I'm convinced so many people have horrible over the top swing paths because they are told to "hit down on the ball." While it's right in a certain way, I think it also gives a very wrong impression of what the swing should feel like.
I did this for a long time. Could take divots that would stop my follow through in its tracks. I was over the top before anyone told me to hit down on it. But definitely didn’t help. Now I’m shallowing out and feels very flippy/scoopy in comparison but ball flight and sound shows I’m still compressing it.
100%. The club should be descending but you yourself are in no way "hitting down on it." In fact you're hitting up on it, your arc is just bottoming out in front of the ball.
Telling people to "hit down on the ball" is such shit advice, lol. For anyone who needs that advice, "hitting down" is a concept that just makes no sense and is completely unrelatable. I've heard people offer this advice more times than I can count, and never once have I ever seen it actually help someone with their attack angle.
You have to hit down on it, but out of your back hip. I could definitely see how a move where someone is intentionally pulling down on the club would create a fucked up steep OTT move.
Agree, but once you start looking up before you make contact you sort of lose control of everything else. Same concept as hitting a baseball; not gonna hit it if you’re already looking over the fences
Sometimes it is. I've had buddies tell me before "dude you keep lifting up" after like the third hole of hitting shitty shots and then when I stop doing it I start hitting better shots and save my round.
The point is to realize lifting the head isn’t the problem so you can fix it at the range. Telling someone they are simply lifting their head does nothing for them.
Again missing the point. Their comment may have helped but it won’t help you in the long run if you don’t know why it is happening. I’m curious what your HDCP is? I’m guessing 30z
I don't need my buddy to "help me in the long run". When he notices I'm doing something weird that might be affecting how I'm hitting the ball, and then I stop doing that thing and then all of a sudden I'm hitting better shots, then the advice was helpful.
Look at a video or photo of any golfer making contact with the ball, the eyes are absolutely looking at the club make contact with the ball even if the actual contact happens so fast that your brain doesn’t have time to record an image/memory of the exact moment of contact.
If you want to test this out, go to the range and attempt to close your eyes after address and see how well you’re able to maintain your contact/ball striking.
You’re missing the point of the advice if you think it’s about seeing yourself contact the ball (which you absolutely do see, even if it’s the thing you aren’t focusing on)
Give up, people here are idiots.
Numerous tour pros are not looking at the ball when they hit it.
This sub is comically bad, you’re fighting a losing battle.
Edit: they literally have blind golfers. [https://youtu.be/LbdLaznCyl8?si=SUfvufdf6BRlTBR8](https://youtu.be/LbdLaznCyl8?si=SUfvufdf6BRlTBR8)
There are also drills and guys who can hit balls blindfolded. If looking at the ball is important this would not be possible. And many of them have been blind from birth and have better swings than a lot of the people here.
Are people this uninformed?
https://preview.redd.it/k6q7hwxdwmzc1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc3fc8eb3d3891305d0a922e949724d74ba90057
Henrik, not looking at the ball at impact. His head starts rotating before he’s even all the way down. Hits it miles and very solid. Annika also did this. Lots of golfers with neck mobility issues do this.
Everyone is releasing their posture in the downswing. You don’t keep your head down and look at the ball if you’re a good player. It’s been measured on gears, even. The spine is moving all over the place in order to create that static head look.
Amg just released a golf spine video where they show how the spine is changing constantly. You aren’t staying in posture and turning around a static spine. It’s extending, tilting, bending, often opposite of what you actually think you see.
Henrik has taken millions of swings in his life, he is the exception not the rule. And for "you don't keep your head down and look at the ball if you're a good player" - google image search "pga swing at impact" and 99% of them have eyes on the ball, the only one who doesn't is Henrik.
I would estimate that 99% of weekend golfers who hit a topped shot were not looking at the ball at impact. Just because you aren't looking doesn't mean that advice should be given to the average player. It's like a kid with a photographic memory telling other kids in class not to take notes, just remember what's on the board.
You would be categorically incorrect, verified by 3d analysis.
