Sep
26
2007

Misunderstood Advice: Hitting Down on the Ball

Posted by Double Eagle in Instruction

Stack and Tilt Golf Swing Videos by Medicus Golf

There are several bits of information that come up on the topic of the golf swing that are often misleading to people. Some things just naturally lend themselves to various interpretations or even varying degrees of whatever is involved.

One of the big offenders in this category is the idea of hitting down on the ball with irons. We might say “hit down on the ball” or “the club makes a descending blow”. Unfortunately, some players may get two wrapped up in that idea and take it too literally.

Let’s step back for a second.

Think about the arc of the golf swing. Obviously, the club head starts behind the ball. It moves in an arc back and up to the top of the swing then back down in a similar (though not necessarily the same) arc, through the ball and then up into the follow through.

By definition, that arc will have an absolute low point, where the club is closest to (or under) ground level. Once the downswing starts, the club head is getting lower and lower as it approaches that low point, then it immediately starts moving higher into the follow through.

When we talk about hitting down on the ball, we’re simply talking about striking the ball before the club head gets to that low point. In other words, the club is moving down and still has even further to go.

Let’s have a look at K. J. Choi hitting a 6-iron:

As you can see there, especially in the close up, the club is still moving downward well after contact.

Now, back to the misunderstanding. Some players believe there is some kind of action they need to take to properly hit down on the ball. Unfortunately, this just leads to a steep angle of attack and the club head getting stuffed into the turf and huge divots that expose rare mineral deposits.

Try this experiment: go to the driving range with a 7-iron and hit a few balls (or even just do swings with no ball), paying careful attention to the divot and to the location of your feet. I hope I don’t need to say that astroturf mats are inappropriate for this experiment.

As the club is entering the turf (at the back of the divot) it is still moving downward. As it comes back up and leaves the turf it is moving upward. Therefore, the low point of the swing is somewhere in the divot.

Now that you know where your divots start and end, you have all the information you need to hit down on the ball. Simply play the ball just a fraction behind where your divot starts. Then, you’ll strike the ball with a descending blow without any kind of conscious effort to hit down.

Eliminating a conscious effort to hit down on the ball will help you make more consistent contact and avoid fat shots. Playing the ball in the proper location relative to the low point of your swing will improve your ball striking as well.

It’s as easy as that!

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There are currently 9 responses to “Misunderstood Advice: Hitting Down on the Ball”

  1. 1

    Mike Pedersen Golf said:

    Great explanation! Very easy to understand! This hitting down on the ball took me years to understand and perfect. Once I did, the crispness of my shots went way up, as well as getting good spin on the ball when it hits the green!

    Posted on September 26th, 2007 at 9:23 am

  2. 2

    Double Eagle said:

    Thanks, Mike.

    It took me a long time to realize it as well.

    For something that seems so simple, golf can get pretty complicated, especially when you’re trying to do it well.

    Posted on September 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm

  3. 3

    Hit Down on the Golf Ball With the Driver? said:

    [...] can buy that. In fact, I just covered it in my post about the general misunderstanding of what hitting down on the ball means. What I’m a little surprised about is his point that the driver should be included in that [...]

    Posted on October 7th, 2007 at 10:06 am

  4. 4

    joe johnson said:

    Another thing that I would recommend to help promote the “hitting-down” idea would be to allow the wrist to hinge during the take-away portion of the swing. To be more specific, start the “hinge” as your club goes past the point of becoming parallel to the ground. Feel the wrist hinge from there and you’ll begin to feel more coil as well, promoting a more powerful swing.

    Posted on May 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 pm

  5. 5

    Double Eagle said:

    Good points, Joe. That wrist hinge is critical for solid ball striking. Maintaining it on the down swing (lag) for as long as possible is a big component of explosive distance, as well.

    Posted on May 2nd, 2008 at 5:34 pm

  6. 6

    Don Oosterveen said:

    Thank you for this explanation of “hitting down” on the golf ball. Once in a while, I hit a perfect iron shot with both good height and distance. I’m sure part of it was hitting the ball as you have described. I can’t wait to work on this on the range and on the golf course.

    Posted on May 20th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

  7. 7

    Double Eagle said:

    My pleasure, Don. Have fun at the range - you sure will when you start to groove the feeling of those purely struck shots!

    Posted on May 21st, 2008 at 12:42 am

  8. 8

    jhantonio said:

    Thank you so much for explaining.
    I started golf 2 years ago, and my friend kept telling me that in proper iron shots, the clubface hits down on the ball and traps it between the clubface and the ground. But I didn’t understand how the clubface could trap the ball since the clubface has a loft and faces upward. It just could not be true.
    Your article and KJ Choi’s video helped tremendously.
    Thank you again.

    Posted on September 29th, 2008 at 7:05 pm

  9. 9

    Double Eagle said:

    You got it, jhantonio. Glad I could help out. One thing I will add is that your friend is also right.

    In the video above, KJ Choi was hitting the ball off a tee. However, if the ball was on the turf, what would happen is, as the club head moves downward in its arc and begins to make contact with the ball, the grooves on the club face sort of grab the cover of the ball and “pinch” it against the turf. This is where great amounts of backspin are generated. In reality, you don’t have to do much different than what KJ Choi did above to achieve that. In high speed video, you can actually see the ball deform a little as the grooves grab the cover of the ball and pinch it downward. As the ball leaves, it’s actually starting to spin up the face as the club keeps descending because the grooves have grabbed hold.

    It’s one of those things that doesn’t make sense in your imagination, because you’re probably trying to figure out how it could be possible for the club face (or sole) to come smashing down on top of the ball and to still hit a decent shot. That’s not what really happens, though. The secret is in the grooves. “Trapping” and “pinching” are accurate ways to describe what happens, but without having seen it before, the first thing your imagination conjures up probably isn’t what’s actually going on.

    Posted on September 29th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

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