Shank

[Stuart]

For the past couple of months my swing has been improving considerably, especially in my mid to long irons and woods. My problem is that every now and then I will pull out my 8 iron or wedge and shank the ball off to the right, and most of the times OB. I can't understand what I'm doing to do this, except possibly raising my head prematurely. It is confidence destroying to be playing a flawless round, only to step up to a small wedge shot and shank it OB. Anybody have any ideas?

[JtotheD]

It's easy to want to watch the ball on shorter shots.

1.Keep your spine angle on these (ala Justin Rose, keeps his through impact).

2.This will in turn keep the shoulder square to the target at impact.

3.Keep your head behind the ball, but post up your weight on a firm left leg, for consistency.

4.One of my favorite swing thoughts is to keep the exact same flex in the right knee until weight transfers back to the front (should really feel a tight right quad muscle.)

If you shank while applying these tips properly then something else must be going on, grip, posture, alignment, etc.....

Try postin' a video if this doesn't work.

[CG031]

My dad does this sometimes, only with his wedges...I mean, like once out of every 30-40 shots, lol...but I think what he does is he swings to fast down (on full wedge shots) which basically is all timing, with no transition from backswing to downswing, and most of the time when he does it on chips or pitches he's either too close to the ball or picks up his head. Any of these could be your problem.

[Stuart]

Thx guys. I'll try to be mindful of my spine angle today and also my right knee. I know that it sometimes likes to get a bit straight.

[Stuart]

Went out a couple of days after I posted this and shot 114. Shanked a shot on almost every hole. I thought I might give up this game. Anyways realized that my left foot was moving and my head coming up. Went out this last Thursday and shot 75. Best round ever. Thanks for the help.

[nevets88]

I tend to shank the ball alot with all the clubs. With the woods, I hit the heel and get a dribbler to the left.

What I tend to do is to take the club back with the face too open. On the downswing, my hands are well ahead of the ball and the clubface is still too open and whammo! Big honking shank. The divot is well in front of the ball and if you just looked at the divot, you'd think I just hit a pretty good shot.

My fix was to take half, three quarter swings, concentrating on not opening up the clubface. More importantly, not opening up on the downswing. I also verified that the open clubface was the cause by purposely hitting shanks. I also tried all the fixes - standing away from the ball, the 2x4 alongside the ball, etc... None worked until I played around with the clubhead face.

People say the hardest shot is the one after the shank. The hardest shot is when you have the shanks and you're teeing up, and there is a group teeing off in shank territory. Fore right! - I have the shanks.