We've launched the new forums! Read more here

Driver 'dropkicks'

L

luckydutch

Active member
Joined
Jul 18, 2021
Messages
203
Reaction score
59
I've found myself hitting the ground before the ball a fair bit with my driver recently and I'm struggling to diagnose it. Hoping someone here can help.

I believe it may be one of, or a combination of, two things:
  1. When I line up to the ball, I make sure that my club face is dead-straight to the target when next to the ball. However, when driver head is resting on the floor next to the tee, it is past the apex of the swing so when I draw back and then swing to return the club to the same position, is clunks the floor at the apex of the swing roughly in the middle of my feet
  2. I first learnt to drive by watching a Rich Shiels series on driver and in that series he talks about dropping the right shoulder slightly to angle the body and hit up more on the ball to get more height on the drive. I attempt to do this but I wonder whether this is also causing me to hit the ground in the swing? With my irons, I deliberately shift my hips slightly towards the target to ensure that I hit the ball first and the turf second. Is dropping my right shoulder almost like the reverse of this?
How can I adjust my technique so I hit up on the ball without chunking the ground at the apex of my swing?
 
Without seeing a video of your swing, this would be hard to diagnose. There are a number of reasons this could be happening.
 
I get that from time to time. For me, it's either trying to hit it too hard - faster swing, out of control, or slightly looking up/away. When I get those issue under control the drop kick goes away as well.
 
When I have done it, it was always trying to "hit" to soon with the hands.
 
I bet your down and through swing is all arms.
 
Probably leaning back on your downswing trying to shallow the club too. Our minds make us do things we do not intend to make us find the ball.
 
Impossible to diagnose without a video, but FOR ME challenges with the bottom my swing have two main culprits:

1) my head/eyes move. there was a period where I was massively changing my eye level during the swing which made consistent contact a bear. Maybe check to see what your head is doing in the swing?
2) Weight shift. Much less with a driver but when I catch a few irons fat it tends to be from getting lazy and not shifting my weight forward in the down swing.
 
Yes, without video hard to tell. One of my partners hits the big ball before the small ball frequently. Seems mostly due to resting the club head several inches behind the ball at address. He’s working on a “waggle” at the low point of the swing with the ball teed off the left big toe. Better, not perfect.
 
Jeez, my buddy hits his straightest and longest drives when he drop kicks. Otherwise he is so far out to in with an open club face, he effectively hits a 9 iron that slices 40 yards right. I almost hope he drop kicks them. Then he doesn’t b*tch and moan about how far right and short he hits it.
 
Quickest simplest ideas: choke up 1/2".. 2) don't rest your club on the ground at address, hover it over the ground?
 
RayG said:
Jeez, my buddy hits his straightest and longest drives when he drop kicks. Otherwise he is so far out to in with an open club face, he effectively hits a 9 iron that slices 40 yards right. I almost hope he drop kicks them. Then he doesn’t b*tch and moan about how far right and short he hits it.
Click to expand...

I call that "pre-loading" the shaft.
 
Ask @JohnSinVA how he recovers ... he hits these quite often. :ROFLMAO:
 
Two easy fixes to try...

-Hover the driver at address.

-Tee the ball way, way up. Experiment with raising the height until you start ballooning shots, then push it down a bit.

As far as hitting up on the ball... I have been working on it for the past month, and one approach that's worked for me (at least for the launch angle on Trackman) is popping my left hip out towards the target. This forces your right shoulder down and back naturally.

I still slice the hell out of the ball doing this, but hey, it gets airborne...

One drill that really helped me groove this feeling was putting an empty sleeve of balls one grip length in front of my teed up ball. The goal is to avoid hitting the sleeve on your follow through... if you do that, you're getting a positive angle of attack.

Doing that drill on a launch monitor isn't necessary but is cool if you can make it happen. You can watch the launch angle increase as you start missing the sleeve then see your carry distance explode, which definitely gives "the right feel" some positive reinforcement.

It's possible to ground out the driver and then hit up on the ball, but teeing way high, addressing way high, and hitting up should help you get the "air game" feel with the driver.
 
Last edited:
Already been mentioned, I would agree that weight shift is the biggest culprit. Try teeing the ball up much further in front of you as you have to really shift your weight to hit it. Simple drill, but it will help ingrain the idea.

Also mentioned, sometimes very subtly moving your head or eyes to the target will drop the trail shoulder causing the dreaded "dropkick". Need to feel your right shoulder coming under your chin.
 
I do this pretty regularly. Doesn’t bother me a bit, although it’s a very glancing blow, not a divor.
I tell everyone I play with that it’s a technique to square the club face before impact. Works great
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top