Tee shots

[vangator]

On ‎11‎/‎4‎/‎2015‎ ‎12‎:‎10‎:‎51‎, inthehole said:

I'm all about hitting is STRAIGHT.    I hate it when I consistently fade or draw it.    I'm not a really long hitter, so I guess it helps me not overswing & keep it straight.   Early in the year, I was drawing it consistently & set my driver neutral to counter it & straighten it out.   Later in year, I was fading it consistently & set it back to draw biased to straighten it out.   My goal is a 2 way miss - could either be a fade or draw - not consistently one or the other.   Loves me my adjustable driver...

I've never heard anyone that WANTS a 2 way miss.  Is that a joke?  I'm pretty dense.

[dchoye]

for me the Tee ball usually goes to the right straight push sometimes slice, though when I playing well I can hit a slight draw off the tee ball with my driving iron. When I hitting the tee ball well its usually a straight ball ....however

The ball off the turf 95% of the time is a hookspin . I don't fade it very often unless I have a lie which the ball is below my feet and sometimes I will pull hook from that lie.

Edited November 6, 2015 by dchoye

[inthehole]

4 hours ago, vangator said:

I've never heard anyone that WANTS a 2 way miss.  Is that a joke?  I'm pretty dense.

My goal is to hit it straight.    What I don't want is to consistently fade or consistently draw it ... if I mess up & don't hit it straight, it should randomly go slightly right or left - just don't want a miss to go consistently one way.   I call it a two way miss - maybe that's not the correct terminology ??    But that is my goal in adjusting my driver ...

[SavvySwede]

1 hour ago, inthehole said:

My goal is to hit it straight.    What I don't want is to consistently fade or consistently draw it ... if I mess up & don't hit it straight, it should randomly go slightly right or left - just don't want a miss to go consistently one way.   I call it a two way miss - maybe that's not the correct terminology ??    But that is my goal in adjusting my driver ...

A consistent miss can be accounted for and its effect on your score can be minimized. A random miss will cost you more strokes in the long run.

Particularly this part from Erik's first post of that thread.

Quote

A Quick Word on Shaping the Ball

95% of the shots a pro plays (Tiger Woods may be one of a group of very small exceptions, and even he isn't as different as many think) are their stock shot. They don't curve much, but if a player is a drawer of the golf ball, 95% of their shots draw. It's the most reliable, dependable way to play - with a pattern.

Kenny Perry (a pronounced drawer) was playing at Doral a few years ago and someone asked him what he does with a pin on the right side of the green. He said he aimed at the flag and if his ball didn't draw, he got lucky, but otherwise he was content to have a 25-footer for birdie.

Then the person asked him what he did when the pin was on the left side of the green. "I make birdie" he said. :)

You'll get better, faster if you develop a pattern. Shaping the ball is over-rated - not even the pros do it all that often. Shaping the ball can get you out of trouble. It can be a good shot when the ball needs to be worked around an obstacle (reaching a par five in two, the tee shot on a dogleg, etc.). But if you've got a look at the flag, take the Kenny Perry approach: aim for your shot cone and play your pattern.

 

[billchao]

1 hour ago, inthehole said:

My goal is to hit it straight.

Straight is the hardest to execute in a golf swing from a physics standpoint. It's more likely that you're straight shots are fading or drawing a small amount that you're not perceiving.

1 hour ago, inthehole said:

What I don't want is to consistently fade or consistently draw it ... if I mess up & don't hit it straight, it should randomly go slightly right or left - just don't want a miss to go consistently one way.   I call it a two way miss - maybe that's not the correct terminology ??

You're using the right terminology, but it just goes against what most people understand of course management strategy. If you have a two-way miss, it's impossible to plan where you will miss, and golf is a game of managing your misses.

[mvmac]

4 hours ago, inthehole said:

My goal is to hit it straight.    What I don't want is to consistently fade or consistently draw it ... if I mess up & don't hit it straight, it should randomly go slightly right or left - just don't want a miss to go consistently one way.   I call it a two way miss - maybe that's not the correct terminology ??    But that is my goal in adjusting my driver ...