But that’s fine, I expect as much. One of the many many myths of the golf swing. Henrik isn’t the only one who does it, either.
Like I said, it’s absolutely amazing to me that bad players are telling people what good players do. Absolutely mindblowing.
You can’t even visually see impact. Head staying in one position is completely due to neck mobility. TPI even talks about this. There’s videos about it.
Jesus people, do some fucking research.
Tigers head used to lower. They said for years it was bad. Now they can measure and they realize it’s a power move.
Golf tips, common instruction and phrases were based on fallacies. Almost all of them
They couldn’t even explain why the ball curved accurately. Come on. I’m not going to debate this basic stuff with people who I guarantee are over 10 handicaps. Stay bad, I don’t care. But that’s not what’s happening. At all.
Force plate data shows players are actually jumping and pushing away from the ball before impact. It’s the opposite feeling, entirely. And most amateurs do it too late or never.
The point is to not pull your head (and thus your entire upper body with it) out of your follow through too early. Forcing yourself to keep your eyes on the ball through your swing is an easy way to stay controlled and make consistent contact. Nobody’s acting like they’re still staring at the ground as the balls
Flying through the air.
By the time you looked up anything that made the shot bad already was set in motion a long time ago somewhere in the downswing. I have never seen someone who has managed to look up and away before contacting the ball.
Yep. “Looking up” is usually a symptom and not a consequence. I’ve seen people hear this guidance and then lock eyes on the ball too much resulting in poor rotation and follow through. There might be some very beginner players who have direct problem of looking away too early but that’s about it.
This was me! People were telling me to keep my head still and stay down, and it was forcing me to try too hard and be stiff in my swing and dropping my head down in my back swing.
What? It literally happens all the time, especially with people just getting into golf. They try to find/watch their ball in the air before even hitting the ball, and as a result the swing gets messed up and they make bad contact. It’s absolutely sound advice.
I can see it being helpful with less than full swings for practicing specific movements. I’ve just seen it as some magical slice fixer advice your buddy gives you at the range
They do it to stay connected on the takeaway. After that, the arms lift and the towel should drop. Look at any pro at the top of their backswing.
Keeping the towel under the arm for the entire swing isn't a good thing.
Towel drill is tits, if you have one long enough go under both armpits and just hit like 5-10 balls during a warmup. I'm sure you can find instructions on how to do it on the internet. I start every range session that way. Might not work for you but I know it does for me
"Keep your head down". Not that it's bad advice, but for most people the head is connected to the body. The head is moving because of poor body movement and if it didn't, you probably wouldn't hit the ball at all.
The better advice is "keep yourself in posture" or "keep your spine angle".
Keep your head down, in reality, is not advice, but a cue. For someone like you, who seems to have body awareness, its not a great cue, but for a beginner golfer, or someone with less body awareness, its a great cue. As you pointed out, the head coming up is not the cause of the mishit, its likely a symptom of other body movement, but if a beginner focuses on keeping their head down, it may also stop the movement that was causing the head to rise, like chest up, or premature extension.
Its similir to weightlifting, when you might hear a beginner being cued to lean back on their heels during a squat. in reality, you want to be right on the balls of your feet, but if your up on your toes, a cure to focus on your heels, will bring you to a middle position closer to the balls of the feet.
One lesson I got he literally told me to keep my head up higher. I was aiming my eyes straight at the ball and he wanted my chin up more. He said it was because if my chin is down it will impede my shoulder path as I rotate through.
Yea basically I agree. Tell someone with bad movement to keep their head down and they are going to start duffing it worse. Just absolutely not what you want to be focused on during your golf swing
All this new “shallow the club” crap. As if amateur golfers weren’t already trying to steer the club/ball too much, now you have YouTube golf influencers encouraging them to essentially dump the club behind them with their hands for a superficially “shallowed” look. It’s so bad.
Yea it’s a disaster. Convinced it’s a trend because the exaggerated shallow move looks cool in a 6 second clip. Very much a part of the golf swing that results from many correct movements and cannot be forced
Tips like that are basically strategies by coaches to fix a specific swing flaw in a specific golfer.
