Help!!Im pulling the ball,can anybody offer some advice please?

[bunkerman]

As the title says,ive started to pull the ball and need some help rectifying it!!!
All i can tell you from my swing is it feels like my right shoulder is taking over as im on the downswing,this has only just started to happen so i want to get rid of it a.s.a.p!!!!
PLEASE PLEASE HELP!!!Ive got 2 big comps coming up and want to perform well in them!!!!Oh by the way im right handed.

[iacas]

As the title says,ive started to pull the ball and need some help rectifying it!!!

If your right shoulder feels as you say it does and you're pulling the ball, you're coming over the top.

When I start doing this, I go to the range with my 5-iron and hit 1/2 shots (about 140 yards) with big hooks. That helps me ingrain the feeling of coming back down from the inside. You have to figure out why you're coming over the top. Are you swinging too hard? Are you starting the downswing with your lower or upper body? How's your grip and alignment? I can't tell you what swing thought or drill will fix it - that depends on the exact cause of your problem - but hitting hooks on purpose has always helped me feel the "difference" between the hook swing and the pull swing. Feel that difference and you'll quickly discover what's causing the over-the-top pulls.

[bunkerman]

Ive had lessons and wouldnt you know it the problem never rears its head....I would personally say it comes from trying too hit the ball to hard as im known to do this quite often.Could you give me some swing thoughts to practice,ive tried the left hip movement starting the downswing and just cant get it right,tell me how the backswing starts and when the downswing starts,if you could please.

[NCGolfer]

Ive had lessons and wouldnt you know it the problem never rears its head....I would personally say it comes from trying too hit the ball to hard as im known to do this quite often.Could you give me some swing thoughts to practice,ive tried the left hip movement starting the downswing and just cant get it right,tell me how the backswing starts and when the downswing starts,if you could please.

When I have timing problems, which it seems you are having, I do something similar to what Erik is saying. I'll often take my 6 iron and take half or 3/4 swings. The only difference is that I do it with my feet together. This way your hips and upper body must move in sync with each other...otherwise you will fall over. I'd have you hit 20-25 shots this way and slowly spread your feet apart.

See if this works for you.

[i2!ch]

First you need to check a few things. You could be PULLING the ball because your stance is somewhat open and your clubface is shut at impact. What I recommend is doing the opposite: set your right foot back until ur aiming your feet at least 10 degrees off line BUT SQUARE YOUR BODY AND CLUB. This will allow you to play some nice hook/draws. If you ARE coming over the top, you're hands and body will disconnect completely somewhere in the downswing and you'll definitely feel it. Feel your arms come nicely from your right around your hips and let your clubface run squarely down the target line.
This usually works for me.

You're probably hitting pulls because your 'feel' has kinda shifted over time. That usually happens if you prefer anything other than "square" positions and play that way for too long. If you see the pros, 90%+ of them try to keep everything square. FEEL relies too much on personal preferences and that's hard to fix when you're off. If you keep everything square, you can easily find what you're doing wrong.

In other words: Keep Everything Squared.

[Rickins]

Kinda glad this one got "bumped" because I've been running into the same problem with pulled shots lately - 7-iron on down. Distance has been amazingly good but pretty useless when I'm 20+ feet left of the pin and frequently in the second-cut. "Right club, right length, wrong line" rather sums it up.

Closing my stance will be my first correction as I've always tended to play the short irons with a slightly open setup. Since the line of the ball flight is nearly always dead straight or, with a very slight draw, I'm inclined to believe that my problem is one of alignment rather than coming over the top.

Another tendency, for reasons unknown, is to "lay off" of my short irons generally taking no more than a 7/8 swing. Better tempo? Crisper contact? It's just "felt" better to me. We'll see...

Rick

[JKilgore44]

Yup, I'm officially joing the club. I am pulling my irons 10-20yds left of my target pretty consistently right now. I'm getting really pissed at it too. I'm too broke/stubborn to go to a local pro mostly because I am in college and I don't know the people around here and I would rather wait to go back home to MY swing coach. But more importantly, I can't understand why I am doing it.

Here's my thoughts after reading the posts. I have be having a really closed stance. Not always, but after hitting some of my worse pulls, I laid a club down to check my feet/hip alignment and it's well right of my intended target. My clubface is square to the target though. I added a picture to help you visualize it.



