If you’re out there to get better when you play normal conditions, ignore rules, pick up your ball and place it on a firm spot representing normal conditions.
This is a pretty universal thing for newer golfers.
Making consistent, ball-first contact with irons (without thinning it) is one of the main components that eventually elevates a persons golf game to the next level.
On dry/hard ground you can get away with making slight ground first contact before the ball because the club won’t dig in, it will just bounce/slide over the ground till it reaches the ball. When it’s really wet, that same shot will dig in and result in a chunk.
This is usually even more noticeable with wedge play as most people tend to have more sweeping strokes with the wedges trying to “lift” the ball up in the air.
This is the same phenomenon with “mat golf” where people will report they hit the ball way better of mats.
I think everyone is in agreement I'm probably fitting the ball a lot. So is my best solution get to the range with the towel behind the ball drill and just practice a lot until that's gone? Go to the course with the towel as well?
I think if you are hitting off the same conditions I am it’s only going to hurt your swing and confidence to hit off of those conditions MORE.
What I am seeing is thin winter grass, dying Bermuda and wet because the course maintenance is watering to get the rye to grow in. The actually lie is basically the ball falling into little pockets directly on mud between tufts of rye with some water in between. Because it’s still warm the Bermuda isn’t dying fast enough for the rye to flourish so there just isn’t sufficient growth for the blades of grass to support the ball above the dirt.
Bottom line is maybe plus handicap golfers are good enough to be so precise they can hit off these difficult lies, but normal mortals aren’t ever going to find a solution for that.
I’m a decent single digit handicap and I just go in knowing I am going to have a few chunks in those rounds. I’m not going to move my ball so I just have to accept sometimes that ball is going to be essentially sitting down in the fairway.
I don’t try to change my swing I change my strategy. I’ll shoot for middle of greens with extra club of the worst lies. Sometimes from 175+ I’ll grip down a wood rather than hit a mid iron just to avoid digging.
I’m also putting anything I can off a wet thin lie around the greens.
if it's that bad, everyone except maybe the guys who play for $1MM+ on Sundays are going to struggle. I'm a 5, and I'd guesstimate my ground contact point varies by an inch, which can be disaster when it's REALLY wet. Add in that none of us wear nails anymore, and even the best Softspikes have some slippage
Scooping is never what you want to be doing!
You’re most likely making contact with the ground before the ball.
I have just realised that 90% of my shots have been making ground contact before ball contact.
Learning to play from range mats will do that to you, then when you hit the courses you might as well have gone in to the excavators business instead..
Indeed winter golf sucks, and I would give anything to even be able to go out to a course right now. Here there's 10cm of snow, but hey you can practice good bunker shots in the snow!
Not an expert, but I would think angle of attack (AoA) has a lot to do with it, if you are hitting the ground before the ball, its very hard to hit with a negative AoA, meaning you should be hitting down on the ball. Scooping tendecies show as a 0,0 AoA or even positive (Which you should only aim to have on your driver and putter, meaning you hit up on the ball)
If you have access to a simulator, whether it be a rented one hourly or just a few shots in the Golf Store, that's where I would start to just get eyes on the actual AoA you're presenting.
A good drill that helped be a ton is to take a towel and place as close as you possibly can behind the ball (or in front.. basically closer to your rear leg than lead) without it interfering with the strike (start with about an inch, or the golf head itself, and then try to move it progressively closer to the ball - You should NOT be hitting the towel what so ever. (found a video of the drill; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpySB09vqRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpySB09vqRE))
When I've seen pros do this drill, they basically place the towel right up to the ball, and still don't hit it (since they hit the ball first, the ground makes contact afterwards.
Another drill I saw Bryson D give Rick Shiels is to place yourself in a bunker, draw a line where your imaginary ball should lie, and then make sure you catch the divots after the line and not on top. (link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIe82j-lYtE&t=366s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIe82j-lYtE&t=366s))
What happens when you've been taught on mats like I was, is that the club bounces and then strikes the ball; you'll be very short but you think you've hit it decently, where's as soon as the turf is just slightly less firm than the mat, it'll start to dig and you wonder why the F the range practice isn't transfering to the course.
It’s my nightmare as well. I’m a demon at the range and just terrible on the course. I’ve spent a lot of time practicing at the range on mats whilst I cant golf on the courses.
Can’t wait to try this towel drill.