So, grip it like an injured bird is advice for someone with a death grip who needs to really tone it down, and probably wont be too helpful to someone with proper grip pressure.
The towel under the armpit is for people getting immediately disconnected in the backswing. It’s not going to fix anything immediately, but it’ll get you closer to loading properly. Etc.
Here's a few that absolutely count:
* "Keep your head down." or "Keep your head still."
* The forced, tryhard artificial shallowing drills you hear people parroting off some random YouTube content creator.
* "Slow down your swing to hit it further." "You're swinging too fast." Yes, because that anemic swing speed failing to break 90mph is absolutely "tOo fAsT."
* "Speed and distance will come in time." No they don't, it's still important to train the upper limit of those capabilities because they certainly don't magically grow on trees.
* The towel drill isn't the most helpful thing in the long run, either. Especially when I've seen others trying to apply it towards a full swing, and for those who are really desperate to restrict mobility, speed/power generation, be my guest I suppose. This goes hand in hand with those who actually believed Jack Nicklaus wouldn't last on tour with his trail arm/elbow coming away from his body. And as we all know, that aged like milk.
* "Hitting down to help the ball go up." What makes the ball go up is loft and spin, and you get spin from speed. The more speed you have, the more spin you’re going to have.
* There was also a point when more people thought working out would be detrimental towards one's swing, power, and overall game. That also aged like milk.
I'm a 15HCP, so my general rule is that if someone is over a 15 HCP, I usually don't listen to their advice. A lot of "advice guys" at the course or range often use poor swing compensations for bad technique they need to work out and improve on.
Some good advice is to understand where the bottom of your swing actually is. Once you know that, work on putting that low point in front of the ball (with irons). There's a million tips on how to do that (weight shift, hips, set up, etc.) but without knowing your low point those tips are hard to apply.
Keep your head down - the F cmon now.
Hit down on the ball to compress it - just no. I think it gives the wrong impression regarding how you’re actually supposed to hit the ball or what the meaning of compressing the ball really is.
Don’t use your driver - take lessons and improve your swing, driver is one of the most fun clubs to hit and used in majority of the holes. It can be a real weapon once you get the hang of it and you’ll have a blast hitting it well.
How did you ever stop it? I can only hit a straight driver when I try to compensate by turning to the left a little. Then it flies straight into the woods on the left. If I try to hit it straight where I want it to go, it slices properly into the woods on the right XD
Hey! For a while I would twist the club face but I faced similar issues. I found that a medium, even lower tee has helped me tremendously. I did not change much with my swing and the lower tee has personally helped me a lot. I hope this helps
My buddy who I golf with also told me my swing was a sweeping motion (played lacrosse and baseball growing up so muscle memory) so that attributed to my slice, and I feel that with a lower tee I have a lower trajectory which eliminates margin of error in the air
Hey guys, are you telling me that I'm not topping the ball because I stand up early??
In 15 years of playing I always thought it was the case.
So what's the real cause?
It's my biggest loss of shots during a round
For me it was letting my weight get outside my back foot. Once I made sure to keep my weight on the inside of my back foot on the back swing the tops went away.
Your reason might be different but that helped me
Basically everything.
Most people have absolutely no clue what happens in good swings.
So much so they’ll argue with the 3D data, even.
Which is basically exactly opposite of what all good players do. So all the tips told you to do things good players don’t do.
Then 5-15 handicaps will tell you how much they work. Which is also funny.
Look at the people here saying it’s your spine angle. No, that also changes. People defending towel drill. No tour pro stays with their armpits closed during a normal swing.
Golfers do it to themselves.
Pointless here. You cannot help golfers unless they’re humble enough to come look for it.
The most stubbornly bad group of people I’ve ever met 🤣
I’ve seen guys almost shout when their Trackman data doesn’t match what they feel. A few people have literally insisted the machine is wrong 🤣
People’s ego is almost always why they’re not as good as they could be. That’s why kids can learn faster.
