Help - Lowering Trajectory

[kg1128]

My iron shots (especially short irons and wedges) have a super high trajectory, which results in a big distance loss. (I hit my driver 250 yards comfortably, and 7 iron 155yds, but my full pitching wedge goes about 110.)

I think it is caused by my body opening up too early in the downswing. My left foot spins out during impact and at finish it's at least 45 degrees open.

I don't have a video of my short iron swing, but here is a link to my driver swing (which is pretty much the same, except for forward ball position, distance from the ball).

Please let me know what's causing the problem and what i can do to fix it. thanks.

[BrianW]

Re: Help - Lowering Trajectory

I cant tell much from the video, other than maybe you should stop hitting balls off a wall

Seriously though, your distances are not bad if you are a mid handicapper. What is your handicap?

A video on the level from the front and end on would be helpful

[kg1128]

Re: Help - Lowering Trajectory

haven't played much recently, but last year my hdcp was around +10.

i guess my distances are okay, but i just want to have a more penetrating, lower ball flights. and it would be good if i could get extra 10yds with my irons.

i know you can't see much from the video, but thru my downswing-impact, you can see my left foot spin out a lot.

[jaroth]

Re: Help - Lowering Trajectory

I notice the same thing when I'm at the range hitting off of mats in sneakers. I almost always get about a 45 degree pivot off of my front foot; I'm pretty sure that's just momentum that would be otherwise counter-balanced by golfing spikes.

I battle high trajectory, too. Here are a few things that I have found useful to get a more boring ball flight:

1. Hit down. (This seems like the mantra of these forums). I envision trying to pinch or trap the ball between the club face and the mat. It felt awkward the first few times, but once you start to trust it, you'll never want to hit any other way.

1a (goes with 1). Conscientiously make your right hand your more active hand. I know when I *need* to play a higher shot, I tend to do a little more "pulling" with my left hand as opposed to driving down on the ball with my right hand. When I can't keep my ball-flight down I'll hit a few off the mat one-handed -- just to train the muscles in my right hand on how to drive through the swing.

2. I've just started to experiment with this, but I went out the other day and hit some muscle-backed irons for the first time instead of the cavity-backs that I play. I noticed right away much more of a line-drive (and more pleasing to me) ball flight. I'm not suggesting that you run out and drop a grand on a new set of sticks; but if you can head over to a local sporting goods store and hit some blades, that might be worth a change. Though if you are experiencing consistently high flight with all clubs, this is a less-likely culprit.

I hope some of this helps; I'm an entirely self-taught golfer so this isn't wisdom passed down from a teaching pro -- these are just things that I've gone to the range or onto forums like this and divined on my own.

Good luck!