Driving the tee without the ball??

[zeg]

A strange thing happened to me today... I was playing my usual lousy golf game, but as has been the case the last few weeks my tee shots were at least airborne and generally fairly straight, somewhere from 180-200 yards. Great. Then I got to the 8th hole of my 9 hole round. Teed up as I'd been doing all round: a little higher than usual, but nothing ridiculous. Set up, swing, *whiff*. I look down and the ball is on the ground directly below where I'd teed up and the tee is gone.

WTF I think to myself, so I get another tee, set it up a bit lower, relax, focus on keeping my eye on the ball, and swing again. With exactly the same result. I proceeded to do third time before finally making contact on the 4th swing.

That ball went nearly straight up and I lost it in the sun. Never saw or heard it come down. So I teed up again and whiffed AGAIN. Finally on the 6th ball I popped one up that I was able to find because I heard it hit a tree near the fairway... I wrote a big X on the scorecard, played the ball to the green and then went to the 9th tee.

On the 9th things weren't much better. First tee shot popped up about 30 yards to the left, over a fence and OB. Dropped down to my 3 wood and wasn't any better, but at this point I had basically given up.

So my question is... what the hell happened? I'm still puzzling over how I can fit the club head beneath the ball to slap the tee out without at least dinking the ball. Am I some sort of magical ninja? Did I use up all my drives so I should just give up golf now?

I'm extremely frustrated by this, because everything felt the same as normal. I'm a bad enough golfer that I can cope quite well with topped and popped-up drives, slices or straight pulls, or whatever. But I can almost always feel what's going wrong or remember not seeing the ball during my downswing. In these, I felt like they were great swings....

[MI Rob]

You could be trying to hit down on the ball by accident? Make sure your hitting the ball on your upswing. And if you don't think thats the case, tee the ball a little lower.

[cstorms]

You could be trying to hit down on the ball by accident? Make sure your hitting the ball on your upswing. And if you don't think thats the case, tee the ball a little lower.

you could also try moving the ball up in your stance, a little closer to your front foot to help hit it on the upswing

[zeg]

Thanks for the quick replies. I don't think I was swinging down on it, but maybe... I had it pretty far forward in the stance -- more or less in line with my front foot IIRC.

[Zeph]

If you don't take a divot, you'll have to tee it pretty high to do that. Try teeing it with half of the ball above the crown of the driver. Put the ball on the inside of your left foot and make a shallow take away, grassing the grass as you go back. The bottom of your swing you want to be behind the ball. Take a couple of practice swings where you feel the club going down, bottoming out before the ball and going slightly up again at impact.

[CG031]

Don't tee the ball so high and you're obviously coming too steep if your popping it up.

[Big_M]

If you don't take a divot, you'll have to tee it pretty high to do that. Try teeing it with half of the ball above the crown of the driver. Put the ball on the inside of your left foot and make a shallow take away, grassing the grass as you go back.

Don't tee the ball so high and you're obviously coming too steep if your popping it up.

yeah... you must be teeing the ball pretty darn high for the driver to even fit.

I tee my driver with just a tiny bit of ball above the crown... making it impossible to do what you described. My 3-wood I tee just high enough to leave a little space between ball and grass... no way you could go under it.

[zeg]

Interesting. I usually tee it so the ball is sorta half-way above the top of the driver. This might have been a little bit higher than that, and maybe the first one was totally clear, but I was more careful on the later shots. But that's part of the puzzle for me-- I think I must be rotating the club head vertically in some odd way for it to fit. Either that or I suppose I could just be sweeping through with the toe. In any case, after a few days cooling off I'll go play around on the range again and really focus on trying to flatten out any steep descent. Thanks for the replies.

[Dub]

A strange thing happened to me today... I was playing my usual lousy golf game, but as has been the case the last few weeks my tee shots were at least airborne and generally fairly straight, somewhere from 180-200 yards. Great. Then I got to the 8th hole of my 9 hole round. Teed up as I'd been doing all round: a little higher than usual, but nothing ridiculous. Set up, swing, *whiff*. I look down and the ball is on the ground directly below where I'd teed up and the tee is gone.

Could be....or you could just be a guy who is teeing the ball up too high and coming down steeply on it.

Try a lower tee (equator of ball below the top of your driver) and sweeping swing. Good luck.....things will fall into place and it'll feel great when they do.

[squaddie]

As a fellow high-handicapper, it sounds like you had the ball tee'd up way too high, as in above the crown, and you also didn't have proper address position for a driver.

Here's the setup I used to have more consistent contact with my driver:

Tee up the ball so almost half the ball is above the top of the clubface. Then position the ball just inside your left heel (if a righty). Place your right foot a little wider, just outside your right shoulder.

Set the clubface in front of the ball. Then ensure your hands are slightly behind the club head. I have my hands positioned just left of my zipper, so the clubhead is in front of my hands, as opposed to with an iron setup. This hands and club position will help ensure you catch the ball on the upwards part of the swing.

Try easy swings at first to get used to it, and ensure your head is not bobbing up and down. You can even practice the position and swing with a fairway wood or hybrid until you get used to it, then move up to the driver.

Good luck!