal fade... Unless you need to slice it, then you have to but you get the idea.

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When you come right down to it, a "power fade" is really just a mild controlled push. So why is it better than a straight ball or a slight pull or a mild draw? One reason that occurs to me is that the ball is contacted before the right arm pronates and the club face begins to close, which is always a dicey part of the golf swing even for pros. So subtle errors in follow-through timing are less likely to have as a big an effect on the push as on types of hits in which contact occurs slightly later in the swing.
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How do you hit a power fade?

I'd rather know how to hit for power when you're faded.

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Duh! Have to laugh! Been trying to work on this daily the last ~3 weeks as my natural draw often leaves me missing right, especially on longer clubs. Dodgy back and getting too old to stay with the shot long enough these days. Weak shot when I hit a draw is often a push-fade.

I should have read this thread and saved myself 3 weeks discovering essentially what's been discussed above! Discovered a couple of days ago that if I aimed some way off left (further than typically I wanted to) and basically just hit it full out with the club aiming target(ish) I get some of the most consistent, surprisingly long 5-10 yard fades. Beautiful!

Need to groove it for next season but I'm sold.

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Playing a fade is actually quite simple and it is a much easier to control and more consistent shot than a draw.

1. Play the ball back further in your stance than you normally would : For example: Instead of playing the ball even with the inside of your left heel with a driver(for righties), creep it back to split the difference between the inside of the left heel and your zipper. This rule applies to all of the clubs. Long irons would be played about center of stance, mid irons just right of the zipper and short irons (9I and wedges) way back splitting the difference between your zipper and inside of your right heal.

2. Open your stance : Do this by keeping your right foot in place and creeping your left foot back so the toes of your left foot are about even with a quarter of the way back on your right foot.

3. Use a high takeaway : This will not work with a flat swing plane. The take away needs to be parallel and high. This applies for all clubs: Wedges up through driver.

Please let me know if this explanation is too confusing and I will try and clarify. I learned how to play this type of shot a few months ago from my brother who once upon a time was an assistant pro and a scratch golfer....I knocked about 10 strokes off my game and went from shooting in the 100s-110s to an 18 handicap in about two months (this is my first year really taking golf seriously).

This setup may not work for everyone but it works for me. I literrally could not even hit a driver a few months ago and now am consistently about 275 off of the tee and always in play.

Hope this helps.
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Playing a fade is actually quite simple and it is a much easier to control and more consistent shot than a draw.

This is exactly why I want to hit a fade, its so much more controllable and ends up in play way more often than not!

Thanks for the tips, right now I hit a slight draw, but when I miss, its a BAD hook and I lose a ball and have to take a penalty, killing my scores! My rounds are usually 89-93, if I could keep those misses in play, I'd save 7-8 strokes! Great advice man!

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Now to the power fade. A pro never fades the ball the way most weekend golfers do unless they need to really slice it. An amateur aims left, points the clubhead at the target and swings a bit out to in trying to spin it more even though they set up to make a normal swing, just along a different path. Killing distance and accuracy and this also leads to the occasional pull/hook.

This is exactly the way I play the shot, however I use a driver that has a 2* open face that makes it a lot easier to do... I love this shot because it almost always takes the left side of the course ot of play for me... I lost a little distance, I can still get it around 300 yard but a normal shot for me is 290ish... But I can control the heck out of it... A draw is very hard to control... I use to play one and it took me 2 years to get rid of it... Happy I did...

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Howdy... With all due respect everyone above is telling you how to hit a fade, which ofcourse has it's place, but I will try my best to explane the power fade and how to use it to kick major ass.

Kudos to Drifterland for this post. His instructions are as bullet-proof as a Julia Child recipe--and much simpler. I practiced this with my driver for a couple of hours this morning. I must say I didn't believe it could be this simple. I aimed my set-up about 20 yards left of a 200-yard flag but kept the club face square to the target line at address. I used my normal grip (strong left, medium right) and inside-out swing. The best shots were Hoganesque (long and mostly straight with at most 5 yards of fade off the set-up line and slightly left of the target). The worst were shorter with a mild slice about 10 yards to the right of the flag. I could not hit one ball to the left of the set-up line, no matter how quick or hard I followed-through. Weakening my grip or trying to follow through along the target line only produced unacceptable slices. The best results came with normal over-the-shoulder follow through. The only modification to his instructions which seemed to help was to move the ball back a hair at set-up.

