In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Ged Walters explains the main cause of fat and thin shots and demonstrates an easy drill that should help elevate your ball striking abilities! He also helps with that particularly destructive and expensive shot, the skied drive using a simple but clever drill that involves a headcover.
► This video was shot on location at Sandiway Golf Club in Cheshire.
► This video was shot on location at Sandiway Golf Club in Cheshire.
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00:00The fat, the thin and the top, the most destructive shots in golf.
00:04Jed, please, help us fix these.
00:07Um, they all live in the same house, they all come from the same issue,
00:12and that issue is not being able to control where the lowest point of the golf swing is.
00:18So, sometimes you might hear the term low point, it's the bottom of the arc of the swing,
00:23and if that is either in a real variable place or it's just way too far back from the golf ball,
00:32you're always going to struggle.
00:34And then, from there, that's where we start to sort of cast, release, scoop.
00:39All those sort of knock-on effects all come from golfers who struggle to control where the low
00:45point is. So, the low point, where should it be? Well, I mean, I've got a six iron in my hands
00:52here, but even if I had a driver in my hands, there is still a bottom to the circle, and it
00:58would be over here, it would be forward. As a reference point, you could think about it as being
01:05not a million miles away from being in line with your front heel, yeah? Because when we're making
01:13our downswing, we are moving the pressure of the body towards our target, so that is shifting where
01:19the bottom of the circle is going to be, so that's going to move it over here. So, if we think about
01:25those golfers who hit fats and thins, a lot of them keep the pressure on their trail side,
01:30so we can career into the ground back here, or we keep the club moving away from the ground to
01:36avoid that, and that's where the thins and the tops come into it. So, the bottom of the circle
01:40of the golf swing is back here, where the club wants to meet the ground. We want to shift it and
01:44move it more towards the target, so it's more on this side over here, and as you can see, as I keep
01:50doing that and brushing and hitting that part of the ground, it is on the target side of the golf club.
01:56So, a little drill that you can do to practice it is, if you're on a grass range like we are here,
02:02just get two tee pegs to create a gate and put the golf ball right in the middle. Your task is to hit
02:06the golf ball and the ground on the left-hand side of the gate. If you're on a normal driving range
02:11where you're on a mat, get some chalk, just chalk a line and then put the golf ball behind it, so that
02:18if you move the golf ball, nice strike, brush the chalk away, then you'll have the chalk dust on the
02:23bottom of the golf club. So, you're getting constant feedback on whether or not you are or are not
02:28controlling where the low point of your swing is. Jed, if you mind, let's have a look at this
02:34drill in action. So, taking your normal setup and then we just want to focus, and you can, rather
02:41than looking at the golf ball, keep your focus on the ground that's over here. So, all you've got to
02:47make sure you do is, when you get to the top of the backswing, is you are moving the pressure of the
02:51body towards the target. Some people will start to do that and then they'll sort of back themselves
02:57up. Some people will just be way over on this side. Just try and keep that focus on moving towards
03:02your target and strike your shot. And as you can see there, the divot starts right where the gate
03:11of T's are and that's where the low point, the bottom of my circle is. So, there we go. An easy fix for the
03:18top, you're thin and you're fat. No excuses now to go out and hit that perfect golf shot. And finally,
03:25we're going to be looking at probably the most expensive destructive golf shot and that is the
03:30sky. Skying your driver. Now, can you tell us why this happens and how we can go about fixing that?
03:38It's painful to watch. It's one of those where you cringe when you see it happen. You know
03:43the dread that the golfer is going to have to look down on forever until he can afford to buy a new
03:48one. It's a sort of two-pronged attack of what's happening. When we get the club traveling down
03:57too much and it can travel down too much from both in to out as well as out to in, a lot of people
04:06think it's just going to travel down steeply and then come down and across and we get this sort of
04:10contact here. Well, there are golfers who travel too much from the inside but they've got too much
04:17forward handle. So, the clubhead is still traveling down at the point of contact and the face is now
04:25this way so it's exposing the top of the golf club. But yes, down being the big key. If we're hitting
04:32down on it then the club has not reached the bottom of its circle before it's made contact.
04:39And with the driver, ideally for most of you, you need to be hitting up. And hitting up on the ball,
04:44is there any drills or anything we can do that you can take home to your driving range to help fix?
04:50There is. I've got a head cover here. You could use an empty box of balls. You buy your box of
04:57balls, take the sleeves out, use the empty box that it comes in. And really all you want to do,
05:02depending on how much down and how quickly it pops up into the air, you could probably look,
05:08I mean, if I was to put my foot here, I would say, well, if you were to put your head cover,
05:15your driver, about there, so it's probably about then 18 inches in front of the golf ball,
05:23then you just want both golf ball and club head to avoid hitting the head cover. Anyone who's
05:31hitting down, the ball will go up, but the head of the driver will just career into whatever you've
05:39got there. So if it's the empty box, it'll just obliterate the box. If it's the head cover,
05:42it'll just move the head cover out of the way. It won't damage the club, but you'll get your feedback
05:47on whereabouts your contact is. So what we want to be thinking of is when we're making our swing
05:54here, we want the club head to feel like it passes the hands a little bit more and it travels a
06:00little bit more on the up as we go through the shot. So the whole focus is not so much on trying
06:07to hit your fairway, stop your slice. It's about making sure that you avoid the object that you've
06:11put in front of the golf ball. So nice visual representation. Yeah. So hopefully it should
06:19look like this. So ball's been hit on the up and as you can see, head cover is still in place,
06:29missed by both ball and clubface. Perfect. A nice easy drill for you to take back to your driving
06:35range.