Not sure I understand what you're saying. You don't want to have a consistent pattern? If you consistently hit a draw or fade that means you have a shot pattern you can rely on. 

[inthehole]

5 hours ago, mvmac said:

Not sure I understand what you're saying. You don't want to have a consistent pattern? If you consistently hit a draw or fade that means you have a shot pattern you can rely on. 

wow - this is the most responses I think I've ever gotten to one of my posts  ... I guess it goes back to my playing partner - this guy consistently hooks his tee shots.   Thing is he's a good player - he starts it OB right & plays for this big ugly ridiculous hook that usually winds up in the middle of the fairway.    I can't stand it.    So I go out of my way to try and hit it straight.  I just don't like aiming right or left of my target and playing for the ball to curve.   My swing isn't that good to begin with, so if I mess up & it doesn't go straight, I want my adjustable driver set so it goes slightly right or left - I rarely hit a big hook or slice, just seems to make sense if my miss is a little tight fade or draw ... I can live with that.

[mvmac]

7 hours ago, inthehole said:

wow - this is the most responses I think I've ever gotten to one of my posts  ... I guess it goes back to my playing partner - this guy consistently hooks his tee shots.   Thing is he's a good player - he starts it OB right & plays for this big ugly ridiculous hook that usually winds up in the middle of the fairway.    I can't stand it.    So I go out of my way to try and hit it straight.  I just don't like aiming right or left of my target and playing for the ball to curve.   My swing isn't that good to begin with, so if I mess up & it doesn't go straight, I want my adjustable driver set so it goes slightly right or left - I rarely hit a big hook or slice, just seems to make sense if my miss is a little tight fade or draw ... I can live with that.

Ok so you're talking about a big hook, that's not a "consistent draw or fade". It's not exactly a reliable pattern. For example I play a draw, I aim at the right side of the fairway or first cut. If if doesn't draw I'm either in the fairway or light rough. If I over-draw it I might catch the left side of the fairway. I'm never aiming way left or right and curving it 20 yards.

[Fairway_CY]

Primarily... I play a fade off the tee.  It seems like, this past season, it was a fairly even mix of fades and pulls... and every once in awhile, I'd hit the ball fairly straight.  

I'm gonna put it in percentages and say...

Pull - 35%

Straight - 25%

Fade - 40%

CY

[Psyber]

On a good day it's a push and on a bad day it's a bigggg slice. Yesterday on the range the balls we're traveling as far to the right as they were straight ahead.

[vangator]

5 hours ago, Psyber said:

On a good day it's a push and on a bad day it's a bigggg slice. Yesterday on the range the balls we're traveling as far to the right as they were straight ahead.

I think the best way to control a slice is to tee the ball a little lower.  Don't let the ball get way up in the air.  Plus I think if you tee it lower, you'll tend to stay with the swing a little longer instead of spinning out and really cutting across the ball.  I try to chase the club head toward the target following the ground longer.  Ball goes lower and doesn't go as high.  Ball runs like a mofo.  Got long drive in a tourney a few weeks ago by hitting a power fade on a ball that I don't think got more than 30 feet off the ground.  It was pretty.  I estimated just over 300 yards. 

 

15 hours ago, inthehole said:

wow - this is the most responses I think I've ever gotten to one of my posts  ... I guess it goes back to my playing partner - this guy consistently hooks his tee shots.   Thing is he's a good player - he starts it OB right & plays for this big ugly ridiculous hook that usually winds up in the middle of the fairway.    I can't stand it.    So I go out of my way to try and hit it straight.  I just don't like aiming right or left of my target and playing for the ball to curve.   My swing isn't that good to begin with, so if I mess up & it doesn't go straight, I want my adjustable driver set so it goes slightly right or left - I rarely hit a big hook or slice, just seems to make sense if my miss is a little tight fade or draw ... I can live with that.

If you have a little leak one way or the other you may be able to get away with it, but it may be worth you're while to eliminate one way or the other.  I typically draw the ball and experience the same thing off the tee as mvmac.  On approach shots, I just aim a little right of the pin and if it draws (which is most of the time) I'm good.  If it goes straight, I'm still on the green.  I don't hit fades.  When you develop a reliable pattern, you score when you pull off the shot and your misses can still get you a par.  Golf is a game of misses and how you play for and handle them.

