Ship---this & LiveActionPro as well as other Golf forum users. I thought ya'll may find these videos interesting. Enjoy.

Website:
www.leitzgolf.com

D-Plane Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sIQ-7DJJbU

D-Plane Video on Trackman blog:
http://blog.trackman.dk/?p=320

I am working on fixing my beginner over-the-top move. I understand the ball flight laws fairly well.

My slice cures have resulted in big hooks that start left and finish way way left. As I understand, the only thing I can conclude from this is that my path is to the right of my clubface at impact---i.e., I could still be out-to-in but hitting a hook because my clubface is way shut. I can also conclude that my path must be to the right of where the face is aimed, else I'd hit a straight pull.

I'm frustrated that I can hit a big hook and not be able to conclude that my path is in-to-out, but my question is: Is it possible to hit a ball that starts right of the target line and draws/hooks left with a path that is out-to-in? This is impossible, right? If the ball starts right of the target and ends up left of the target, the path must be in-to-out relative to the face and since the face is pointing right of the target, the path must be in-to-out relative to the target.

Is this correct? I've heard people talking about a vertical dimension and don't understand whether that can make this not true.

a decreased angle of attack would actually reduce spin, not increase it. The reason(IMO) that push draws have more spin than straight shots is that the clubface is open at impact which adds some effective loft to the face and more loft almost always means more spin.

the bolded is actually possible. If you check out the videos above, the one from the trackman blog is really good. The big factor is how much you hit down on the golf ball.

Tour pros hit down hard on all of their irons. And almost all tour pros have a swing path(trackman calls this horizontal swing path) that goes to the left of the target with their irons. So if tour pros hit the ball at the bottom of their swing arc the ball would go left. But since they hit down on the ball, thus making contact before the bottom of their arc the club at impact is actually pointing right down the target line.

The way to hit the impossible shot is to have a horizontal swing plane that goes to the left. If you were to look at it on video there would be no doubt in your mind that the guy is coming over the top of it and going to hit a cut shot. But maybe he hits down on the ball really hard, so he is impacting the ball well behind the bottom of his arc. This can actually lead to a club path(trackman measures this as the motion of the club head at impact) being slightly from the inside due to the curvature of our swing arcs. And if the club is slightly open to the target the result will be a ball that starts slightly right and draws back.

As for your swing, seems that you have some good work on your path. You are right that you could still be outside in even tho you are hitting hooks. You could have a club face that is 5* closed at impact, and a club path that is outside-in 3* which would still result in a hook even tho it is out to in. Maybe the best thing you can do is to work on your face angle at impact. Get the ball starting at your target, and then you can see what your club path is doing and start working more on that.

You may be misunderstanding the usage of AoA. Negative AoA means hitting down on the ball. Decreasing AoA (hitting MORE down on the ball) increases backspin.

The reason push draws have more backspin is the geometry of the swing plane. A push draw is hit with in-to-out, decreased AoA, and an open face. Thanks to our better understanding of golf physics, these are not guesses.

Just so I understand the argument: If the horizontal swing plane is 1 degree out-to-in and the face is open to right of the target line, I dunno, 5 degrees, nxt is saying that there is a certain amount of vertical angle of attack that can cause the ball to start right of the target line and curve left, and you are disagreeing with this?

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I hope these questions aren't a derail, but also, when most pros hit their small fade, does that mean that the clubface actually crosses the target line (when viewed DTL) by an inch or two and then comes back across it, or is the clubface inside the target line (when viewed DTL) all the way to the ball before it goes left and something else is happening that I don't understand? When a pro hits a fade, is the clubhead on the opposite site of the ball/target line from him for a tick sometime before he hits it?

The point of the thread is that a push hook with an out-to-in club path is NOT possible.


An Over-The-Top swing can produce a push hook, but only if the ball is way back in the swing plane.

The effect of this is that the club is now in-to-out at impact, even though the swing still "looks" OTT.

AoA and club path are related. Given the same swing, changing AoA changes club path. Specifically, decreasing AoA (ball back in stance) increases club path (more in-to-out). Increasing AoA (moving the ball forward in the swing plane) DECREASES club path (more out-to-in).



When a pro hits a small fade with an iron here is what's happening at impact: negative AoA (hitting down on the ball) on a slight out-to-in path (cutting across it), and the club face is pointed slightly left of the target.



The D plane videos explain this stuff visually.

Oh, this makes perfect sense to me. Thanks.





Oh, ok. I wasn't sure if the standard was a small "push fade" where the path would go straight but the face a tiny bit open (golfer aimed left) or a "pull fade" where the club goes slightly (I assume we're talking about a centimeter or something) OTT. With my current "Out-to-in is teh devil" fixation, I just assumed that the clubface (maybe sweetspot, as the amounts here are probably very small) just simply never went across the line.

I'm getting sloppy with horizontal swing plane and club path. It is possible to have HSP negative and club path positive and vice versa. This depends on where in the swing plane the ball is hit.

I didn't realize HSP and club path referred to different things. Whenever I said HSP I meant club path.

