The golfer must strike the ball and then the ground with irons and fairway woods. Utilizing drills is the quickest way to stop chunking the golf ball. There are several causes of the chunk shot in golf and I will provide a solution for each cause. The ultimate outcome by controlling the low point is better ball striking.
Full Answer
How can I stop overhooking the golf ball?
- If you drive the ball 250 yards
- Have an 5 degree right swing path (and square face)
- The ball will curve 50 yards to the left
How to stop cutting across the ball in golf?
How to stop cutting across the ball. The beauty of this is that it’s so simple to set up. First, if there is a line on your ball, point it towards your target. From there, you want to create a gate to swing the clubhead through that will really exaggerate the opposite move to what you’re battling. This can be done with balls or tees ...
How to stop shanking the golf ball now?
Why do I shank the ball and what can I do to finally stop shanking?
- Your aim is too open. If your aim is off, this can lead to the clubface being too open. ...
- Your grip. Your grip is crucial. ...
- Ball Position. You have to be in a good position in relation to the ball. ...
- Stance. Your stance probably isn’t causing you to shank the ball but it can still happen. ...
- Posture. Weight distribution is incredibly important in golf. ...
- Swing Path. ...
How to stop thinning the golf ball?
How To Stop Chunking The Golf Ball? The golfer must be able to control the low point and hit on the target side of the ball. The golfer must strike the ball and then the ground with irons and fairway woods. Utilizing drills is the quickest way to stop chunking the golf ball.
What happens if you hit the ground before the ball?
If you hit the ground just slightly before the ball, you’ll only hit the shot a bit fat, and your ball might make it most of the way to the target. On the other hand, if you hit the shot a couple inches fat, the ball might not get off the ground at all.
What does it mean to hit the fat ball?
As you already know, hitting the ball fat requires hitting the ground before you reach the ball. For a right-handed golfer, that means hitting the ground to the right of the ball, as you are looking down from above.
How to move away from fat shots?
So, to move away from fat shots, what you need to do is move the bottom of your swing a little bit to the left. One way to move in that direction is to adjust where you are looking at address.
How to break the habit of scooping your shots?
To break the habit of trying to scoop your shots, spend a few minutes in the short game practice area hitting short one-handed pitch shots. These shots only need to be a few yards in length, as the important part is not the shot itself but the technique you use through impact.
What does loft do in golf?
The loft of the club will do the job of getting the ball airborne, as long as you achieve a clean strike down through the hitting area. Keep this lesson in mind when you go back to hitting full shots with both hands on the club.
Can fat shots be frustrating?
Fat shots can be frustrating, but there are steps you can take to reduce their frequency. We hope these drills are helpful, and have fun out there!
Can you erase chunked shots in golf?
You’ll never completely wipe out the chunked shot from your golf game, as this is a mistake that can even happen to the best players. With any luck, these drills will reduce the frequency of your fat shots, and you can see improved numbers on the scorecard as a result.
When you set your golf club on the ground behind your golf ball, is it important that you set it properly?
When you set your golf club on the ground behind your golf ball, it is important that you set it properly. This can often look odd to golfers when it is correct, in particular for the more lofted clubs in your golf bag. The aiming line on a golf club is the leading edge and the more lofted the club the more crooked the top line may look.
Why does my golf club get stuck in the ground?
If you crowd your club and stand so close that your arms do not have enough room to hang and swing can often result in your golf club getting stuck into the ground. Being too crowded, effectively makes the club too long relative to your body, so it has nowhere to go but into the ground.
What is the aiming line on a golf club?
The aiming line on a golf club is the leading edge and the more lofted the club the more crooked the top line may look. Often golfers will not set the club properly on the ground as a compensation — they hit slices, for instance, so they set the club closed at setup.
How to make good contact in golf?
1. Crowded posture. Proper posture is one of the most important fundamentals to good contact. Giving yourself enough room to bow from your hips so that your hands can hang below your shoulders puts you into a balanced position that allows you to be athletic throughout your swing.
Why is it important to have a clubface at address?
The reason this is important is because the more twisted the clubface is at address, the more likely one side would dig into the ground at impact.
How to know if your golf club hits the ground?
You can easily check this by taking a practice swing and seeing where, relative to your feet, your club hits the ground. If your club hits the ground centered in your stance, it would be greatly to your advantage to place your golf ball there. 3. Flat footed forward swing.
How to keep a club from getting stuck in the ground?
When you make your forward swing, you want to be athletic and just let it go and keep going. This often also helps to pull the trailing heel off of the ground. This athletic momentum, where the clubs stays in motion, can also keep the club from slowing down where it may get stuck.
