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I am testing out a mat that is a bit rough. It has long fibers which the ball sits on top of. I feel like my distance with irons is a bit short using the mat, however I have hard time believing the mat could be the root cause. Has anyone similar experience, if so have you figured out the logic why this could be the case?
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I used to have a CCE (country club elite) hitting strip which has long enough fibers to hold a wooden golf tee. Lots of people on the forum use that one. The biggest complaint that I have seen about it is that if you hit the ball just a tiny bit fat, it is very penalizing. I would see shots lose 10% of the normal distance that didn't feel like they were fat but were. And a shot that felt fat could easily lose 20-25%. I agree that it doesn't seem like the fibers would slow the club that much, but it is a very common experience.
An easy test would be to hit some irons off of a tee and see if your distance is back to where you expect it. The other possibility is that swinging inside is causing you to not swing quite as hard as you normally would. Almost everyone experiences that at first too. -
Definitely agree with CCE mats. I have one and yes they can be very penalizing. So the mat type definitely plays into your distance. Seems to be some good reviews on the fiberbuilt mats I think they are called. I did my club fitting off that type of mat. It was awesome to hit off of, but I thought it might be a little too unrealistic which would hurt my outdoor game. Definitely one of the smoothest mats I've ever hit off of though. I've been looking into a TrueStrike mat. Intrigued by those. I forget the name of the company, but I believe he's out of Alabama and makes a DivotAction mat insert. I really liked it. Had the turf on top of some plexiglass type of substance so there was some give (feel of creating a divot) to it.Comment
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Thanks of the response. I have tested the mat a bit more. It is really sensitive to fat shots, similar to what Andygg1986 described. Even if you don't feel it you loose 10 yards. If you feel it you loose 20-40 yards with the irons. However when you hit it very clean the distance seems to be spot on. Perhaps it is good to have such a massive response when you have a bad shot. I guess over time you start having more solid contact which should just help you at when playing at real grass.Comment
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A lot of range mats are way too forgiving for fat shots. I engrained a fat shot when I was practicing a lot at one range. I personally need the punishing of fat shots on the cce because IRL, i will end up laying sod with all my wedges after using too friendly of a mat.Comment
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Mats like the CCE can be good or bad depending on what type of grass you usually play on. I play primarily on zoysia fairways so the CCE mat is really good practice for me as at my main course the penalty for a slightly fat shot is even worse due to the usual moisture content of the zoysia when it is growing and not dormant.
When I go to a course with other type grass it is really easy to hit crisp iron shots. Don't get hung up on how far slightly fat shots go off the mat.
For hard mats the effect is just opposite, fat shots go just fine if your wrists and elbows can stand the impact loading of hard mats. Mine can't.
BTW you can usually tell if they are slightly fat by looking at the spin number compared to your best shots.Comment
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