Idiots question - Taking a divot

dennyire

Hi All

Silly question but hopefully someone can give me tip.
I dont have a problem with driver or woods off the fairways but my Irons are destroying me.
I tend to either top the ball or take a divot before the ball.
I had a lesson last year and pro put a piece of tape after the ball and told me to aim for the tape.
Seemed to work well at the lesson.
Obviously I cant use tape on course and even trying to aim for a blade of grass past the ball doesnt seem to work.
Any Ideas? Where should I be aiming and should I be looking at the ball or at something ahead of it as I am hitting.
Any tips would be appreciated. I have tried you tube but nothing stands out.
Thanks in advance

ShivasIrons

dennyire wrote: »

Hi All

Silly question but hopefully someone can give me tip.
I dont have a problem with driver or woods off the fairways but my Irons are destroying me.
I tend to either top the ball or take a divot before the ball.
I had a lesson last year and pro put a piece of tape after the ball and told me to aim for the tape.
Seemed to work well at the lesson.
Obviously I cant use tape on course and even trying to aim for a blade of grass past the ball doesnt seem to work.
Any Ideas? Where should I be aiming and should I be looking at the ball or at something ahead of it as I am hitting.
Any tips would be appreciated. I have tried you tube but nothing stands out.
Thanks in advance

Maybe, get another lesson?

dennyire

ShivasIrons wrote: »

Maybe, get another lesson?

Thanks...planning that anyway for a couple of weeks time. Just thought someone might have a good tip

spacecoyote

Maybe look at Adam Young's site. He does lots of stuff around strike so would likely be a good online start point

prawnsambo

One is leading to the other. In trying to avoid fatting (hitting behind) the ball you're thinning it and vice versa. So you're dipping or standing up and your only thought is to avoid what you did wrong the last time. Which you will. Spectacularly.

Concentrate on maiintaining your posture. Take a practice swiing and just bruish the grass. Do it again. Then address the ball and keep the feeling of what your posture was like for the practice strokes. And swing easy. Don't try and hammer the ball because you'll take a hige chunk of the ground first. And the back of the ball is your aiming point.

Back swing might be too long and ending up at bad position at the top so you having to work hand & wrists to get in to bottom position. Downswing are you getting hands ahead of club head. Posture and setup can be a problem. Do you swing hard and fast instead of smooth and easy.

Alot of things could cause this so lessons are always the best way to go.

Seve OB

ShivasIrons wrote: »

Maybe, get another lesson?

this.

honestly, it could be a number of things, a lesson will find the reason within a few shots and give you somehting to work on.

neddynasty

Follow up idiots question. What's the point of taking a divot?

prawnsambo

neddynasty wrote: »

Follow up idiots question. What's the point of taking a divot?

It's not an end in itself. As the saying goes: you hit the little ball before the big ball.

The big ball being the earth. If you're coming down on the ball, the club will take a divot in front of it.

dennyire

neddynasty wrote: »

Follow up idiots question. What's the point of taking a divot?

Anything iv ever seen on you tube and watching golf on tv, a good shot means taking a divot after the ball, whether its a small divot with long iron or bigger divot with short irons/wedges and these are always after the ball.
My problem as originally stated is I dont have divot after ball so not doing things correctly. co
Thanks all for comments- duly noted and hopefully can address the problem.
As I said lesson in a few weeks and can hopefully sort it out.
In the meantime I will try a couple of suggestions made by your goodselves.
Best of luck in Castlemartyr and when I get a bit of confidence/consistency might go for an outing.
High handicapper took the game up late but enjoying it and the craic

SuprSi

I had this exact problem. I could strike my woods well, but from the fairway I rarely took divots, often topping the ball, particularly if I was playing from a down slope. In my case the problem was my head (and body) swayed a couple of inches behind the ball in the first half of my backswing and never returned, so at impact my head was behind the ball. This meant I had reached the bottom of my swing before the ball and generally caught it on the way back up.

It hasn't been easy to fix as I've had to spend a huge amount of time focusing on keeping my head in its original position throughout my swing, but I'm now striking the ball better than I've ever done, leaving lovely big divots everywhere

Having said all that, I'd agree with the suggestions around getting a lesson as the above is what the solution to my problem was, and it may be completely different to yours.

Seve OB

I wouldn't worry to much if you don't take a divot. Nothing wrong with a cleanly struck ball.

PARlance

neddynasty wrote: »

Follow up idiots question. What's the point of taking a divot?

It looks great.

Insecurity Guard

neddynasty wrote: »

Follow up idiots question. What's the point of taking a divot?

Taking a divot after the ball means you compressed the ball against the ground, maximising distance and imparting spin as the ball rolls up the clubface before taking off.

Here's something you could experiment with (assuming you are right handed): move your weight mostly to your left foot at address. Now swing, making sure the weight stays there, or increases, throughout.

GreeBo

Insecurity Guard wrote: »

Taking a divot after the ball means you compressed the ball against the ground, maximising distance and imparting spin as the ball rolls up the clubface before taking off.

The ball compresses against the club face, not the ground; otherwise you wouldn't be able to compress the ball off a tee or out of a bunker or on soft fairways.

SuprSi wrote: »

so at impact my head was behind the ball.

Head behind the ball at impact isn't a problem in and of itself, swaying is though.

davo10

Had the same issue, pro friend got me to line up with iron 3cm behind ball, I tend to move my hips forward slightly early, by lining up slightly behind ball I made contact on my upswing rather that where I would if I lined up in recommended way with club just behind ball, works for me, less divot, better contact.

diegocosta99

prawnsambo wrote: »

And the back of the ball is your aiming point.

This is it exactly. It doesn't matter whether you take a divot or not once you hit the back of the ball.

It also depends on your level. Category one players and nearly every pro take a divot as it is the best way to ensure striking the back of the ball. But it is a higher percentage strike for weaker players.

Insecurity Guard

GreeBo wrote: »

The ball compresses against the club face, not the ground; otherwise you wouldn't be able to compress the ball off a tee or out of a bunker or on soft fairways.

Well, I wasn't suggesting that we have to take a divot to compress the ball if it's on a tee... even if I've managed to actually pull off that inglorious feat more than once!

But point taken, and thanks for posting the video. I think it backs up my suggestion about trying to shift the weight forward to get that more downward attack.

Montgolfier

Concentrate on the target which should be the flag as opposed to the ball or divot.

razorblunt

I saw GMac throw a quick tip someone's way on twitter before of "turn the ball to face the brand name towards you facing down to the ground", then focus on smacking the logo off!

I've used that a few times if on a round with a newbie and they were getting frustrated with topping the ball.