Fat Shots Though Swing Seems Correct

[DownAndOut]

On 9/7/2016 at 6:34 PM, iacas said:

 On 9/7/2016 at 3:30 PM, Hacker James said: One thing that helped me was to place a broken tee as much as 3 or 4 inches in front of the ball and aim at that spot.

Yes, just don't do that playing golf. Good practice idea. Golfing Machine calls it "Aiming Point."

Actually , I think the 'Aiming Point' in TGM is defined as where the straightening rear arm starts directing its  'Thrust' . If Hacker James was doing a short stroke like chipping , then an Aiming Point in front of the ball would probably be correct . For full swings the Aiming Point would be behind the ball.

[Buckeyebowman]

On 9/6/2016 at 8:53 AM, iacas said:

It doesn't. That you hit the ball fat, however, does show that your technique is wrong.

Work on your golf swing. If you're trying to "hold the lag" you probably aren't. Good players almost universally don't try to "hold" the lag.

Yep! the title of the thread says it all. If you're hitting the ball "fat", then your technique is NOT correct! And yep again! One of the main ways I can screw myself up is by trying to hold onto the lag longer so I can hit the ball farther. All sorts of weird nonsense then ensues, with balls flying everywhere but where I want them to!

Everybody's swing is different, and everybody has different points where they "release the clubhead". I can't do what Dustin Johnson does, so I'll never bomb bit out there 330+. But if I swing my "good" swing, at least as it exists now, I can get it out there about 260-270. For a 64 year old amateur I don't think that's all that bad.

My problem is, that doesn't happen quite often enough. Thus, it becomes something to be worked on. Consistency, consistency, consistency!

[iacas]

On 10/19/2016 at 9:12 PM, DownAndOut said:

Actually , I think the 'Aiming Point' in TGM is defined as where the straightening rear arm starts directing its  'Thrust' . If Hacker James was doing a short stroke like chipping , then an Aiming Point in front of the ball would probably be correct . For full swings the Aiming Point would be behind the ball.

The Aiming Point is pretty much always on the target side of the ball (when the ball's on a tee it can be behind the ball). I believe it's where you attempt to direct your Lag Pressure (PP#3?).

But anyway… that is a feel, and everyone's got much more of an arc to their swing. The whole idea behind Lag Pressure and/or the Endless Belt stuff is not really an accurate depiction of the golf swing.

[skeedawg]

FWIW I don't take practice swings anymore, except to help warm up or if something feels off after the last shot. Does it help? I think so, but I certainly still hit some thin or fat occasionally. It was a lot of wasted energy for me that I thought was better spent focusing on hitting the ball. 

[yanni]

It has been quite a long time since I opened this thread. Back then I said "my swings seems correct" Well as many people already mentioned it was NOT. I am not topping or hitting the ball fat anymore (or very seldom) now. I changed many things in my swing. But I think here are the 2 important ones

1) Hit DOWN on the ball. I heard this many times before but could not really do it. Once I could do it my problem was solved. Try to work with a lot of lag and place your wirst way before your club during impact. Really overdo it now to get a feel for this. Try a half swing in really hit down on your ball as if you want to smash it into the ground. You won't believe it but the ball really flies this way ;) My swing plane was also way to steep. This maybe something you also could change.

2) Try to keep your posture and don't shift up your body when I you swing way back. I had this problem especially with my driver where the swing is really quite huge. Once your posture is stable your head does not really matter any more. Its automatically fixed as well.

Still 1) is the most important point. 

Edited October 22, 2016 by yanni

[DownAndOut]

On 10/21/2016 at 5:40 AM, iacas said:

The Aiming Point is pretty much always on the target side of the ball (when the ball's on a tee it can be behind the ball). I believe it's where you attempt to direct your Lag Pressure (PP#3?).

But anyway… that is a feel, and everyone's got much more of an arc to their swing. The whole idea behind Lag Pressure and/or the Endless Belt stuff is not really an accurate depiction of the golf swing.

I've been revisiting this endless belt concept and imho it does seem flawed.

If I just imagined I was an adjustable camera that could continue pointing normal to the changing swing plane (ie. formed by the front of the left forearm and clubshaft - left arm flying wedge) from the top of the backswing to impact, the real hand path would look different to these 'face on' views.

1. From the top of the backswing to maybe end of the early downswing (left arm horizontal to the ground, right arm/wrist still still retaining  its angles) , the radius of the hand arc would probably be the distance from the hands to the sternum notch.

2. From the end of the early downswing to impact - the right arm would have progressively extended somewhat. Therefore that 'camera'  would see a hand arc path whose radius (if we used the sternum notch as the centre of the swing) is getting progressively longer. 

So if I was that camera , I would see a tighter hand arc radius in the early swing but getting longer into impact which is the complete opposite of what we are seeing from a face-on view (an optical illusion?).

Have I got this correct or completely wrong?

So is all this theory about 'Aiming Point' flawed from both a geometric and physics perspective?  Maybe just learning to sequence the passive unhinging  of one's wrists for various types of strokes makes more sense than concentrating on an  'Aiming Point'.

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by DownAndOut

[Buckeyebowman]

I believe there's a lot of over thinking that goes into this process. The basic idea is, when playing a shot off the turf, that you want to hit the ball before you hit the turf!

I used to accomplish this by playing the ball fairly far back in my stance, and with a fairly open stance. It was unorthodox, but I could hit the ball dead on the button! Maybe I should try that again.