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The Pros' Mishits vs. Our Mishits


TreyWingbat
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So when the pros mishit it, it's about 10 yards off-center basically but still 190 yards down the line with a gap wedge, but sometimes (and I consistently shoot in the low 80's and have broken 80 as well) my mishit seems like I've never ever hit a golf ball in my lifetime.   Now lately, I haven't had too many mishits / duffs off the tee with the driver and irons from the fairway, but just the other day, in not too deep a rough, I barely hit the ball ten yards with a 6-iron 160 yards out.  I finished the round with an 84, and didn't have really any other mishits (except going slightly offline on some huge drives).

I'm just wondering why the pros never-ever-never-ever have a complete mishit and top it badly, chunk it badly, or do something else so badly that makes it seem like they've never hit a golf shot before.  I do know when I overswing at 105 percent trying to crush it badly with a club instead of clubbing down and swing at 95 percent (eg., 5-iron at 105% vs. 4-iron at 95%), things go awry, but still.

I've been playing for 10 years now, and my mishits have gone way done, so maybe I guess it's just pure experience and playing so much golf over the years.  But one day, I would like to see a pro just absolutely duff it and the ball go 25 yards max though with a long iron!  Wouldn't you???

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I've seen them mishit it, some real ugly stuff. The Stricker shank at the US Open a few years ago. Some of the OB shots at the Open just a few weeks ago. Sometimes it's due to taking risks but not always.

It depends on where you are at in your game and what we do on the course can sometimes be triggered by stress. But I was surprised with the numbers from my FlightScope sessions a few months ago. Throughout it my instructor often asked me how things felt or what I thought was happening with certain shots good and bad. At the end we went over the data but not before he asked what I thought I needed to work on. One thing I mentioned was trying to tighten my shot pattern, to my eyes it seemed like I was all over the place. We went through each club I hit that day and other than a few just flat out duffs when he drew a circle around the dots where the balls landed it was concentrated to a smaller area than I would have expected.

Dave :-)

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I've seen them mishit it, some real ugly stuff. The Stricker shank at the US Open a few years ago.

The best part about that was how the announcers were raving about his ball striking right before the shot.

-Rich

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So when the pros mishit it, it's about 10 yards off-center basically but still 190 yards down the line with a gap wedge, but sometimes (and I consistently shoot in the low 80's and have broken 80 as well) my mishit seems like I've never ever hit a golf ball in my lifetime.   Now lately, I haven't had too many mishits / duffs off the tee with the driver and irons from the fairway, but just the other day, in not too deep a rough, I barely hit the ball ten yards with a 6-iron 160 yards out.  I finished the round with an 84, and didn't have really any other mishits (except going slightly offline on some huge drives).

I'm just wondering why the pros never-ever-never-ever have a complete mishit and top it badly, chunk it badly, or do something else so badly that makes it seem like they've never hit a golf shot before.  I do know when I overswing at 105 percent trying to crush it badly with a club instead of clubbing down and swing at 95 percent (eg., 5-iron at 105% vs. 4-iron at 95%), things go awry, but still.

I've been playing for 10 years now, and my mishits have gone way done, so maybe I guess it's just pure experience and playing so much golf over the years.  But one day, I would like to see a pro just absolutely duff it and the ball go 25 yards max though with a long iron!  Wouldn't you???

I've seen a couple instances of it happening and I thought it was hilarious both times.  One was Mickelson trying to hit a ball is really gnarly rough and it rolled like 10 feet and the other was that guy who whiffed on his putt 2 or 3 times on that island hole on the course who's name I forget.

I caught part of the player's championship (I think) a month or two ago where Kevin Na bladed a chip over a green and then muffed the comebacker.  I told a friend about that and he sent me a link to a video of him recording a 16 on a hole hacking at a ball in the woods during a tournament.  All funny stuff imo.

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While there are rare exceptions, the pros mishits are not nearly as bad as amateurs.

I think it mostly has to do with their regular impact position (hands ahead of the club and weight forward) vs most amateurs (flipping with not enough weight forward) and some of the other fundamentals discussed regularly on this site.  Put another way, you have to have a lot of things go right to hit a decent shot while pros have to have a lot go wrong to hit a bad shot.

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Hale Irwin whiffed on a tap-in putt and ended up losing the 1983 British Open by one stroke (woulda forced a playoff with Tom Watson); imagine doing that

-Rich

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It happens. Rare, but not out of the realm of possibility. Tiger famously topped one in Abu Dhabi in 2013, and I personally witnessed Phil chunk a fairway bunker shot into another one directly in front of him at the 2011 Barclay's.

Bill

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” - Confucius

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I'm just wondering why the pros never-ever-never-ever have a complete mishit and top it badly, chunk it badly, or do something else so badly that makes it seem like they've never hit a golf shot before.

That's easy, they have all 5 Keys ;-) When things do get off for tour players it's usually related to Keys 4 and 5.

Mike McLoughlin

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That's easy, they have all 5 Keys ;-)  When things do get off for tour players it's usually related to Keys 4 and 5.   [CONTENTEMBED=/t/74723/introduction-to-the-purestrike-5-simple-keys-5sk-learning-system layout=inline]​[/CONTENTEMBED]

Like Rory on hole 10 at Augusta, way left :-D

Matt Dougherty, P.E.
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They can hit some ugly ones from time to time. Rose chunk'd a chip at the US Open this year. He almost laid a patch of sod over the ball. I saw Villegas skull one from the rough on 18 to the 10th tee box. What's amazing is that he got up and down for bogey from there. They can hit some REAL ugly ones, but a majority of their shots are pretty good. As @mvmac said, they all have Keys 1-5.

- Shane

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The big difference is when a Pro shanks one into the trees or in trouble their next shot usually puts them in position to save par or at the very least bogey, where's my next shot will usually bounce off another tree or into the pond ect. making it hard to salvage a double or triple.

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Web Simpson hits quite a few of these for a pro.

I think I remember him shanking one at the Ryder Cup in '12.

Mike McLoughlin

Check out my friends on Evolvr!
Follow The Sand Trap on Twitter!  and on Facebook
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Jason Day topped a driver at Kapalua a few years ago.  He laughed it off.

Scott

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Note: This thread is 3518 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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