Hit off the Grass!!??

[sportsnut]

evening,

new to golf, I had been hitting off mats very well for the last couple of months and just started off grass this week. Having a fair amount of problems off the grass. was thinking today maybe it has something to do with the ball sitting down in the grass as opposed to on top of a mat since I was topping the ball more. started slowing my swing down near the end of todays practice and had more success. any ideas how to overcome this hurdle.

thanks Frank

[darkhunter139]

The mats are a lot easier to hit from because you do not notice swing flaws as easily.  You want to hit the ball before the ground and take your divot in front of the ball.  If you hit behind the ball on the mats it is a lot harder to tell and the ball will still fly good.

[sportsnut]

The issue I have is that on the mat I can hit most of the balls flush, once on the grass I have striking problems again where I hit the ground first or hit the ball thin, thats why I was wondering if its partly a vsual thing. meaning you pour a concrete slab and put a thick mat on it the ball sits tall above it all. in the grass it lays down a bit and what you were used to looking at visually on the mat is no longer there. so is this a practice practice practice thing or do you trust your swing and setup and swing away??

[Topper]

On mats you think you're hitting the ball flush when you're really not.  Mats are very forgiving on both fat and thin shots.  I started golfing last year and came to the same realization after switching to grass.

[B-Con]

The issue I have is that on the mat I can hit most of the balls flush, once on the grass I have striking problems again where I hit the ground first or hit the ball thin, thats why I was wondering if its partly a vsual thing. meaning you pour a concrete slab and put a thick mat on it the ball sits tall above it all. in the grass it lays down a bit and what you were used to looking at visually on the mat is no longer there. so is this a practice practice practice thing or do you trust your swing and setup and swing away??

Like Topper said, it's probably the exact same swing both times, it's just that the matts forgive you and the ground doesn't. I've had chronic problems hitting fat that I only recently put behind me (for the large part). I would hit well on the range, but poorly from the ground. Eventually, I learned how to tell fat shots from clean shots while on matts, and that's a combination of feel, ball flight, and sound. If you can feel that tiny bit of extra resistance before/at impact, tell when you've lost 15% of your distance on a shot, or hear the difference between a cleanly-struck ball and a one that gets scrapped off the matt by a dragging club, you can mentally ding yourself for bad swings and then make changes. I've had to learn to do that for myself.

[tristanhilton85]

Yup... mats hide flaws... try to hit off of grass when possible and when it's not put something just behind the ball like a towel so you can focus on hitting the ball first.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by sportsnut

The issue I have is that on the mat I can hit most of the balls flush, once on the grass I have striking problems again where I hit the ground first or hit the ball thin, thats why I was wondering if its partly a vsual thing. meaning you pour a concrete slab and put a thick mat on it the ball sits tall above it all. in the grass it lays down a bit and what you were used to looking at visually on the mat is no longer there. so is this a practice practice practice thing or do you trust your swing and setup and swing away??

Some grass is better than others. If the grass range is close to what you'll be playing, then fantastic. At my range I warm up on the mats, I hit fairway woods and drivers from the mats, then when want to work on hitting out of sand filled divots, I move over to the "grassy" area.

[nevets88]

This is what impact should look like: [VIDEO]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dG9hb3_blo[/VIDEO] If you're hitting it flush on the mats, you should hit it flush on grass, chances are you are not hitting it flush on the mats. I'm pretty sure if you see your swing on video, the clubhead is hitting the ground before the ball. Welcome to the game, this is what everyone battles with, making that flush contact. Start with chips and find a good instructor to help you out.

[B-Con]

Some grass is better than others. If the grass range is close to what you'll be playing, then fantastic. At my range I warm up on the mats, I hit fairway woods and drivers from the mats, then when want to work on hitting out of sand filled divots, I move over to the "grassy" area.

Yeah, definitely. All "grass" is by no means equal. My local range's "grass" that we hit off of on weekends is more like grass growing on a mixture of loose soil and sand. Hit if really fat in the wind and you'll get a face full of dirt and sand. If you hit down on the ball well you'll lose distance because the ball just squishes into the ground rather than compressing against it. But it's still much better feedback from mats.

[Golf'nBiker]

B-CON, I tend to agree w/you.  Mats can indeed be a learning tool.....by using your ears.  If you hear whack-thud. ya done good. if you hear thud-whack..ya MISSED!  mats can be a help if you will allow them too!

[LankyLefty]

I think this is a far better view of what a proper impact will sort of look like. As you can clearly see the club impacts the ball before digging into the ground.

On a mat you can't dig into It and so when you hit it fat you slide along the mat and make something resembling normal contact. However when you move over to grass a fat hit will dig in and the ball will go nowhere. Mats bounce more and have no "blades" of grass to cover the clubface so they make it much harder to tell if you've mishit and how badly.

The towel thing works well though. Place a towel folded twice about 3 or 4 inches behind the ball, if you hit the towel that's probably going to be a mishit.