Two views I wanted to throw out there - thinking about impact and missing on toe or heel side.

Obviously we all want to hit out the centre. But we all probably have a side (toe or heel) that we miss on more often and have a bias towards (for me it's heel).

Thinking about amateur golfers and it being unlikely we get rid of this bias, what if we instead worked on shifting it in more in one direction or another:

(1) It seems to me that missing on the toe side is generally a 'better miss' than missing on the heel side?

For example, most studies show a smaller loss of distance (and I believe less ball curve) on toe strikes vs heel strikes (only ones I can find are for the driver, so not 100% sure this applies to all clubs).

Toe misses seem to me to be easier to control and less likely to turn into a shank. But maybe that's just because I have a heel bias / hosel shank too often?

(2) If your strategy was to play a draw and take the right side of the course out of play, then it seems that a toe bias would absolutely be preferable to a heel bias?

There is lots of crap advice out there on inside contact and yes, the dreaded shank. Lots are quick fixes and lots don't even recognize that inside contact has several causes. They all seem to focus on the most likely causes.

This, however, may be the best video I have seen.



For me it was dipping my left shoulder in the takeaway, which also had a bad effect of causing my takeaway to come inside.

Since focussing on the not dipping my left shoulder, I have a better takeaway, and I don't have early extension with my right hip as some counter-move when I try and get my left shoulder back up and out of the way in the downswing.

That, and focussing on my weight at set-up being mostly in mid-foot /heels area, and not mid foot/ balls of my feet.

I think weight distribution and posture are probably two of the biggest factors in any clubface miss tendencies (heel or toe)

I've done a lot of work on weight distribution and posture, so isn't that for me.

This is a good video though - I've watched dozens of videos on shanks and there are some new ideas in this one. The right shoulder not getting square (or open) at impact (6 to 7 min in) is something I can work on from this that I haven't tried (and I know this helped my putting - my shoulders were not properly square for putting).

So far (for me) absolutely nothing has worked though - other than (1) deliberately aiming to hit toe side or (2) the drill where you set up with club face behind the ball and take a swing and try to completely miss the ball on the inside - practicing this feeling. The problem with (2) is you obviously can't use it on the course.

Been at this maybe 2 months now, including taking a lesson. Down to maybe 2-3 shanks a round, which is actually progress from the worst of it. But when you shoot 12 pars and still make an 84 (bad beat from the weekend) it doesn't feel like progress...

Part of me now thinks just aim toe on every shot and (since I have an in to out swing and play draws for every shot anyway) it will actually work for me as a strategy - but I haven't really seen this concept discussed anywhere at all ('is toe a better miss than heel') so wanted to make this thread

Does a more neutral swing path change anything? Any chance your draw path is part of the problem, or a combo of inside path and ball position that is just not working together??

If it was just "slightly" off center I would take toe side on my older irons (TaylorMade Rsi1) and either side on my new ones (Ping i525). If I was way off I would always take toe on irons, but would probably hit into the net in my garage until I could fix it. Green painter's tape on the club face and hit away...lol

On driver I would take toe hits as slightly toe is better than slightly heel imo. If extreme toe or heel they both would be awful..

I'm inside heavy and I'd much prefer hitting out the toe. Out the heel for me is a weak shot which literally goes no where. I do play for a right to left ball so unless a duck hook happens I should be in play even if I do miss it in the toe. Also for me out the toe usually goes a bit further.

I went weeks hitting out the heel then I had a bright idea to try and hit it out the toe went pretty good.

I had the shanks for years and there is no easy fix. Watched all kinds of youtube vids, got lessons, tried setting up to hit closer to the toe blah blah blah. Not much improvement.

I came across Mike Malaska on youtube 2 years ago and his philosophy on the golfswing (and impact specifically) really helped me eliminate the shanks. I saw my ballstriking improve rapidly but took about a year to really get it ingrained.

https://youtu.be/nGAw-wOmgec

Try that link or look up Mike Malasaka on youtube. Gl.

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One thing to try is to line the ball up on the hosel. Yes, you read that correctly. Line it up as if you were trying to shank it. Subconsciously you know that you have to reroute the club to avoid a shank.

For the same reason, lining the ball up on the toe usually doesn't work because subconsciously you know to have to correct that on the downswing which means making a move that would normally shank the shot.

Another possibility is to actually try to shank the ball. If you try to it's not easy.

No, none of these probably fix the actual reason why you tend to shank, but sometimes they are successful in a pinch.


Also, regarding toe heel bias, it depends on the player. If a tour player has a fade for a stock shot then missing on the heel is normally better because it still results in a cut. If a tour player has a draw for a stock shot then a toe miss is usually better.

I looked at several of his videos. I can see his right hand flip move potentially working for me if I could keep the left and hand/arm moving fast through impact. Early results felt awkward with irons because my left side stalled a bit and the flip became a fat/thin cast. But, if I get into a mode when I am having really poor iron contact I will give it a more persistent try.

I'm not great with golf terminology but ill try to explain what helped me. I hope it helps.

What helped me initially was 2 thoughts.

-keep the club-face at 90 degrees relative to swing arc

-minimal forearm rotation

compared to what i was doing before the club felt very closed at the halfway point of the backswing and shut at the top. But eventually it felt normal and all i would try to do is get the club-face to 90 degrees relative to the swing arc when the club is around my knees and I run the club into the back of the ball as Mike likes to say.

Try this video also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq4a5e92ee4

Yup. Saw this and others. As I noted, early results did not work for me. My left side stalled when trying this, that promoted an early release of right hand and boom...fat.

But am glad it works for you. I am big believer that when searching for improvements you need to find not only some instructor's approaches that make sense for you, but that your body and brain respond well too. I think this leads to different people finding different paths to game improvement.

Yeah totally agree, more than one way to swing the club to get that little white ball around the golf course. Good luck!

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It feels like years since it's been so bad for me haha.

I finally had a couple of break throughs and neither of them were anything technical (since I already tried pretty much all those fixes!) - but one close to what you suggested Arctic:

• One was watching the blur of my club face and kind of 'feeling' it go through square. Really focusing on this and nothing else.

• The second was - mainly on wedges and high irons where the shanks was worst - feeling like I was 'trying to hit a fade'. This made my club path less in to out on these shots and that feeling also helped a lot.

This is exactly what I was thinking. And I started toe duck hooking some drivers so progress haha?? (Even though driving was the main thing working before).


I tested lining up on the toe. And lining up on the hosel. And the latter actually worked better - you're right!

I did find a logical explanation in a video I watched - when you line up on the toe, it 'feels' like that you have too much room and you need to move your club face towards you to hit out the middle - so your brain will act accordingly - thus sometimes making the problem worse.