What does it feel like to chunk a golf shot?
All golfers know the pain of chunking golf shots. You take a powerful backswing, you feel like you’re about to hit a quality shot, then you swing down and feel the club hit the ground. When you look up, you see a huge piece of turf traveling down the fairway. Meanwhile, your ball has only gone a few feet. The chunk shot is a common problem.
What is a Chunk Shot?
You may hear the term “fat shot,” “heavy shot,” or “chunk shot.” Whatever you like to call it, it’s all the same problem.
What Causes a Golfer to Hit it Fat?
Right now, I’m talking specifically about chunking your irons. As you may know from past articles on hitting stellar iron shots, you want to catch the ball on a downward motion. To put it another way, you have to make contact with the golf ball before you reach the low point of your swing.
Why is the low point of a golf swing important?
This is significant because the low point of your swing follows the pressure in your feet. If most of your pressure is still in your back foot when the club comes back down, the clubhead is going to hit the ground well behind your golf ball. You wind up chunking the shot.
How to swing a golf ball with your feet together?
An easy way to do this is by standing with your feet together and the ball aligned with the center. Then, step your lead foot forward and your trail foot back and equal distance. Second, notice the pressure on your feet as you take your swing.
Why is chunk shot so common?
The chunk shot is a common problem. But it’s not common because it’s hard to overcome. It’s common because so few amateur golfers have gotten the right advice for preventing heavy shots.
How to start pressure on a golf club?
You should start with most pressure on the lead foot, shift to the trail foot on the backswing, and shift pressure back to the lead foot as you swing through. You can find more tips on pressure in the feet here. Third, check the butt end of your club at setup.
Why is the golf club under the plane?
Here the club approaches the ball too far from the inside - it is under the plane. This very often occurs due to a backswing that takes the arms and club too far to the inside. Due to the fact that the club is under plane, the tendency is for the hit to be too shallow.
How to practice swinging with towel?
An excellent drill to aid with this tendency is to practice the towel drill. It involves folding a towel and laying it on the ground 10-12 inches behind the ball. The towel encourages the weight to stay more centered at address and in the backswing, thus shifting the low point of the swing up to a few inches in front of the ball - which means ball first, divot second!
What happens when your weight is leaning back behind the ball?
Ball Position - If you have the ball positioned too far forward in your stance , your club will hit the bottom of its arc before it gets to the ball.
Why does my club strike the ground first?
Why does your club strike the ground first? Simply put, the bottom point of your arc is behind the ball rather than in front of your ball as it should be. It's really that simple! When hitting most shots in golf you want CBG (club, ball, ground) contact in that order. Obviously some shots are different such as sand, where we actually want club, ground, ball contact as we intentionally hit the sand first.
What factors affect where your club bottoms out in the swing?
Factors that affect where your club bottoms out in the swing include weight distribution, ball position, posture and release. Let's explore each of these individually.
What does "you club" mean?
You club is hitting the ground behind the ball.
What happens if you release the club head too soon?
Release - If you are releasing the club head to soon and allowing it to catch up to your hands before you get to the ball, you will bottom out too soon.
When should the club head catch up to your hands?
Lastly, the club head should not catch up to your hands until the moment of impact. As long as the club head trails your hands it is still descending. The moment it catches up to your hands it bottoms out and then will start its ascent. Your rear wrist should remain bent backwards until impact.
Is it bad to hit the ground before the ball?
Fat, heavy, chunky, behind, chili dip...whatever you want to call it...it's not good. Hitting the ground before the ball hurts! It hurts you physically, but it really hurts your score as you lose significant distance. A thin shot can advance and not put too much of a damper on your score, but when you meet earth before you meet ball, it's never a happy ending. We've all been there. A big wind up, 100% of our effort and strength and then thud! The earth flies farther than our ball.
How does weight shift happen in golf?
As we wrote about here, weight shift happens in the golf swing naturally during the takeaway, but as you lift the club to the top of your backswing, your weight begins to move back towards the target — and keeps moving towards the target all the way until impact. Keeping your weight more centered like this prevents swaying, and keeps the bottom of your golf swing consistently ahead of the ball.
Why is Jack Nicklaus' centered turn bad?
In short, swaying is bad, because it means the bottom of your golf swing is moving all over the place during your swing, which is makes it impossible to hit the ball with consistent contact — hence the chunked iron shots. As we wrote about here, weight shift happens in ...
Why does shifting your weight sound so simple?
It sounds pretty simple, because in many ways it is. Shifting your weight like this is a very intuitive product of the way humans move — you do it as you walk without even noticing.
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