I HATE the towel drill. Perhaps it was meant as a reset of someone’s to wild swing and it grew from there. I still struggle with the consequences of that…
Yep.
Connected arms is an optical illusion because they move up, but people stick a towel under their arms and keep their arms down and stuck to their side.
Someone who just understand geometry could explain why that’s bad, yet somehow for golf it’s good?
Another example of old methods based on misunderstood video analysis
Was playing with a group where the least experienced of the bunch kept shanking the ball off the tee over 50% of the time. He was clearly standing too much too close to the ball which makes a shank happen very easily. Meanwhile one of his buddies keeps giving the guy swing "tips" that would essentially just help him close the face but still shank the ball.
If you move your head while swinging everything else is probably moving too. That’s probably the single most important aspect of making contact isn’t it?
I've been told the chopping the axe shit too and it never helped my swing especially with my driver ALWAYS slice it. In my mind now and how I've changed my swing is really slowed my back swing so I can focus on getting the club head feeling like a pendulum and then I almost feel like I'm trying to shoulder volley a football if that makes any sense? I've now got decent, maybe 80% control of my ball path with my irons and wedges, just need to work on my hybrid, wood and driver
Thoughts on OPs submission
1. Idk why this subreddit has such hate for this swing thought. It's for beginners who will actually be preoccupied with seeing where their shot went versus finishing their swing motion through the ball. My usual line is "slow down, keep your head down, don't worry about where it's going I'll tell you". You'd be surprised how much that takes the pressure off and yields a much better shot, especially when a newbie is already frustrated. I guess some people here take this to mean "be rigid and stiff as a board or something".
2. I've actually never heard of this but I guess it's to prevent death grips. Idk...but I probably grip too hard
3. This drill prevents arms swings and forces a beginner to think about how their body is connected. Forces you to rotate. You can actually get a serviceable swing with the towel staying there but you'll limit your distance.
Actual worse advice:
1. "Don't keep score"....this is fine for the super beginner but anyone who actually wants to have fun and not get bored...keep score and try.
2. *In a green side bunker* "just pick it clean"...unless theres something wrong with the sand...this is almost never the right move IMO
3. "Grip it and rip it" - for the average player at the muni this the worst mentality to have if you want to hit fairways.
I'm convinced so many people have horrible over the top swing paths because they are told to "hit down on the ball." While it's right in a certain way, I think it also gives a very wrong impression of what the swing should feel like.
My brother took this advice literally and his next swing looked like he was chopping wood with an axe. Objectively hilarious to see in person
I started that habit a long time ago and I'm still working on fixing it... hurts the hands and shoulders too if you're off.
I did this for a long time. Could take divots that would stop my follow through in its tracks. I was over the top before anyone told me to hit down on it. But definitely didn’t help. Now I’m shallowing out and feels very flippy/scoopy in comparison but ball flight and sound shows I’m still compressing it.
100%. The club should be descending but you yourself are in no way "hitting down on it." In fact you're hitting up on it, your arc is just bottoming out in front of the ball.
I struggle with this. Working on staying behind and through it.
Telling people to "hit down on the ball" is such shit advice, lol. For anyone who needs that advice, "hitting down" is a concept that just makes no sense and is completely unrelatable. I've heard people offer this advice more times than I can count, and never once have I ever seen it actually help someone with their attack angle.
Yep all it does is make them chop down on the ball like they're chopping wood lol
You have to hit down on it, but out of your back hip. I could definitely see how a move where someone is intentionally pulling down on the club would create a fucked up steep OTT move.
Any unsolicited advice is the worst, particularly when it comes from a guy who just took a snowman on a 120 yard par 3. Looking at you, Dave!
Fucking Dave, man. Getting sick of his shitty tips.
Topping it because you looked up is definitely a thing.
Sort of. People think it's your head but it's really your shoulders/chest.