The first correction I tried was to "open" my stance up a little until it was in a square position and it has the same results. I tried to go so far as to put a fade swing on the ball and force it to go right, only to result in an almost shank. Really pissed me off.

The second thing I tried to work on was keeping the back side of my left palm square at contact. The swing thought I used was "backhand the ball all the wall through the hitzone." Worked well on the range, didn'r carry over to the course though. Please let me know what you think I should try to correct this, it's killing my handicap and really pissing me off.

[hurley9192]

a drill is to hit some shots with a glove or towel under your right armpit. This will keep it tucked in...

when I'm pulling the ball, I notice that my hips have slowed down and I'm throwing my arms through the swing. Golf Magazine had a story on the "O-factor" a couple months ago...great article to get your hips in the right places.

[JKilgore44]

so if the towel falls out from underneath my right arm, then I am obviously getting "over-extended" thus coming over the top? By keeping my right arm closer, I'll be generating a more inside-out swing right, elminating the big pull hook caused by coming over-the-top with a closed club face, right?

[lamebums]

As the title says,ive started to pull the ball and need some help rectifying it!!!

When I swing too hard, it usually gives me an outside-in swing. A pull mostly results from outside in + closed clubface. So work on your swing plane, and squaring the club at impact. (I've seen people close the clubface in an attempt to counterbalance their slice...they hit pulls instead.)

[irfan]

ive been pulling too.. but my divots go right at the target. ball starts a little left then finished way left. so i think i have the club face way closed at impact somehow. any drills to keep the face square at impact?

[sonicblue]

This sounds so simple, you'll swear it won't work, but it does. It's actually a great total swing tuning, too. I used my vinyl kitchen floor (12x12" tile pattern), since it provides great alignment, for feet and clubface. Take your address position.

I practice in pieces, and only at slow-motion speed:
1) takeaway to club parallel behind me
2) complete backswing to top
3) transition down (just the initial hip "bump" and start of shoulder uncoil)
4) impact position
5) completion

Going from the transition position (hips slightly open, hands still around chest high, wrists fully hinged) to the impact position (hips fully open, wrists unhinged, hands slightly ahead of ball, clubface at ball and slightly delofted) is a huge, huge component of ball striking and distance. You need to accomplish this using the big muscles (torso, shoulders) to provide the speed through, while the small muscles (wrists, hands) move minimally but accurately and well-timed with the others. This drill lets you focus on those moves and feel where you should be at each stage.

However, what I found to be the MOST useful part of this is #4. Though you do this in slow motion, you need to do it naturally, and it can be very revealing to see where your hands return the clubface. Moreover, you can learn an awful lot about how slight movements in the wrists can alter clubface alignment, not only left/right/square, but also lofted/delofted. I found that with consistent practice, just 5-10 minutes a day, quickly helped me learn what "square at impact" really felt like. On the course, I was able to just worry about using the big muscles through most of the swing, keeping my hands/arms more relaxed and then just making sure my hands hit "square" as they passed the ball.

I haven't done this drill for a while (moved out of that house, no more kitchen floor with high ceilings ) and my game has suffered accordingly. I need to get back into it.......

[Robiola the Monster]

I have the oppisite i push the ball sorta but not enough to really notice.
If i hit a 5-iron which goes 160m, i push it about 4m-5m to the right of the target (pin), but i have a slight draw which brings the ball back abit.... usually not enough

[J_Bone]

ive been pulling too.. but my divots go right at the target. ball starts a little left then finished way left. so i think i have the club face way closed at impact somehow. any drills to keep the face square at impact?

I don't know any drill, but my local instructor gave me this tip.

"Make sure when you place your right hand on the club, your palm of the right hand is square with the club face and use that as your club face guide. When it's square, you will still get the point toward your right arm pit or shoulder. Also, don't try to use your right hand for power or speed. It's just a guide. Use the left arm to swing the club." Another tip, Make sure your grip is aligned. When I start to swing over the top I notice that I have a slight weak left grip while I have a strong right hand grip or vise a versa. By following those grip tips, I've really got my direction under control and I've dropped my handycap 12 strokes (and counting) in 2 months. Hope that helps any.