Why Do I Top the Ball in My Golf Swing?
- Standing Up. In the proper address position, you should bend at the hips and flex your knees. ...
- Poor Ball Position. If the ball is too far forward in your stance, it's easy to hit it fat. ...
- Helping the Ball Up. ...
- Throwing the Clubhead. ...
- Reverse Pivot. ...
Full Answer
How do you stop topping the ball in golf?
Aug 06, 2018 · Chris Ryan shows you 3 of the most common causes of the dreaded top shot with your irons clubs.If you struggle with thin or topped shots then there is a very...
Why do you hit the ground before the golf ball?
Dec 19, 2011 · You make your best iron shots when the clubhead is still traveling slightly downward at contact and the club hits the bottom half of the ball. But many players make contact above the ball's...
How to stop topping the golf ball?
The reason you’ll be thinning it or topping it for most players is that the bottom of your arc, the lowest point of you swing, is too early. If you’re a right handed player it’s too much to the right side of the ball. You’ll just miss the ground. The club …
How to 'top' a golf ball?
However, for a golfer who wants to figure out how to stop topping the golf ball, getting rid of this move should be a top priority. Lifting your head right before impact is likely the leading cause of topping golf shots. You can do everything right throughout the entire swing, but if you lift your head early, the shot can go all wrong.
How do I stop topping the golf ball?
1:156:55HOW TO STOP TOPPING THE GOLF BALL - 5 EASY TIPS IN UNDER 5 ...YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipSo we need to make sure that with your irons. You have that golf ball in the middle of your heelsMoreSo we need to make sure that with your irons. You have that golf ball in the middle of your heels with your short and mid irons.
What makes you top the golf ball?
Typically, a ball is topped because the club has not gone far enough down towards the ball or you catch the ball on the way up, instead of at the bottom point. A lot of things can cause this to happen: A club that's too short. An awkward stance.
How do you stop topping hybrids?
1:215:15This is how you STOP TOPPING Hybrids and Fairway Woods ...YouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipIf you get behind the ball ball lean back you start to work up too quickly you can see how you wouldMoreIf you get behind the ball ball lean back you start to work up too quickly you can see how you would catch that ball sort of halfway up it not a good strike.
How do I stop topping the driver?
0:082:51How to Stop Topping Your Driver | Hit More Solid Drives - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipHand drop it down scratch the knee of your trail. Leg from there keep that posture. Put the club orMoreHand drop it down scratch the knee of your trail. Leg from there keep that posture. Put the club or your hand on the club.
What happens if you swing too far forward?
If the ball is too far forward in your stance, it's easy to hit it fat. The clubhead reaches the bottom of its swing arc before it gets to the ball. If you adjust your swing so you don't hit the ground, the clubhead will be swinging upward by the time it reaches the ball. When that happens, you have no chance of hitting the bottom half of the ball.
How to get more clubhead speed?
Throwing the Clubhead. Sometimes you try to gain extra clubhead speed by flipping your wrists at impact, but all you do is straighten your wrists before the clubhead reaches the ball. That makes the club reach the bottom of its arc farther back in your stance, instead of in front of the ball. The clubhead then swings upward sooner ...
What happens when you lean toward the target?
If you lean toward the target at the top of your backswing, you'll tend to lean away from the target during your downswing. This changes the bottom of the swing arc. If you manage to avoid hitting the ground before you hit the ball (a fat shot), the clubhead will be swinging upward when it reaches the ball – and that's the recipe for a topped shot. ...
Who is Mike Southern?
He is the author of the instructional golf book "Ruthless Putting" and edited a collection of swashbuckling novels. Southern was trained in electronics at Forsyth Technical Community College and is also an occasional woodworker.
What ruins a golf swing?
Nothing ruins a great golf swing like a loss of balance. Assuming you’re in a good set up to start, it only takes a small loss of balance to cause you to top the ball. A good check of balance is holding your finish until your golf ball lands.
How to get the ball down to the ground?
1. Bad Posture. Good posture is the basis for solid contact. Bowing forward from your hips so that your hands can hang below your shoulders can put you in balance and also get the club down to the ground. Too much knee flex or squatting can often make it extremely difficult to get the club down into the turf, and therefore get the ball into the air.
What is the most common miss in golf?
One of the most common misses is topping or thinning the golf ball. Often, a thin shot can be recoverable, but topping can be a score-killing shot, and immensely frustrating if you don’t know what’s causing it. In simplest terms, in order to get the ball up into the air — and not rolling across the ground — is to hit down into the dirt.
What happens if you stand too far away from the ball?
If you stand too far away from the ball at address, it’s almost difficult not to top the ball without a heroic move. Reaching for the ball — where your arms often get into a diagonal position — will often lead to a thin shot or a top.
How to improve your swing?