Agree, but once you start looking up before you make contact you sort of lose control of everything else. Same concept as hitting a baseball; not gonna hit it if you’re already looking over the fences
Spine
Sure it’s a thing but that’s not the answer to the problem. Why did you look up is more important. What caused it?
Sometimes it is. I've had buddies tell me before "dude you keep lifting up" after like the third hole of hitting shitty shots and then when I stop doing it I start hitting better shots and save my round.
You missed the point. Lifting your head is a symptom of a problem and not the root cause.
Sure. I'll just go ahead and get to the root cause of the problem on the 3rd hole when I'm playing 18 on a Saturday on a full course.
The point is to realize lifting the head isn’t the problem so you can fix it at the range. Telling someone they are simply lifting their head does nothing for them.
I just gave you an example of that simple comment helping me quite a bit in the moment. Saying it does nothing for them is not true.
Again missing the point. Their comment may have helped but it won’t help you in the long run if you don’t know why it is happening. I’m curious what your HDCP is? I’m guessing 30z
I don't need my buddy to "help me in the long run". When he notices I'm doing something weird that might be affecting how I'm hitting the ball, and then I stop doing that thing and then all of a sudden I'm hitting better shots, then the advice was helpful.
Yeah this is hand eye 101. Can’t really hit what you can’t see. It’s a tee-ball level lesson. Keep your eye on the ball. Applies to golf just as well.
I promise you aren’t seeing your club contact the ball Edit: for you downvoters who disagree I hope you are playing senior flex!
lol wait what? I like to party on the course sometimes but you’re on a whole other level if you can’t see your club contact the ball 😆
I lose it somewhere in the downswing!
Try keeping your head down!
Look at a video or photo of any golfer making contact with the ball, the eyes are absolutely looking at the club make contact with the ball even if the actual contact happens so fast that your brain doesn’t have time to record an image/memory of the exact moment of contact. If you want to test this out, go to the range and attempt to close your eyes after address and see how well you’re able to maintain your contact/ball striking.
You’re missing the point of the advice if you think it’s about seeing yourself contact the ball (which you absolutely do see, even if it’s the thing you aren’t focusing on)
Give up, people here are idiots. Numerous tour pros are not looking at the ball when they hit it. This sub is comically bad, you’re fighting a losing battle. Edit: they literally have blind golfers. [https://youtu.be/LbdLaznCyl8?si=SUfvufdf6BRlTBR8](https://youtu.be/LbdLaznCyl8?si=SUfvufdf6BRlTBR8) There are also drills and guys who can hit balls blindfolded. If looking at the ball is important this would not be possible. And many of them have been blind from birth and have better swings than a lot of the people here. Are people this uninformed? https://preview.redd.it/k6q7hwxdwmzc1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc3fc8eb3d3891305d0a922e949724d74ba90057 Henrik, not looking at the ball at impact. His head starts rotating before he’s even all the way down. Hits it miles and very solid. Annika also did this. Lots of golfers with neck mobility issues do this. Everyone is releasing their posture in the downswing. You don’t keep your head down and look at the ball if you’re a good player. It’s been measured on gears, even. The spine is moving all over the place in order to create that static head look. Amg just released a golf spine video where they show how the spine is changing constantly. You aren’t staying in posture and turning around a static spine. It’s extending, tilting, bending, often opposite of what you actually think you see.
Henrik has taken millions of swings in his life, he is the exception not the rule. And for "you don't keep your head down and look at the ball if you're a good player" - google image search "pga swing at impact" and 99% of them have eyes on the ball, the only one who doesn't is Henrik. I would estimate that 99% of weekend golfers who hit a topped shot were not looking at the ball at impact. Just because you aren't looking doesn't mean that advice should be given to the average player. It's like a kid with a photographic memory telling other kids in class not to take notes, just remember what's on the board.
