How do you put spin on the ball?

I use a soft ball (pro v1 or hx tour) and i have a 60 degree sm vokey, yet I don't put all that much spin on the ball. What techniques do you guys use to get back spin?

put the ball a little further back in your stance and really try to trap the ball between the club and the ground taking a divot afterwards... Hit down on the ball as much as possible, and keep some weight on your left side.

you must take a "full swing" at the ball. meaning that outside of pitching distance (about 30 yards...and you can get a lot of spin on pitch shots...but thats saved for another thread) you want to have a full follow through on your swing. What that means is that to control distance, you alter how far you take your backswing. I hit my 60* about 85ish yards...so if i have a 40-45 yard shot...i bring my left arm to the 9 o'clock position and then swing through with the same force that i would use for the driver. A lot of people are scared that they are gonna hit their wedges too far, but you have to understand that the loft of the club as well as clubhead speed is what dictates distance. On the practice tee, take your wedges and when you swing, coil your body completely and swing down at the ball with the same force that you would use with any other club. The shorter shaft will take care of creating a steeper angle at the ball. A big caveat of the whole situation is that you have a proper setup. Whats pretty disheartening is if you try this out, but all you end up doing is skulling every shot. You give up on the advice and it turns out your setup was wrong.

The following advice is really basic..so if you know this stuff dont take offence..but some people (myself included..which is why i add this kind of advice) have golfed for years without getting these really simple..day 1 fundamentals down.

You really have to make sure the clubface is pointing exactly where you want the ball to go. You also must make sure the club is sitting flat on the sole. Because of the higher bounce of the wedges, your likelyhood of skulling the shots goes way up if you dont have the sole flat. Similarly, you dont want to deloft the wedges on standard shots by lifting the back of the sole up off the ground...as the trajectory would be lower than expected (although this is a nice technique with any club if its windy or you need a few extra yards). You also want your hands pressed to the inside of your left thigh...and again..do this without delofting the clubface.

But yea....make sure you take a full shoulder turn like you are hitting a driver, swing to the inside, and let it go to a full finish. The ball should travel high and with a lot of spin....basically stopping on a dime and then rolling back.


The previous poster mentioned putting the ball back in the stance a bit. I'm not really big on that concept...however i'm not entirely certain why its a terribly bad thing on standard shots. I'm not saying it doesnt have its uses..however for standard shots i dont think it is the best idea. Personally, if i play it anything back of where the center of the stroke is...i lose height and spin on my wedges. I thinkkkk putting it back delofts the wedge a little but i'm really not positive...thats just from my observations. So i'm not saying that putting it back is a bad idea...i think it may actually may impart more spin...however i feel like it may take away from the ultimate goal of hitting a solid, consistant wedge that flies high and checks immediately at a distance that you can recreate over and over. I feel that you are better off playing it in the same spot if the shot is a standard shot and just altering the length of your backspin. Once you get provicient at that..you can go all Seve Ballesteros all over the place and get as creative as you want with ball position and all that...but i feel that that comes after developing a level of consistency....and that comes from playing your wedges at the bottom of your stroke which is at the middle fo the stance.

Spin is over rated imo, I would much rather stop the ball on a dime every time than get 5 - 10 foot of backspin.

Anyway the simple advice is quality of strike, if your hitting a wedge for example you want the ball central in your stance, with your weight 55/45 slightly favouring your front foot, from here a good strike should ensure your ball stops pretty quickly.
(Side not - A big divot almost never leads to spin)

I must agree with Jay B. I would rather the ball stop on a dime. Because most of the time I'm short of the cup or near it and if i put spin on it I would prob go off every time. I mean if you could put side spin on it, then i'm down to learn that.

It's basically just hitting the ball with the proper compression. That being said, equipment is sort of important and you also need the course to be in the proper condition. Trying to spin the ball off hairy fairways and rock hard greens is almost impossible to do. Generally the tighter the lie, the easier it is to spin the ball. That's why if you have ever hit a shot from a fairway bunker and it lands on the green, it usually has an absurd amount of spin to it.

