Lately, I have started to get lots of topspin (I believe) on my driver. The strike is dead center on the face, but the ball goes half the expected distance and falls like a rock. The initial trajectory is a little low (not really low) and then it just drops. Any help or ideas would be much appreciated.
David
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A couple of guesses and points. First, topspin should be impossible from a normal strike. Certainly though, we can strike the ball and deliver a lot less backspin than normal. Striking the ball high on the face will decrease backspin.
How do you know where you are striking? Feel? Dry-erase marker/foot-strike spray? Trackman data?
Do you know your launch or attack angles?
In the absence of hard data, my guess is that you’ve a slightly negative angle of attack, and you’ve slightly decreased the amount of loft you’re delivering to the ball—maybe your ball position has changed—which is causing your strike to feel the same, but is decreasing one or both of your launch and spin. Lower launched shots need lift, and that comes from backspin. Try checking your address position and setup to see if anything has changed.
Other, weirder effects. Are your driver face and ball clean and dry? Have the temperature and humidity changed from your normal conditions? But really, in the absence of a pro looking at your swing and saying, “You’re doing X now. Stop it.”, I think it’s that your ball position has changed slightly.
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I’m generally a “it’s the indian, not the arrow” kind of guy, but definitely check the face on the driver. I had a driver and later 3w where the face deformed on me. It was actually slightly concave instead of having bulge & roll. You couldn’t see it without holding a straight edge in the right spot on the face. I’m not a high swing speed player and I hit it all over the face (mostly toe), but faces are thin and the clubs were +5 years old.
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I am striking in the center based on using foot spray on the face. I was hitting on the heel a lot, so I moved the ball back one ball width and that’s when it started dropping. I will be seeing a pro next week, but would be interested in your further thoughts as I am hoping to fix it before my next round.
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I second Kevomanc’s comment above. In the meantime,…
In my opinion, you’re in “lab land”… yours is a situation that veritably sits up and begs “Play with me!” and then stares at you with big chocolate lab eyes.
First off, what does it actually feel like to you to purposefully impart top spin with the offending club? To find out, procure for yourself some oversized tees; personally, I get mine from Western Birch - they’re a specialty wood supplier that happens to market golf tees; you can get them in 3-1/2" which is perfect for this experiment. Next, go to the range and tee up high. Place the ball forward enough of your normal striking position that you can readily ascertain that you’re striking well on the upswing portion of your arc. In all seriousness, this is probably as much “top spin” (defined actually as “less than normal backspin”) as you’re ever going to practically impart on a golf ball.
You did that on purpose. Next, push the oversized tee down a quarter inch from its previous position and move your stance such that the ball is now about a clubhead width back from the where you just hit it. Smash away. In principle, you should have just imparted a discernably increased amount of backspin to the golf ball.
If you still perceive that you’re “top spinning” your drive, then you might consider repeating the whole exercise with a borrowed demo driver and see if you can replicate the results. All things being equal, the concept here is that you should be able to readily reduce the amount of backspin you normally place on a driven ball, effectively creating the “dropping like a rock” effect. If you can’t replicate these results with a borrowed club, then there’s something up with your original clubface, just as Kevomanc suggested.
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Thanks! I will head to the “lab” in the coming days… This will be fun!
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Hmmm? I would head off to visit a track man with someone that can decipher your numbers for you. It might be worth an appointment to let someone evaluate your swing. If you have new a technology driver a dead center strike is not optimal unless you are hitting it with a proper AoA and Loft Angle. I’ve never seen a ball drop like a rock if you get minimal spin rate of around 1800-1900 you should be getting decent roll out. So carry distance is shorter but you should be getting longer roll of +30 yds. at least. I used to think I was getting topspin but it was actually +side spin. The problem with that is when it is not timed perfectly you are quacking!
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That sounds like my ball flight when I was hitting hooks. They would go about half height hooking then land about 100m out and then run out to normal distance. My swing was too much in to out and I was de lofting my driver with a closed face to path.
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Hard to tell by your description but you either have not enough spin or too much spin. It is not topspin. LM data is best way to diagnose. Hopefully your Pro gets this ironed out.
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Limited flight range balls will do that, too. But I would first check the face of the driver. Had a guy who did the exact the same thing. I had never seen it in person before that. His tee shot would go low and dropped really fast, squirting to the left.
I replicated this at range yesterday while trying to hit more up with driver… Strikes were low on face. No monitor, but I’d bet slightly out to in path. Producing a glancing blow. Not only across the ball slightly, but also upwards.
Producing too much top spin?
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Spud.308 I believe is onto something. My buddy comes up on his toes really dramatic when he hits his driver instead of driving through the ball and his ball goes up and comes right back down and rolls out a lot. It looks like a pitcher throwing a drop curve. Hits dead center of the face.
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Thanks for all the input. I did go to a coach with Foresight. Two things: I am coming over the top and either slicing or hooking. And I tend to hit high on the face. Could not replicate on the Foresight. But I have improved path and strike a bit. Fingers crossed…
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Hmmm… Wonder if that’s what I do sometimes with the driver…
Temporarily out on injured reserve but will check with my teaching pro about this later in the season!
Your follow through from before the impact must have broken it’s continuous path. By trying to “flip” at the golf ball to “help” to elevate the tee shot. Golf is not like Ping Pong nor tennis, bad things happen when we try to flip the club head. To hit up on the tee shot, make sure your head ( core) stay slightly behind the golf ball until the impact is made. You will naturally come into the impact position, slightly hitting up by maintaining this position, just the same as your proper , address position. Lurching forward ( haste in weight transferring to the front side) will also cause this issue.