Help: Sliding Hips & De-Lofting the Club

Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by, we got a recent question in the inbox from a reader and I thought it would be worth sharing with you all.  If you got a question to ask about your swing be sure to drop us a line! Morgan wrote: Hi,my name is Morgan and I have come …

delofting lag more distance
Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by, we got a recent question in the inbox from a reader and I thought it would be worth sharing with you all.  If you got a question to ask about your swing be sure to drop us a line!

Morgan wrote:

Hi,my name is Morgan and I have come to a small problem. I have a controlled right to left ball flight. I am right handed. I am hitting my irons with not enough loft. I am taking big deep divots, but I'm not hitting the ball fat. The divot is starting in front of the ball. It seems to me that when I'm making contact with the ball the club is to delofted. I do not play with a forward press. I am not sure if my wrist are not uncocking or if I'm swinging 'at' the ball and not through it. Any help would be greatly appreciated

That's really a tough question to answer without seeing your swing. A college friend of mine had a similar problem, however he managed it quite well. He was able to de-loft his PW and hit it 190+ yards if he wanted to.

Hitting the ball too low, or with extra large divots can have many factors, I want to go over the most common ones to help start you out on the right track…

 

Late Release

The fact that you have large divots that start after the ball leads me to think that you are definitely creating a ton of lag and that you are attacking the ball rather steeply. This can happen if you are releasing the club late. This involves retaining your wrists in the cocked position longer than usual (usually until the club is close to or past parallel in reference to the ground). Furthermore, this technique will de-loft the club, creating shots that travel further than normal with less spin. De-lofting occurs when the shaft of the club is well ahead of the clubhead, effectively decreasing the loft of the iron. This means you may be hitting a 9-iron, but you can be de-lofting it to the effective loft of a 6-iron.

If your wrists can keep up, it is possible to square up the clubface… but usually this fault results in an erratic ball flight. You mention you do not play with a forward press, I bet this is just at address, but you should know it is possible to create the effects of one on your downswing. A great drill for this involves hitting lots of bunker shots. Doing so forces you to make contact with the sand first, this should help to release your wrists earlier in the downswing.

 

Ball Position

I would like to check your ball position in two places, address and again at impact. A ball position that is too far back at address is an obvious problem, however, a centered ball position at address can pose problems if you're hips are sliding. This is what I think is most likely for you… if your upper body is sliding ahead at impact, it has the same effect as moving the ball further back in your stance. Check to make sure you ball position is not too far back to begin with… and then work on stabilizing your lower body slightly.

This is what my college friend did, he slid his weight forward on his way into impact rather than have it back or centered as most professionals would tell you to do. Coupled with a large amount of lag, he de-lofted the club quite dramatically. He was able to control this 'technique' though and his game rarely suffered… but occasionally it got away from him in tournament situations.

If on occasion you hit massive blocks or hooks, I would bet this is your problem. Use one of my sliding hip drills, for example this double shaft drill should help you out.

Cheers and good luck,

GDG