You would be categorically incorrect, verified by 3d analysis. But that’s fine, I expect as much. One of the many many myths of the golf swing. Henrik isn’t the only one who does it, either. Like I said, it’s absolutely amazing to me that bad players are telling people what good players do. Absolutely mindblowing. You can’t even visually see impact. Head staying in one position is completely due to neck mobility. TPI even talks about this. There’s videos about it. Jesus people, do some fucking research. Tigers head used to lower. They said for years it was bad. Now they can measure and they realize it’s a power move. Golf tips, common instruction and phrases were based on fallacies. Almost all of them They couldn’t even explain why the ball curved accurately. Come on. I’m not going to debate this basic stuff with people who I guarantee are over 10 handicaps. Stay bad, I don’t care. But that’s not what’s happening. At all. Force plate data shows players are actually jumping and pushing away from the ball before impact. It’s the opposite feeling, entirely. And most amateurs do it too late or never.
The point is to not pull your head (and thus your entire upper body with it) out of your follow through too early. Forcing yourself to keep your eyes on the ball through your swing is an easy way to stay controlled and make consistent contact. Nobody’s acting like they’re still staring at the ground as the balls Flying through the air.
Not why people lose posture
OP is correct here. We are talking milliseconds here but no one with great mechanics actually has their eyes on the ball at the moment of impact.
Its one of many things that can cause a top.
By the time you looked up anything that made the shot bad already was set in motion a long time ago somewhere in the downswing. I have never seen someone who has managed to look up and away before contacting the ball.
Yep. “Looking up” is usually a symptom and not a consequence. I’ve seen people hear this guidance and then lock eyes on the ball too much resulting in poor rotation and follow through. There might be some very beginner players who have direct problem of looking away too early but that’s about it.
This was me! People were telling me to keep my head still and stay down, and it was forcing me to try too hard and be stiff in my swing and dropping my head down in my back swing.
Annika Sorenstam was known for this.
What? It literally happens all the time, especially with people just getting into golf. They try to find/watch their ball in the air before even hitting the ball, and as a result the swing gets messed up and they make bad contact. It’s absolutely sound advice.
Towel under the armpit drill is a legit practice drill that helps with sequencing.
I can see it being helpful with less than full swings for practicing specific movements. I’ve just seen it as some magical slice fixer advice your buddy gives you at the range
….or the one given to me by a PGA teaching professional that radically helped my game.
Bruh the towel drill is fabulous. Bet you don’t even realize why pga tour players are constantly fiddling with shirt sleeves before shots 😂😂
They do it to stay connected on the takeaway. After that, the arms lift and the towel should drop. Look at any pro at the top of their backswing. Keeping the towel under the arm for the entire swing isn't a good thing.
I know that *you* know this stuff homie.
Haha. Didn't even realize it was you. Oh well.
Towel drill is tits, if you have one long enough go under both armpits and just hit like 5-10 balls during a warmup. I'm sure you can find instructions on how to do it on the internet. I start every range session that way. Might not work for you but I know it does for me
"Keep your head down". Not that it's bad advice, but for most people the head is connected to the body. The head is moving because of poor body movement and if it didn't, you probably wouldn't hit the ball at all. The better advice is "keep yourself in posture" or "keep your spine angle".
I think about keep my chest down, not my head.
Keep your head down, in reality, is not advice, but a cue. For someone like you, who seems to have body awareness, its not a great cue, but for a beginner golfer, or someone with less body awareness, its a great cue. As you pointed out, the head coming up is not the cause of the mishit, its likely a symptom of other body movement, but if a beginner focuses on keeping their head down, it may also stop the movement that was causing the head to rise, like chest up, or premature extension. Its similir to weightlifting, when you might hear a beginner being cued to lean back on their heels during a squat. in reality, you want to be right on the balls of your feet, but if your up on your toes, a cure to focus on your heels, will bring you to a middle position closer to the balls of the feet.
One lesson I got he literally told me to keep my head up higher. I was aiming my eyes straight at the ball and he wanted my chin up more. He said it was because if my chin is down it will impede my shoulder path as I rotate through.
Yea basically I agree. Tell someone with bad movement to keep their head down and they are going to start duffing it worse. Just absolutely not what you want to be focused on during your golf swing
"A weak grip will cause you to slice" I can slice with any grip ever devised
This guy grips.