It must be scary as hell when you have water on one side and OB on the other.  You know you have cojones when you can aim over the water and trust it to come back.

[iacas]

12 hours ago, vangator said:

I think the best way to control a slice is to tee the ball a little lower.  Don't let the ball get way up in the air.

Maybe the key word is that you "control" the slice, as that advice is contrary to the way most people "play" a shot teed lower. Most people, teeing the ball lower, get steeper and swing more across (to the left for a righty player) the ball. This increases "backspin" and  slice "sidespin" to the ball.

Most people who tee the ball up sweep at it more than hit down at it, which promotes a higher, lower-spinning, more draw-like flight.

And by "more draw-like" that can also mean "less slice-like" for people who swing well to the left.

 

[vangator]

11 hours ago, iacas said:

Maybe the key word is that you "control" the slice, as that advice is contrary to the way most people "play" a shot teed lower. Most people, teeing the ball lower, get steeper and swing more across (to the left for a righty player) the ball. This increases "backspin" and  slice "sidespin" to the ball.

Most people who tee the ball up sweep at it more than hit down at it, which promotes a higher, lower-spinning, more draw-like flight.

And by "more draw-like" that can also mean "less slice-like" for people who swing well to the left.

 

I guess I never realized people would swing steeper.  I flatten my AoA and really try to chase it at my target.

[mvmac]

3 hours ago, vangator said:

I guess I never realized people would swing steeper.  I flatten my AoA and really try to chase it at my target.

Yeah it's common to try and "hit down" more when the ball is teed lower. If the ball is teed up, it's more "natural" to try to sweep it. Look at guys like Rory, Bubba, JB, they all tee it pretty high.

[saevel25]

9 hours ago, mvmac said:

Yeah it's common to try and "hit down" more when the ball is teed lower. If the ball is teed up, it's more "natural" to try to sweep it. Look at guys like Rory, Bubba, JB, they all tee it pretty high.

Just don't tee it high and hit down. Then you get the ball going higher than it goes forward 

I've had a few tee shots with my driver that went about 75-100 yards forward. 

Could you say that more golfers should tee it high, but also add more axis tilt at set up to promote hitting up? I wonder if some just tee it high then stay too upright on their tilt and end up finding it hard to hit up. 

[vangator]

9 hours ago, mvmac said:

Yeah it's common to try and "hit down" more when the ball is teed lower. If the ball is teed up, it's more "natural" to try to sweep it. Look at guys like Rory, Bubba, JB, they all tee it pretty high.

I tee it high when I want to draw the ball, but if I tee it high to fade the ball, it just balloons and has a good chance of turning into a banana.  Since my natural shot is a draw, I really have to concentrate to hit the fade so I don't do the old double cross.  If I tee it high for a fade, I find that the double cross and slice come into play.  That's the potential for instant strokes.

Unless there's some reason I can't, I always hit a bucket before playing and always work on the draw and fade shot off the tee with my driver.  I guess over the years I just always swing more controlled for the fade.

The problem I see with most higher handicaps is that they just try to hit the tee ball hard and hope.  They need to get to the range to find a swing they can hit hard but keep in play.  If there's too much risk, hit the 3W, hybrid or iron.  Nothing is more frustrating than working hard for a birdie only to pump the next tee ball into the trees.

Edited November 8, 2015 by vangator

[mvmac]

28 minutes ago, vangator said:

I tee it high when I want to draw the ball, but if I tee it high to fade the ball, it just balloons and has a good chance of turning into a banana.  Since my natural shot is a draw, I really have to concentrate to hit the fade so I don't do the old double cross.  If I tee it high for a fade, I find that the double cross and slice come into play.  That's the potential for instant strokes.

Just aim your body left and make your stock "draw" swing.

[InTheRough]

On a good swing my ball flight looks to be dead straight(I'm sure it curves a little but not much).  My big miss right now is a massive block right that starts rights and keeps fading right.  Anything I miss to the left is usually contact related.