Maintaining momentum to the swing can often be a great help to this athletic movement. 10. Make up your mind and commit. Sometimes, to make a change, you have to commit to making an uncomfortable motion. It’s okay to make the opposite mistake and hit too much ground on the way to improvement.
What happens if you hit the ball too far left?
If you’ve got the ball too far left (closer to your lead foot) at address, your swing will find its bottom point before it reaches the ball. By impact, the clubhead is traveling up and over the ball, usually clipping it above the equator. If you’ve been topping the ball often, check your ball position first.
What is reverse pivot?
It’s true that the reverse pivot is a leading cause of slicing. It’s also responsible for a large percentage of topped golf shots. Briefly, a reverse pivot is when your weight shifts to the left on the backswing, then right on the downswing and follow-through – the reverse of a correct transfer.
Is the topped shot embarrassing?
Ah, the topped shot. It’s embarrassing, all right. Even worse, the ego damage is compounded by a lousy result, which moves you only a little closer to the intended target.
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.
How to avoid chunked shots in golf?
Another insurance policy you can take out against chunked shots is to keep your sternum and head target side of the golf ball. By getting into good posture and placing your upper body and club shaft evenly forward of your ball, this will produce a bottom of your arc that happens after your golf ball. The club may make a bit of a digging feel into the ground but the ball will already be gone. This allows you to use lower-lofted clubs, producing more roll and distance. Even though they have a sharper leading edge, it will contact the ground after the ball producing a crisp, low and running chip or bump and run.
What is the most important fundamental in golf?
Ball position is one of the most important fundamentals. All it takes is playing your golf ball a fraction of an inch too far forward for you to chunk the ball. I often say to my students: “you hit the ground where the golf ball should have been.”
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.
What does it mean when you get stuck in your backswing?
If your backswing is a straight line back that tends to go toward the sky and is just a lifted motion, all you will have is straight down, which tends to get stuck. It reminds me of the letter V. Straight back and up equals straight down and dig.
What happens if your stance is too wide?
Ideally, for a ball on the ground your stance should be approximately hip width, give or take a little. If you stance is significantly wider, it can often cause your hips to move too much side to side and your hip seeks being over each foot.
Why is it so hard to pull the ball on the golf course?
It is especially difficult because it is not always easy to understand or to see why the ball keeps going in that direction. As usual, we always suggest working with a swing coach to help you diagnose and treat the faults in your swing.
Why do golf clubs pull?
If you boil it down to a single sentence, a pull happens because the club face is closed at impact. That is the easy part. The difficult part is figuring out why the club face is coming to a closed position at impact. In general your club face is closed at impact for 2 main reasons: 1 Over The Top – you have too steep of a swing plane, causing everything to be closed at impact, which leads to the banana slice 2 Over Rotating The Club Face – you have an excessive amount of club rotation in the downswing
What happens if your golf club shaft is too short?
If your shaft is too flexible or not flexible enough, you can pull the ball. Also, if your clubs are too short and make you reach or too long and force you to put the ball too far forward in your stance, you have the wrong clubs. I would suggest getting fitted for clubs and allow the golf pro to tell you which clubs fit best with your height, power, and swing.
How to fade a golf ball?
1. Pull Fade/Slice. A pull fade/slice is when the ball starts left and then moves back toward athe right. You may be thinking that this is what you want your ball to do, but the problem is when you pull the ball just to fade it back towards the target, you lose a lot of distance and accuracy.
What is the first move in golf?
Your first move when you start the swing, your takeaway, usually dictates how your downswing will go. Many golfers, when they are struggling with their golf game, immediately try to fix what is wrong at the top of their swing or during their downswing.
How to get a better grip on a golf club?
If your grip is too strong for your swing, you may just have to move to a more neutral grip. Simply rotate your hands backward on the club until the “V” shape between your thumb and index finger are pointing straight down or slightly backward. A strong grip helps players who slice the ball or who desire to draw the ball, but it can also cause your club face to be closed at impact.
What is the takeaway in golf?
As mentioned above, the takeaway is very important since it sets up your entire backswing. Your club shaft should be parallel with the ground and in line with your foot line and your hands should be just to the right of your right thigh (for right handed golfers).
Why does my golf club slice?
Having the ball too far back in your stance can also sometimes cause a slice. That’s because the club will have less time to release before reaching the ball, resulting in a slightly open clubface at impact.
What is a slice in golf?
A slice is a type of shot in golf where the ball starts on a straight line and then immediately veers off to one side. For a right-handed golfer, a slice travels from left-to-right. For a left-handed golfer, the shape is right-to-left. For the remainder of this article, I’ll refer to directions based on what a right-handed player would see as ...
Where does a pull slice start?
As you probably guessed, a pull-slice begins left of your target line before coming back to the right. Unlike a push-slice, you can usually get away with a pull-slice. In fact, I know many low-handicappers who make it work.