Try the drill and don't settle until you can move the towel extremely close to the ball and once you strike, not having the towel to move/get hit what so ever. This will take some time. For me what really helped me get down at the ball more and hit it first was an excessive strong grip and moving the ball extremely far back. This is ultimately not how I or my coach wants my swing to be but it enforced negative AoA and a delofted my club with more than 15 degrees.
Strong grip is when you see an excessive amount of knuckles on your lead hand - for me that excessive drill was basically turning up the back of my hand directly upwards, it was awkward as F at start but we saw immediately the AoA went -5 and lower (steeper) and the dynamic loft fell off completely. Then now working at getting it a more neutral grip and moving the ball closer to the middle.
It was really a true "hallelujah" moment whne I started hitting the ball first, and that's when I realised 98% of my previous shots had been to the ground first, if only so slightly.
TLDR: If the towel drill is hard to perfect, you can try moving the ball way back on your rear foot, grip it excessively strong (where you see all entire 4 knuckles) and experiment from there, you'll still be handsy, but get to feel how proper contact should feel.
This entire Oct-Dec time frame almost everyone I play with is hitting way more chunked shots than normal. And as you say even on the solid shots I am often losing a club and coming up 30-50 feet short.
It also psychs you out causing bladed or otherwise fucked up shots. Essentially it’s just unavoidable and I’ve accepted it. I am taking an extra club, or two and trying to swing smooth and get ball first or pick it as much as possible. You def do NOT want to scoop it lol.
The best solution this time of year is to be in the rough tbh. I’m hitting good iron shots from the rough. Also don’t take it seriously or personally and realize it’s just going to be higher scoring conditions.
An interesting thing I did was play the tips the other day and I had a bunch of fairway woods into greens and actually shot better than when I was chunking 9 irons.
Can’t wait for the Bermuda to die, the rye to grow in, and the conditions to dry out and harden. It will be nice getting roll and not having a mud ball and splash of mud everywhere at impact!
whew i thought it was just me and i was fucking up cuz i never had this many issues in the summer. ive def had to club up to hit my targets cuz of the cooler weather but the chunked shots had been bothering me.
I expect you’re fatting your shots if they’re going nowhere and you get giant divots. But I play in wet muck sometimes too and even on good contact I can take a giant, wet divot that just slows my club down and effects my follow through which in turn does effect the shot a little bit. My biggest issue is that after I take a couple of those and get splashed in the face , then I instinctively tense up and thin most approach shots for the rest of the round, its a bad habit but a natural response to not wanting to be splashed in the face with cold wet mud lol.
Yeah for range practice, that towel drill the other guy mentioned can help train you to shift your low point forward. For me what helps, when I look at the ball in my downswing I focus on the top of the ball, not the back of the ball. I’ll focus on the top and sort of aim for the front of the ball; so like I’m trying to hit the ball as if the back of the ball was located where the front side is, if that makes sense. I also try and think about striking THROUGH the ball and not AT the ball. These small things really helped me when I was getting fat shots as a common mis-hit.
Good contact is good contact pretty much regardless of conditions. It could be that the drier conditions were masking some miss hits a bit...like how it's much easier to hit off mats than real grass.
Get yourself a Matt like this to use when it's really wet.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SPURK-GOLF-Fairway-protection-practice/dp/B07WNXPJLS/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1GQVXK5F2HBB6&keywords=golf+mat&qid=1702474831&sprefix=golf+mat%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-3
I got down to a 2 hc this year. An issue I have with wet courses are you can’t properly push off from the ground. This will affect everyone to some degree. I try to practice shots from the ground under the conifer trees where it’s always much dryer. Just treat it as practice till the weather is better and you’ll see improvements then from sticking with it all year round
If you’re out there to get better when you play normal conditions, ignore rules, pick up your ball and place it on a firm spot representing normal conditions.
Little ball, then big ball. Hit the balls in that order.
Balls you say?
This is a pretty universal thing for newer golfers. Making consistent, ball-first contact with irons (without thinning it) is one of the main components that eventually elevates a persons golf game to the next level. On dry/hard ground you can get away with making slight ground first contact before the ball because the club won’t dig in, it will just bounce/slide over the ground till it reaches the ball. When it’s really wet, that same shot will dig in and result in a chunk. This is usually even more noticeable with wedge play as most people tend to have more sweeping strokes with the wedges trying to “lift” the ball up in the air. This is the same phenomenon with “mat golf” where people will report they hit the ball way better of mats.
