Help me improve my game

[Jwheels9876]

Some shots from tonight, give me a drill or two to improve some of these numbers. what numbers look way off? I just got back into the game after over two years of not touching a club and I have no clue what numbers I should be striving for....

[ironFrank]

For an 7iron your launch angle is too high. It should be more around 21deg. This meens, you come to flat into the ball. I guess you arent hitting divots after the ball. This means, your clubhead is already passing your hands at impact and "spooning" the ball in the air.

- try to hold your head more still over the ball during the backswing
- move your body more to the target during downswing (that will make the club path more steep and you will press the ball and not "picking" it from the mat)
- swing more inside out. So swing your club more to the right of the target

You are swinging good from inside the numbers say but the off yardage to the left looks too much. I guess the ballflight is a little too banana to the left cause of the side spin. If you swing more to the right of the target, the clubface is getting a little bit more square at impact and the draw is not that much

[Jwheels9876]

Thanks for the insight. I'm going to watch a few videos on YouTube about launch angle and work on it today.. My ball always starts left then drifts and drifts right often causing me to miss greens to that side. I feel like I make solid contact but the flight is always wonky...

[ironFrank]

But your numbers tell, that you come from inside (-) and the most balls land to the left (-). So a start to the left and fade to the right is nearly impossible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUnc_tFlb98

[Jwheels9876]

my balls always go left to right. except when I absolutely pull one just left.

[jut111]

What number tells you he's coming from the inside? He's launching it at 8 degrees left and finishing 3 yards left (on averages) Thats the definition of a pull fade. Assuming he's aligned properly he's coming WAY out to in with a face open to that path.

[ironFrank]

Sorry, you are right. I was complete wrong.The number shows of course where the ball goes to and not where the club came from. So yes, it is a fade cause he comes from outside to inside with open clubface on the swingplane

[N54TT]

It depends on what you want to achieve. Your numbers support what you see on the course....which is a fade/slice that starts left of target and drifts right. The neg side angle shows that you start left of target. Positive side spin means the ball is spinning clockwise/to the right and will cause the ball to move right. My guess is that you probably swing over the top a bit. As far as launch angle....unless you have a 7iron that's less than 25deg in loft, you're actually delofting the club a bit. I don't think launch angle is an issue.

If you want to hit a straighter shot or maybe even a draw. You have to start trying to swing down the line or in-to-out to get a draw and not over the top. Club face needs to be square or slightly closed(relative to swing/path) to get a draw. Numbers for side angle would be closer to 0 or positive for a draw and side spin would be closer to 0 or negative for a draw.

[Jwheels9876]

I am using Taylormade Aeroburner Irons which say the 7 Iron is at 29.5 loft. Also, I was using Titleist DT soft and Srixon Soft feel balls for these shots if it makes a difference.

[snoozeulooz]

Jwheels9876 Check out this series of articles it explains the ball flight laws rather nicely

http://pluggedingolf.com/ball-flight...art-direction/

[Jwheels9876]

Hey, thanks, that is actually written in terms I can understand lol... I think I know what I need to do, now it's just going about doing it correctly.

[GungHoGolf]

disclaimer: I'm not an instructor, just a student of the game. That said...

I'd work on fixing your path first. Right now you're pulling it from outside-in and fading it back to the right. Once you get your path more in-to-out, you'll have to close your face more to hit it straight or have a slight draw, and your launch angles will come down naturally. Right now your face is open (added loft), because if it wasn't, you'd pull it off the planet left.

For me, keeping the path slightly in-to-out is done by focusing on 1) maintaining secondary axis tilt (slight upper body tilt to the right at address), then 2) keeping it there through impact, with a stationary head. If my head/upper body drifts forward, I either pull it left of left, or panic-flip and hit it fat, or freeze and block it right.

I'm curious: what kind of ball are you using? Your backspin numbers are really low at 4,200 rpm for the ball speed you have, and your smash factor (PTI) is really high for a 7i with lots of side spin (PGA smash with 7 is 1.33, yours is 1.39). The only time I've seen low backspin numbers like that with a mid-iron is when using a Titleist Velocity ball. With my Pro V1 balls, I'm getting 7000 rpm backspin with only 98 mph, with no side spin, and my smash factor is only around 1.2.

Velocity balls basically give me the equivalent of a flier lie with every mid-iron shot... 1.5-2 clubs more distance, but I can't hold a green with them. Many other "distance" balls have a similar behavior - they get their distance from lower spin.

[Jwheels9876]

Thanks for the reply...For those shots I was using Titlest DT soft and Srixon soft feel balls which are my on course balls. Yeah, I made a thread about not holding any greens in TGC because my backspin is super low with all my irons but then somehow I started getting around 6-7k the next time I played TGC tournament. It certainly has to do with the ball as well, when I tried a ProV1x my spin numbers went way up along with my distance down...

[Fabien Leduc]

Many thanks for this precious insight!