Not to be a stickler, but if when you say "increase your angle of attack" almost everyone(even in the d-plane video he uses this term) it means to hit down more on the ball, thus increasing your negative number. True it is a negative number, but let's say you hit 1* down on the ball and someone has to hit down more on it. You are going to try and hit 3* down on the ball. Nobody is going to say try to decrease your angle of attack and have it mean go from hitting 1* down(-1 in trackmans data output) to 3* down (-3 in trackmans data ouput) just because you are going from -1 to -3 which in mathmatical terms is a decrease in the number.

Also you can hit a push draw with out an increased AoA(what you refer to as "decreased AoA". That is not the huge factor on how the ball flies, thus is not really an explanation for why a push draw would have more spin. The open face at impact however will influence it, by launching the ball higher with more spin.

I know what you are saying but I'd rather not use increase to mean decrease given how AoA is defined. Mixing golf terms that have been around for generations and trackman terms that are new gets confusing.

You're right. To hit a push draw with the same AoA, you have to make your swing plane well out to the right and move the ball forward in your stance. In practice for me this is hard to do. When most people hit a push draw they do it by hitting the ball farther back in their swing plane. This type of push draw costs yardage.

Can someone break down the swing difference between the pull and the pull fade.

ie.. My best drives are normally worked down the left back to center and start at 8oclock and end up at 10 with the occasional 11oclock mixed in.. About once a round I will hit a straight pull which is longer but heading at 8 oclock and staying on that line.

I just cannot finger what Iam doing on the pulls,

If you are hitting straight pulls it will generally mean your clubface and club path are matching up. So your club may be 2* closed at impact and you swing may be 2* out to in. The pull fades some from the same clubface at impact(say 2* closed) but now your club path at impact is >2* out to in. The more out to in, the more it will fade.

'increase your AoA' should not mean more negative unless you are talking about a magnitude (aerodynamics nit itt)!

good thread regardless, has made me think a lot more about my shot shape & impact.

So lets see if I get this; Keeping the clubhead more square to the target will possibly eliminate the hard pull, but might bring on a stonger fade/slice?

Probably at first. The curve of your ball is a product of the difference between the clubface angle and club path. The greater the difference the more side spin will be produced.

If you get your clubface square at impact, the ball will now start at the target and peel off to the right depending on how out to in your club path was at impact. Once your able to square the club at impact, start working on your path(so its not so out to in) and you'll be well on your way to hitting it straighter and farther.

Thanks, will be slow process but will start with the club face squareish but aiming left of center. Gradually trying to decrease the fade to about 8 yds while centering everything more online from tee to green as it comes around...slowly (I had it for about 2 months last year but never understood why)

This info helps though; Kind of a mental blueprint that i have not really had before...

I went to the Range today and practiced after reading all these tips and here are what my clubs are doing. When I pitch Ill point my feet left of the hole, and open my club face up and I hit the ball great, ill admit some shots when left to right and some went right to left. But they all found the green or just short of it. I used my 5 iron and most of the time it went dead straight any where from 170 to 190, somtimes ill hit a slight fade like 10 to 12 or 11 to 12 oclock. On my Driver I saw a pro on Golf channel talk about a slow swing and just think about following through and I hit it with a good fade kind of like the irons most of the time, no slice at all. This I am happy, Then the UK (University of Kentucky) Girls showed up and two of them were hott!! but they were crushing the ball and making me look silly so I got my putter and practiced 6 foot putts for an hour and left.

Yeah, college golf chicks are smokin in more ways than one... I'd go putt too...

Had better results today with adjusting the fade. No pulls and only sliced the Driver when I did not have room on left (go hybids dummy) and tried to hit down middle.

Anyone have good ideas on how to hit a small fade (or draw)?

I can hit the ball straight. But my misses are a big push slice, if I forget to clear my hips or get too fast in my back swing; or a massive pull hook if I clear my hips too soon. I mean there is 150-200 yards between these 2 misses the slice is easily 60-100 yards right of target and same with the hook (but left).

Luckily I have been working on everythin and I hit it straight 70% of the time. I just want to consistantly hit a small fade or draw in the hopes of eliminating one side of the mistake. When on the range I can not for the life of me consistantly hit a small fade/draw <15 yards.

edit: Oh and I can hit those massive hooks/slices if I want to consistantly. But I can really only think of 2 holes of golf that I've ever played where it would come in handy. One is a 90 degree dog leg right around a 10 story condo. The other is an almost 90 degree dl left around a condo.

for ^^^^^

I am not a teaching pro so take this with a grain of salt. It sounds like you path is consistent and clubface is all over the map. Ex. A sq to target path with wide open face is a push cut and a sq path with a closed face is a pull hook. Due to having a consistent path I doubt you have as much variance in your hips as you think. I don't know what to tell you to do to work on face angle, that is more a golfdoc/nxtworldchamp question. But I would say get out of your head what you think is wrong and look some place else.

yea it does sound a lot like a club face issue at impact. One fun drill you can do to work on club face is to get 2 alignment poles and set up a field goal type thing on your target line.

Go about 6-8 feet in front of your ball, on your target line, and place the poles in the ground about 2 fist widths apart(at first, you can narrow them up once you start squaring the face better). Don't stand the poles straight up, lean them away from you(maybe at a 60-75* angle from the ground) so that if you hit one the ball wont come backwards or break the rod. Now just sit there and try and hit the ball through the poles, if you miss on either side you know that the club was open/closed at impact.

NICE TIP...