Cure For Fat Shots: Ball Position

Video Transcript

For those of you that are hitting the ball with the top of the club, rather than in the center of the club, you might be hitting the ball fat off the ground or popping it up with a wood club, it is important to know that one of the reasons you might do that is because the ball is simply positioned in the wrong place in your stance. If the ball is too far forward for instance, to reach the ball your swing would tend to go outside in, get a little bit too steep, causing you to hit down too much and go underneath the ball and hit a fat shot. If you have the ball too far back what might happen is that as you are coming in you may try to back up to get to the ball and end up dropping your shoulder and going underneath the ball that way as well. What you would like to do is find the correct ball position. The correct ball position with an iron would be if you brought the ball up from the ground the back of the ball should be on the left side of your face. To help you find the correct ball position I would like you to use the ball drop drill. What I would like to see you do is I would like to see you set up, put a ball where you think it should be, and then put a club down between your feet and even with the ball. Then get back to your address position and just drop a ball from the left side of your face. What you are trying to do is you are trying to get the ball to land just in front of the top of the shaft where the ball is located. This is how you can find the correct ball position to get solid shots rather than hitting the ball fat or popping it up.

Chuck Cook
Chuck Cook Golf Academy
Spicewood, TX 78669
Tel: 512-329-4000

Chuck Cook is instructor to such PGA Tour greats as Payne Stewart, Tom Kite, and Corey Pavin. He is listed as one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers and Golf Digest's #9 instructor in the world.

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