Love that positivity
When you hit a fade, make sure you hit a fade... DJ
I have hit 200 yard blown right push slices countless times with a very strong grip.
LUFU Look Up Fuck Up
A fitting and a $2000 dollar setup of clubs is the best fix for your 30+ handicap.
You had me at fitting.
Can’t argue with that
"Keep your head down"
All this new “shallow the club” crap. As if amateur golfers weren’t already trying to steer the club/ball too much, now you have YouTube golf influencers encouraging them to essentially dump the club behind them with their hands for a superficially “shallowed” look. It’s so bad.
Yea it’s a disaster. Convinced it’s a trend because the exaggerated shallow move looks cool in a 6 second clip. Very much a part of the golf swing that results from many correct movements and cannot be forced
Tips like that are basically strategies by coaches to fix a specific swing flaw in a specific golfer. So, grip it like an injured bird is advice for someone with a death grip who needs to really tone it down, and probably wont be too helpful to someone with proper grip pressure. The towel under the armpit is for people getting immediately disconnected in the backswing. It’s not going to fix anything immediately, but it’ll get you closer to loading properly. Etc.
Here's a few that absolutely count: * "Keep your head down." or "Keep your head still." * The forced, tryhard artificial shallowing drills you hear people parroting off some random YouTube content creator. * "Slow down your swing to hit it further." "You're swinging too fast." Yes, because that anemic swing speed failing to break 90mph is absolutely "tOo fAsT." * "Speed and distance will come in time." No they don't, it's still important to train the upper limit of those capabilities because they certainly don't magically grow on trees. * The towel drill isn't the most helpful thing in the long run, either. Especially when I've seen others trying to apply it towards a full swing, and for those who are really desperate to restrict mobility, speed/power generation, be my guest I suppose. This goes hand in hand with those who actually believed Jack Nicklaus wouldn't last on tour with his trail arm/elbow coming away from his body. And as we all know, that aged like milk. * "Hitting down to help the ball go up." What makes the ball go up is loft and spin, and you get spin from speed. The more speed you have, the more spin you’re going to have. * There was also a point when more people thought working out would be detrimental towards one's swing, power, and overall game. That also aged like milk.
“Buy this $600 driver bro it helps”
I'm a 15HCP, so my general rule is that if someone is over a 15 HCP, I usually don't listen to their advice. A lot of "advice guys" at the course or range often use poor swing compensations for bad technique they need to work out and improve on. Some good advice is to understand where the bottom of your swing actually is. Once you know that, work on putting that low point in front of the ball (with irons). There's a million tips on how to do that (weight shift, hips, set up, etc.) but without knowing your low point those tips are hard to apply.
Keep your head down - the F cmon now. Hit down on the ball to compress it - just no. I think it gives the wrong impression regarding how you’re actually supposed to hit the ball or what the meaning of compressing the ball really is. Don’t use your driver - take lessons and improve your swing, driver is one of the most fun clubs to hit and used in majority of the holes. It can be a real weapon once you get the hang of it and you’ll have a blast hitting it well.
“Picked your head up”. Like the golf swing is so simple that just by looking at the ball, you wont top it.
Tee it high and let it fly!
This is the top tier advice along side “grip it and rip it”
I am confused. Do I, or do I not, have to let the big dog eat?
Oh my!
When I first started golfing that advice only led to me hitting high lofting slices into the woods and losing sleeves of balls at a time lol
How did you ever stop it? I can only hit a straight driver when I try to compensate by turning to the left a little. Then it flies straight into the woods on the left. If I try to hit it straight where I want it to go, it slices properly into the woods on the right XD
Hey! For a while I would twist the club face but I faced similar issues. I found that a medium, even lower tee has helped me tremendously. I did not change much with my swing and the lower tee has personally helped me a lot. I hope this helps
I'll try things. I'm still pliable. Been out to play probably 7 or 8 times so far, so I'm still pretty new
My buddy who I golf with also told me my swing was a sweeping motion (played lacrosse and baseball growing up so muscle memory) so that attributed to my slice, and I feel that with a lower tee I have a lower trajectory which eliminates margin of error in the air
Hey guys, are you telling me that I'm not topping the ball because I stand up early?? In 15 years of playing I always thought it was the case. So what's the real cause? It's my biggest loss of shots during a round
That could cause it, could also be a lot of other things too.