I'm really looking forward to trying this all out on the golf course tomorrow.
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Kudos to Drifterland for this post. His instructions are as bullet-proof as a Julia Child recipe--and much simpler. I practiced this with my driver for a couple of hours this morning. I must say I didn't believe it could be this simple. I aimed my set-up about 20 yards left of a 200-yard flag but kept the club face square to the target line at address. I used my normal grip (strong left, medium right) and inside-out swing. The best shots were Hoganesque (long and mostly straight with at most 5 yards of fade off the set-up line and slightly left of the target). The worst were shorter with a mild slice about 10 yards to the right of the flag. I could not hit one ball to the left of the set-up line, no matter how quick or hard I followed-through. Weakening my grip or trying to follow through along the target line only produced unacceptable slices. The best results came with normal over-the-shoulder follow through. The only modification to his instructions which seemed to help was to move the ball back a hair at set-up.

Thanks man, but I'm no Julia Child, She is awesome! Good luck on the course Tomorrow!

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Driver Tour Burner 9.5 s (Best Driver Ever!)
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I went out and tried this *again* today and still cant do it... Thats three times of trying and still cant do it... Is it the burner driver since it has like a 1 degree closed face? Do you open the face and re grip? When I do that it feels really really awkward..

The ones that did fade, (instead of taking off down my body line and not coming back) only went like 225 yards........

This sounds so easy in theory but in reality cannot be pulled off by me!!

In my Ogio Blade Stand Bag:
 

TaylorMade Burner 10.5*

Adams Insight BUL 15*
Taylormade RBZ 3H

TaylorMade RBZ 4-AW

Vokey SM4 54-11

Cleveland CG14 58 2 dot wedge

Ping Karsten Series Craz-E putter

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I went out and tried this *again* today and still cant do it... Thats three times of trying and still cant do it... Is it the burner driver since it has like a 1 degree closed face? Do you open the face and re grip? When I do that it feels really really awkward..

How exactly did it not work? Did you continue to draw? Or slice excessively? I kept my grip the same. But at set-up I moved my hands forward so that the club face was open and square to the target.

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I went out and tried this *again* today and still cant do it... Thats three times of trying and still cant do it... Is it the burner driver since it has like a 1 degree closed face? Do you open the face and re grip? When I do that it feels really really awkward..

Def not the Burner driver....I play a 2008 Tour Burner 9.5 and can pull it off. It just takes some time to get used to it....it is essentially completely changing the way you swing at a golf ball. My suggestion would be to reach out to the pro at the local range or pro shop and take a few lessons from them on how to accomplish what it is you want to accomplish. The only reason I am able to pull this shot type off is because my brother (former assistant pro) spent several teaching sessions with me. Those guys (teaching professionals) can see what us amateurs cannot.

Keep after it man....you'll get it.
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Thanks Brian and Cal....

Cal- the ball just took off down my body line and never turned back, if that was a course it would be 250 yards away, 3 fairways over!!

So obviously the face was square to my body line. I succesfuly swung down my body line but I cant seem to keep the face looking at my intended target line.... When I take my stance, I open the club face and regrip so its a regular grip but with the clubface open, it feels so damn awkward, the weight of the club feels completely different and everything...

I dunno,


Brian, I'd love to take some lessons on this, but at 50 a pop, I just cant do it right now... Unless I dont swing a club for a few weeks and go over there, but then I'd lose everything!!

Thanks guys, I really hope I can get this soon enough!

Jim

In my Ogio Blade Stand Bag:
 

TaylorMade Burner 10.5*

Adams Insight BUL 15*
Taylormade RBZ 3H

TaylorMade RBZ 4-AW

Vokey SM4 54-11

Cleveland CG14 58 2 dot wedge

Ping Karsten Series Craz-E putter

Top Flite Gamer

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A "Power Fade" is nothing more than a desired trajectory shot, similar to a sweet line drive in baseball, that goes from left to right as a righty and right to left for a lefty. You will line up as if you are going to hit a fade. An open stance is an exaggeration but more or less, slightly aimed towards the fade direction. The swing is more outside inside than your typical draw swing of inside outside. I hit both of these frequently depending on the hole. Also, the ball needs to be further up in your stance as to that of a draw. An open club face will make you slice the ball into another zip code so ensure that club face is aimed where the ball is desired to land and the swing and alignment will create the power fade.
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