How To Fix Fat And Thin Shots In Golf With These Easy Drills

Golf Monthly

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.

Transcript

00:00The fat, the thin and the top, the most destructive shots in golf. Jed, please help us fix these.

00:09They all live in the same house, they all come from the same issue and that issue is not being

00:14able to control where the lowest point of the golf swing is. So sometimes you might hear the term

00:20low point, it's the bottom of the arc of the swing and if that is either in a real variable place

00:28or it's just way too far back from the golf ball you're always going to struggle and then

00:35from there that's where we start to sort of cast, release, scoop all those sort of knock-on effects

00:41all come from golfers who struggle to control where the low point is. So the low point where should it

00:48be? Well I mean I've got a six iron in my hands here but even if I had a driver in my hands

00:54there is still a bottom to the circle and it would be over here, it would be forward.

01:03As a reference point you could think about it as being not a million miles away from being in line

01:09with your front heel. Because when we're making our downswing we are moving the pressure of the

01:16body towards our target so that is shifting where the bottom of the circle is going to be

01:21so that's going to move it over here. So if we think about those golfers who hit fats and thins

01:27a lot of them keep the pressure on their trail side so we can career into the ground back here or we

01:34keep the club moving away from the ground to avoid that and that's where the thins and the tops come

01:38into it. So the bottom of the circle of the golf swing is back here where the club wants to meet the

01:42ground. We want to shift it and move it more towards the target so it's more on this side over here

01:48here and as you can see as I keep doing that and brushing and hitting that part of the ground

01:53it is on the target side of the golf club. So a little drill that you can do to practice it

01:58is if you're on a grass range like we are here just get two t-pegs to create a gate and put the

02:04golf ball right in the middle your task is to hit the golf ball and the ground on the left hand side of

02:09the gate. If you're on a normal driving range where you're on a mat get some chalk just chalk a line

02:16and then put the golf ball behind it so that if you move the golf ball nice strike brush the chalk

02:21away then you'll have the chalk dust on the bottom of the golf club so you're getting constant feedback

02:25on whether or not you are or are not controlling where the low point of your swing is. Jed if you

02:32mind let's have a look at the uh at this drill in action. So taking your normal setup and then we just

02:39want to focus and you can rather than looking at the golf ball keep your focus on the ground that's over

02:45here so all you've got to make sure you do is when you get to the top of the backswing is you are

02:50moving the pressure of the body towards the target some people will start to do that and then they'll

02:56sort of back themselves up some people will just be way over on this side just try and keep that focus

03:01on moving towards your target and strike your shot and as you can see there the divot starts right

03:10where the gate of t's are and that's where the low point the bottom of my circle is. So there we go

03:17an easy fix for the top your thin and your fat no excuses now to go out and hit that perfect golf shot

03:24and finally we're going to be looking at probably the most expensive destructive golf shot and that

03:29is the sky skying your driver. Now can you tell us why this happens and how we can uh go about fixing

03:37that? It's painful to watch it's one of those where you cringe when you when you see it happen you know

03:43the dread that the golfer's going to have to look down on forever until Lee can afford to buy a new one

03:48um it's a sort of two-pronged attack of what's happening um when we get the club traveling down too much

03:58and it can travel down too much from both in to out as well as out to in a lot of people think it's

04:06just going to travel down steeply and then come down and across and we get this sort of contact here

04:12but there are golfers who travel too much from the inside but they've got too much forward handle

04:20so the club head is still traveling down at the point of contact and the face is now this way so it's

04:26exposed in the top of the golf club but yes down being the the big key if we're hitting down on it

04:33then the club has not reached the bottom of its circle before it's made contact and with the driver

04:40ideally for most of you you need to be hitting and hitting up on the ball is there any drills or

04:46anything we can do or you can take home to your driving range to help fix? There is I've got a

04:51head cover here you could use you know uh an empty box of balls when you buy your box of balls take the

04:58sleeves out use the empty box that it comes in um and really all you want to do depends on how much

05:03down and how quickly it pops up into the air um you could probably look I mean if I was to put my

05:10foot here I would say well if you were to put your head cover your driver about there so it's probably

05:19about then 18 inches in front of the golf ball then you just want both golf ball and club head to avoid

05:28hitting the the head cover um anyone who's hitting down the ball will go up but the head of the driver

05:37will just career into whatever you've got there so if it's the empty box it'll just obliterate the box

05:41if it's the head cover it'll just move the head cover out the way it won't damage the club

05:46but you'll get your feedback on whereabouts your contact is so what we want to be thinking of is

05:52when we're making our swing here we want the club head to feel like it passes the hands a little bit

05:59more and it travels a little bit more on the up as we go through the shot so the whole focus is not

06:06so much on trying to hit your fairway stop your slice it's about making sure that you avoid the object

06:11that you've put in front of the golf ball so nice visual representation yeah so hopefully it should

06:19look like this

06:24it's a great drive so ball's been hit on the up and as you can see head cover is still in place missed

06:29by both ball and cliff face perfect a nice easy drill for you to take back to your driving range

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