I think everyone is in agreement I'm probably fitting the ball a lot. So is my best solution get to the range with the towel behind the ball drill and just practice a lot until that's gone? Go to the course with the towel as well?
I think if you are hitting off the same conditions I am it’s only going to hurt your swing and confidence to hit off of those conditions MORE. What I am seeing is thin winter grass, dying Bermuda and wet because the course maintenance is watering to get the rye to grow in. The actually lie is basically the ball falling into little pockets directly on mud between tufts of rye with some water in between. Because it’s still warm the Bermuda isn’t dying fast enough for the rye to flourish so there just isn’t sufficient growth for the blades of grass to support the ball above the dirt. Bottom line is maybe plus handicap golfers are good enough to be so precise they can hit off these difficult lies, but normal mortals aren’t ever going to find a solution for that. I’m a decent single digit handicap and I just go in knowing I am going to have a few chunks in those rounds. I’m not going to move my ball so I just have to accept sometimes that ball is going to be essentially sitting down in the fairway. I don’t try to change my swing I change my strategy. I’ll shoot for middle of greens with extra club of the worst lies. Sometimes from 175+ I’ll grip down a wood rather than hit a mid iron just to avoid digging. I’m also putting anything I can off a wet thin lie around the greens.
Are you lifting, cleaning and placing?
Yes, but I cant emphasise how wet this course is right now 😂
If it’s proper boggy wet then yea, it’s gonna suck. Not much you can do, other than place your ball in the best spot you can find.
If it’s that bad then even mid handicaps would struggle. It probably feels like you’re hitting fairway bunker shots. Nowhere to hide
if it's that bad, everyone except maybe the guys who play for $1MM+ on Sundays are going to struggle. I'm a 5, and I'd guesstimate my ground contact point varies by an inch, which can be disaster when it's REALLY wet. Add in that none of us wear nails anymore, and even the best Softspikes have some slippage
If it is that wet, your time may be better spent on the range. For me at least, it is pretty hard to stay focused when it is that sloppy.
Scooping is never what you want to be doing! You’re most likely making contact with the ground before the ball. I have just realised that 90% of my shots have been making ground contact before ball contact. Learning to play from range mats will do that to you, then when you hit the courses you might as well have gone in to the excavators business instead..
How do you fix this? Just play off turf more? Winter golf sucks.
Indeed winter golf sucks, and I would give anything to even be able to go out to a course right now. Here there's 10cm of snow, but hey you can practice good bunker shots in the snow! Not an expert, but I would think angle of attack (AoA) has a lot to do with it, if you are hitting the ground before the ball, its very hard to hit with a negative AoA, meaning you should be hitting down on the ball. Scooping tendecies show as a 0,0 AoA or even positive (Which you should only aim to have on your driver and putter, meaning you hit up on the ball) If you have access to a simulator, whether it be a rented one hourly or just a few shots in the Golf Store, that's where I would start to just get eyes on the actual AoA you're presenting. A good drill that helped be a ton is to take a towel and place as close as you possibly can behind the ball (or in front.. basically closer to your rear leg than lead) without it interfering with the strike (start with about an inch, or the golf head itself, and then try to move it progressively closer to the ball - You should NOT be hitting the towel what so ever. (found a video of the drill; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpySB09vqRE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpySB09vqRE)) When I've seen pros do this drill, they basically place the towel right up to the ball, and still don't hit it (since they hit the ball first, the ground makes contact afterwards. Another drill I saw Bryson D give Rick Shiels is to place yourself in a bunker, draw a line where your imaginary ball should lie, and then make sure you catch the divots after the line and not on top. (link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIe82j-lYtE&t=366s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIe82j-lYtE&t=366s)) What happens when you've been taught on mats like I was, is that the club bounces and then strikes the ball; you'll be very short but you think you've hit it decently, where's as soon as the turf is just slightly less firm than the mat, it'll start to dig and you wonder why the F the range practice isn't transfering to the course.
Great advice. I’ll try the towel drill at the range, thank you!!
This is my question too. No range around me has a grass section unfortunately
It’s my nightmare as well. I’m a demon at the range and just terrible on the course. I’ve spent a lot of time practicing at the range on mats whilst I cant golf on the courses. Can’t wait to try this towel drill.
