Ball drops out of the sky with a high lofted club

I was hitting balls last night with my son's 9i and 8i with Ping I20 CFS stiff shafts.

The 8i flight seemed okay, but a little high and short.

Then when I hit the 9i the ball would go out for a bit then appear to drop right out of the sky like it was thrown down. The distance seems a little short, but reasonable. I tried it again with another ball thinking the first one was a "limited flight" ball. Same thing. I took out one of the Titleist balls from the bucket (yes, we often have contributions), and same thing. The balls went out high and slowed down then dropped dead. No roll at all.

The normal flight of my Mizuno MP-52 DG S300 is a "parabolic" (I don't actually know). It seems like the time going up and the time going down are about the same and I get some roll.

Whereas it appears that the time going up with the pings is about 3.5:1. 3.5 counts up and 1 count down. My son was like "What???"

What do you think is happening?

Well I must say that I never thought of timing the up-flight and down-flight of a ball.

I went out in the yard and hit a few and the only thing I could tell was that I wasn't very good at timing it. Seemed like 2 up and 2.5 down from my perspective???

I don't have a clue how yours could be 3.5 up and 1 down.

BTW. I wouldn't expect to get any roll with a 9 iron, or an 8 iron landing on any kind of typical surface. Maybe a hop or two if it's dry.

Same here, no clue. The ball flight is completely different than when I was using his clubs. I'm almost willing to believe the "top spin" theory?

It's hard for me to really see when it reaches the top. It seems to hang there for a bit then drop. It's possible that it reaches a "line" then looks like it's sitting still before dropping.

I've never had this flight before and my son also thinks it's a bit weird. As I can't see it from the side, it's a complete mystery. I'll ask him to take a look at the flight from another position this evening.

Okay, I was just swinging too hard.

The ball would go out on a relatively straight trajectory then drop. The path was described as kind of like a right triangle.