Ball Below My Feet

Why am I hitting this shot left?

I understand this ball will be biased towards curving to the right but I am pulling the ball ~20 yards left of my start line.

Swing thoughts? Feels?

I am the same. I think I fight against the slope too much instead of aligning with it. I don’t have much issue when the ball is above my feet, but I dread when the ball is below my feet. I generally hit a really solid pull draw way left.

Our 12th fairway gives me fits as you almost always have a below your feet downhill lie (unless you lay back to the flat), but late last year I got better at settling into the slope and making a more controlled swing/punch shot.

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I think the lie makes the ball go right, but the stance itself might promote leaning into the ball and cause it to go left… I think it’s harder to stay balanced on a shot with the ball below your feet than the ball above your feet.

That’s just my theory, though! Probably worth figuring out how to practice that shot on the range…

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Same here. I’m so aware of “ball goes right from this lie” that I try to counter that by pulling across with swing. Fore left…

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Any loss of balance, forward on that lie, can cause pulling club across your body. Hence a hook on a ball below feet lie.

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Probably lack of body movement. Easy to do when focusing on maintaining balance.

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Could be because you’re actually staying in posture better and not moving towards the ball. Being on a down hill slope causes you to load your hips more for balance, otherwise you’ll fall flat on your face or just off balance at best. Because of this your body is rotating properly and in sequence speeding your club face to impact and actually shutting the face quicker. Could be something totally different though, it’s golf. Hahaha.

Perhaps what’s happening (assuming you play right-handed) is that the heel of the club is hitting the ground first and closing the club face. I normally play a draw and making solid contact with the ball below my feet and the ground sloped away is very hard for me, so I try to compensate by trying to fade it and getting the sole of the club more parallel with the ground.

Not to just state the obvious, but the face is closed relative to the path. If it’s a pull-hook, then probably out-to-in path as well. The lie influences those things, but at the end of the day the ball flight laws remain the same. Depending on what your normal flight is, my guess would be you’re overcompensating for the lie.

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I think it is a compensation. Something about the slope is telling my brain to throw on the brakes and flip the club hard at the bottom

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I experience the same thing too and I always move my body.

The dreaded lie below your feet promotes a push shot because with a normal stance and swing the club face will naturally point that way. If you don’t believe me use a ball/face magnet So that shot will naturally go right. A normal golf swing is naturally up and around your body, if you swing too fast or hard to over compensate you will shut the face down and the dreaded pull hook…so there are a couple compensations you should make to solve that. First you want to widen your stance with a little more knee bend. That promotes better spine tilt and posture. You will still feel the body weight naturally go more on your toes instead of your heels because of the slope of the terrain, so you don’t want to fall over, that should tell u don’t swing fast or hard, slow it down to like 70%. You can feel that on your practice swing. When you align yourself pick your target but then align yourself a little more left and give yourself a little more room as the ball flight is going to naturally go left to right. Because you are easing off on your swing take a club 1 or 2 longer. This will help you feel like you are not reaching and falling over. Finally you will have to adjust your swing slightly. Instead of feeling around your body and up, try less around and a bit more upright. If you try this method you are going with the lie presented not fighting it, which we all have a strong propensity to do normally Try those things and I think you will find more comfort and more success. That’s what I used to teach my students 38 years ago and what I was taught. Tried and true methodology. Remember, just because you can normally hit a 9i 160yds, don’t let your pride or your brain get in the way. Golf is not a game of how, it’s a game of how many. Does it really matter that you had to hit an 8i or 7i to get there? No, it doesn’t. A layup in basketball counts as much as a 20footer. On the green in 2 and a 1putt is still a 3 no matter how you do it. Does that make sense, I hope I helped you a bit.