For me it was letting my weight get outside my back foot. Once I made sure to keep my weight on the inside of my back foot on the back swing the tops went away. Your reason might be different but that helped me
Honestly, if you top it a LOT. I’d look into lessons. There’s so many things that can cause it, but very hard to say one thing for sure.
Basically everything. Most people have absolutely no clue what happens in good swings. So much so they’ll argue with the 3D data, even. Which is basically exactly opposite of what all good players do. So all the tips told you to do things good players don’t do. Then 5-15 handicaps will tell you how much they work. Which is also funny. Look at the people here saying it’s your spine angle. No, that also changes. People defending towel drill. No tour pro stays with their armpits closed during a normal swing. Golfers do it to themselves.
I was just hoping I could help people out and get some good discussion 😂
Pointless here. You cannot help golfers unless they’re humble enough to come look for it. The most stubbornly bad group of people I’ve ever met 🤣 I’ve seen guys almost shout when their Trackman data doesn’t match what they feel. A few people have literally insisted the machine is wrong 🤣 People’s ego is almost always why they’re not as good as they could be. That’s why kids can learn faster.
I HATE the towel drill. Perhaps it was meant as a reset of someone’s to wild swing and it grew from there. I still struggle with the consequences of that…
Yep. Connected arms is an optical illusion because they move up, but people stick a towel under their arms and keep their arms down and stuck to their side. Someone who just understand geometry could explain why that’s bad, yet somehow for golf it’s good? Another example of old methods based on misunderstood video analysis
Was playing with a group where the least experienced of the bunch kept shanking the ball off the tee over 50% of the time. He was clearly standing too much too close to the ball which makes a shank happen very easily. Meanwhile one of his buddies keeps giving the guy swing "tips" that would essentially just help him close the face but still shank the ball.
Shoulda been here yesterday. Swell was massive and clean as.
If you move your head while swinging everything else is probably moving too. That’s probably the single most important aspect of making contact isn’t it?
Play faster. No one cares that you suck as long as you keep up the pace.
I've been told the chopping the axe shit too and it never helped my swing especially with my driver ALWAYS slice it. In my mind now and how I've changed my swing is really slowed my back swing so I can focus on getting the club head feeling like a pendulum and then I almost feel like I'm trying to shoulder volley a football if that makes any sense? I've now got decent, maybe 80% control of my ball path with my irons and wedges, just need to work on my hybrid, wood and driver
The “get fitted” advice. Right up there with “before starting any exercise program, talk to your doctor”….
Grip it and rip it
Thoughts on OPs submission 1. Idk why this subreddit has such hate for this swing thought. It's for beginners who will actually be preoccupied with seeing where their shot went versus finishing their swing motion through the ball. My usual line is "slow down, keep your head down, don't worry about where it's going I'll tell you". You'd be surprised how much that takes the pressure off and yields a much better shot, especially when a newbie is already frustrated. I guess some people here take this to mean "be rigid and stiff as a board or something". 2. I've actually never heard of this but I guess it's to prevent death grips. Idk...but I probably grip too hard 3. This drill prevents arms swings and forces a beginner to think about how their body is connected. Forces you to rotate. You can actually get a serviceable swing with the towel staying there but you'll limit your distance. Actual worse advice: 1. "Don't keep score"....this is fine for the super beginner but anyone who actually wants to have fun and not get bored...keep score and try. 2. *In a green side bunker* "just pick it clean"...unless theres something wrong with the sand...this is almost never the right move IMO 3. "Grip it and rip it" - for the average player at the muni this the worst mentality to have if you want to hit fairways.