Spin is a bit overrated. Nicklaus has stated that he used to grind his grooves so they weren't so deep because backspin was usually the last thing he wanted because while the ball may stop/spin back, that spin also increases the chance the ball will go off line. And Nicklaus deemed that if he really needed to stop/spin the ball back, it was usually with a wedge and he could still do it if he properly compressed the ball. Zach Johnson says he does the same thing.



3JACK

You need max clubhead acceleration to occur just before impact on a descending blow. The ball will be compressed into the grooves producing lots of backspin.

Max clubhead acceleration is produced by passive hands/arms, your club is a pendulum descending through the gap created by your leftward weight shift. The club path is thru the point where your right knee was at address.

Look at Furyk's downswing, the club path is less than two inches from his right leg. Not only does the club whip thru with incredible acceleration, it is also on the most direct path to the target.

I will have to agree with Jay B as well. Stopping the ball on a dime is much more important than a massive amount of backspin. I used to put a lot of backspin on the ball and it is really overrated. When you are doing it though, you have to make sure that you are hitting down on the ball. If you are scooping the ball, you will not be able to make it stop that easy. You definitely have to hit down on it.

Anyway, I used to play a lot of backspin and it is overrated. When using a lot, you have to make sure that on every shot you are hitting the ball long on the greens. Also if you play on faster greens, it is really hard to get the ball to stop. Once it gets moving, it is going to keep moving. I have hit a many of shots that have gone 3/4 of the way to the back of the green and I will end up chipping from the front of the green to get to the hole.

I wold like to know how to just make it stop on the 75 yards and in shots though. The 2 bounces and stop on a dime is something that I have never been able to master and I would like to know if anyone has any ideas.

yea i agree as well...what JaY_B said here basically does it. The loft the of the club will give you the proper trajectory and the grooves will give you enough backspin to stop the ball where it lands.

I know what you're saying here but they're two different shots, and both are useful. When you have a pin that's tucked behind a bunker it's very nice to be able to throw the ball past the hole and have it come back tight. Also, I think it's important for people to realize there's a time and place for both shots and controlling the amount of spin can also be very helpful when spinning the ball back isn't advantageous.

A 60 degree wedge won't get you as much spin as a 56 and below. Its just harder to hit down on a 60 wedge and typically you want those flop shots to stop on a dime. Try using a 54 or 56, trap it and watch it roll back.

I agree with most of the answers to the original question. I hit the ball extremely high on most shots and i find it hard to get much spin on my 60 as well for the same reason 1UnderU stated. If I need to spin a ball back, I will grab my 56. The raw clubhead material is fairly rusted and can put some crazy spin on the ball!

My thoughts exactly. I have the same problem. I am able to stop the ball on a dime with almost any club. I feel like I would be able to score better if I were able to spin the ball back a bit. Also, I believe at times putting spin on the ball is more conservative approach and will lead to better scores. For instance, hitting to a hole cut right behind a bunker. Right now, the play for me is to play it a bit long just in case i don't hit it so well. That mostly leaves a tricky downhill putt. If I were able to spin the ball back just a bit. It would leave a simpler uphill putt.

I guess the problem with all of this thought is that, for me at least, being able to spin the ball would only improve my game by a couple of shots. I believe there is things that may improve one's game more. (chipping, putting, consistency, etc)

Crisp contact will crate spin. Be that picking it clean, or a big divot, if you are contacting the ball crisply, with enough speed, you will produce enough spin to suck it back. At the end of the day, you just need to practice. Take a 56 or 58 or 60 degree wedge, a dozen soft cover balls (ones you may have already scuffed up a bit) and go out in the evening and play 9 on a Friday evening near sunset, when the course is empty and practice hitting a dozen shots into some greens from inside 80yrds or so. (Make sure you bring a divot repair tool). This is how I learned most of my golf game as a kid with a jr membership at my club - evening rounds on an empty course, and try stuff out. All good sorts of advice here, just see which one turns the key for you!

I was merely going off personal experience with my club. I keep the three cleveland wedges listed in my sig in the bag and the RTG sand wedge will spin back more than the other two every time when hitting the same ball from the same lie. I had the chrome version prior to the RTG and it did not produce the amount of spin as the current one.