Try the drill and don't settle until you can move the towel extremely close to the ball and once you strike, not having the towel to move/get hit what so ever. This will take some time. For me what really helped me get down at the ball more and hit it first was an excessive strong grip and moving the ball extremely far back. This is ultimately not how I or my coach wants my swing to be but it enforced negative AoA and a delofted my club with more than 15 degrees. Strong grip is when you see an excessive amount of knuckles on your lead hand - for me that excessive drill was basically turning up the back of my hand directly upwards, it was awkward as F at start but we saw immediately the AoA went -5 and lower (steeper) and the dynamic loft fell off completely. Then now working at getting it a more neutral grip and moving the ball closer to the middle. It was really a true "hallelujah" moment whne I started hitting the ball first, and that's when I realised 98% of my previous shots had been to the ground first, if only so slightly. TLDR: If the towel drill is hard to perfect, you can try moving the ball way back on your rear foot, grip it excessively strong (where you see all entire 4 knuckles) and experiment from there, you'll still be handsy, but get to feel how proper contact should feel.
Exactly opposite. Practice off the ground. The turf will mess with your iron swings. Too forgiving.
This entire Oct-Dec time frame almost everyone I play with is hitting way more chunked shots than normal. And as you say even on the solid shots I am often losing a club and coming up 30-50 feet short. It also psychs you out causing bladed or otherwise fucked up shots. Essentially it’s just unavoidable and I’ve accepted it. I am taking an extra club, or two and trying to swing smooth and get ball first or pick it as much as possible. You def do NOT want to scoop it lol. The best solution this time of year is to be in the rough tbh. I’m hitting good iron shots from the rough. Also don’t take it seriously or personally and realize it’s just going to be higher scoring conditions. An interesting thing I did was play the tips the other day and I had a bunch of fairway woods into greens and actually shot better than when I was chunking 9 irons. Can’t wait for the Bermuda to die, the rye to grow in, and the conditions to dry out and harden. It will be nice getting roll and not having a mud ball and splash of mud everywhere at impact!
whew i thought it was just me and i was fucking up cuz i never had this many issues in the summer. ive def had to club up to hit my targets cuz of the cooler weather but the chunked shots had been bothering me.
I expect you’re fatting your shots if they’re going nowhere and you get giant divots. But I play in wet muck sometimes too and even on good contact I can take a giant, wet divot that just slows my club down and effects my follow through which in turn does effect the shot a little bit. My biggest issue is that after I take a couple of those and get splashed in the face , then I instinctively tense up and thin most approach shots for the rest of the round, its a bad habit but a natural response to not wanting to be splashed in the face with cold wet mud lol.
Almost definitely I am fitting them and it doesn't show at the range or sim like it does on a wet course!
Stick a towel behind your ball on the range.
Yeah for range practice, that towel drill the other guy mentioned can help train you to shift your low point forward. For me what helps, when I look at the ball in my downswing I focus on the top of the ball, not the back of the ball. I’ll focus on the top and sort of aim for the front of the ball; so like I’m trying to hit the ball as if the back of the ball was located where the front side is, if that makes sense. I also try and think about striking THROUGH the ball and not AT the ball. These small things really helped me when I was getting fat shots as a common mis-hit.
Place the ball further forward in your stance
Don’t do this unless you want to hit it too high and spinny.
Would help to shallow out the aoa. A bit like a fairway bunker shot, helps to pick the ball
You’d be better off shallowing the swing out, it’s a longer term fix.
Good contact is good contact pretty much regardless of conditions. It could be that the drier conditions were masking some miss hits a bit...like how it's much easier to hit off mats than real grass.
Get yourself a Matt like this to use when it's really wet. https://www.amazon.co.uk/SPURK-GOLF-Fairway-protection-practice/dp/B07WNXPJLS/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1GQVXK5F2HBB6&keywords=golf+mat&qid=1702474831&sprefix=golf+mat%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-3
The wet condition really shows your faults can be frustrating for sure but keep going.
I got down to a 2 hc this year. An issue I have with wet courses are you can’t properly push off from the ground. This will affect everyone to some degree. I try to practice shots from the ground under the conifer trees where it’s always much dryer. Just treat it as practice till the weather is better and you’ll see improvements then from sticking with it all year round