Many things might go wrong with your golf swing, and that is so frustrating, mainly when you can’t stop topping the ball. Jack Nicklaus, the famous golf player, believes that there is a problem that causes golf players of all levels varying degrees of anxiety. As Jack Nicklaus suggested, it is a problem that outbreaks golf players of all levels, then why it seems only a few people address this issue and help fix the problem. Yeah, we have to admit that this is an issue and if we ignore that, will it miraculously go away? By the way, considering this issue, let’s talk about how you can stop tipping the ball. I will discuss 15 easy ideas about how you can stop topping the ball in this article. And I hope it will be helpful for you. So without further delay, let’s get started.
To know actual guideline about How To Grip A Golf Club?
1. Move the ball back in your stance
The golf swing is like a circle that starts at the bottom, travel upwards to the top. And then again reverse back to the bottom and your follow-through. All you have to do is getting the ball in the form of a swinging circle. If you can’t stop topping the ball, then? The issue is that the ball might not be in the position on the circle’s arc that lets you hit the ball in square. The ball might be too far forward, and when your club moves through the impact zone, it is on the way up and doesn’t get the chance in the middle of the clubface. What happens is that it hits the ball on the bottom half part or the bottom edge of the club. You need to contact the ball on your downswing, not the upswing.
2. Deliver your club on the right arc into the ball
You can see hardly a professional top his driver nowadays, because of the more massive clubhead. Yes, still, this is an issue with fairway woods and long irons. Why? Because I think it comes from an angle of attack that is too vertical, and it causes the contact zone shrinking dramatically. It is hard to get the sweet spot onto the golf ball with this emaciated hitting zone.
On your swing arc, you need to flatten out the impact area. And then make sure that the ball lies someplace in the middle of that area. Remember that you have to hit the ball on the downswing with the shorter irons, while with your long irons and fairway woods, it is a sweeping motion.
3. Don’t hit the ball too hard
That is a common issue for players from every sport. Our adrenaline becomes impelling, and the next thing we know, we have ruined things. The fact is controlling your adrenaline is not an easy thing to do. We intend to feel the expectation that comes with the chance to succeed, and adrenaline helps us work in this way. But it can also hamper us by deceiving us to try to subdue our way to success. So how can we control our adrenaline rush? There are no tips that I can give you to help. It all depends on the human mind. Many professional golf players have sports psychologists with them to work on this issue. You will understand what I was trying to say if you have seen the movie “Tin Cup” before. When it comes to your emotions, don’t try too many peaks and valleys. I know it is hard because we all love first to the pump. One easy thing you can do is check and balance your emotions while playing the golf, and don’t try to hit the ball so hard. That might help you to stop topping the ball.
4. Keep your eyes on the ball
It is essential to keep your eyes on the ball, no matter which games you play. How can you stop topping the ball by looking at it? It sounds so easy, isn’t it? But in reality, it is not easy to apply. A little mind trick you can use to keep your eyes on the ball is to train your eyes to stare at the ball intently. What will happen, even after hitting the ball, you can still focus on the spot where the ball is. I hope this strategy will help you to stop topping the ball noticeably. When you start doing it every time you aim to hit the ball, you will get an afterimage of the ball for a split second, although it will not be there anymore.
5. Maintain correct posture throughout your swing
All the athletes need to learn about stance. Golf is also not an exception. You need to:
- Flex your keens (don’t bend)
- Bend at the waist, keep your back straight
- Hang your arms lose
That is not rocket science, but it is essential to start your golf swing. When topping the ball, if you don’t have the correct posture in any of these areas mentioned above, you might have a problem. There is only one way to improve your stance. It’s all about train up your body and repeats the process. When you will do it once, it will work for you. And when you do it continuously, it will become second nature. Make sure that throughout your swing, you maintain the correct posture.
Drill Style 1
You can try this drill. Once your shoulders start the downswing, throughout the impact, try to keep the left one down. And on the follow-through, let your right shoulder nearly pivot below your chin. It would help if you made sure that the right shoulder stays under the left level all the way to impact and then did a stretch in follow-through.
6. Fix your low weight shift
Inappropriate weight transfer is the basis of a lot of swing issues. When talking about topping the ball, here is what and why it occurs. With a proper weight transfer, you start at address impartial, and that is your weight distributes equally on each of your foot. When you begin backswing, you shift your weight gradually to your back foot. Your weight has to be all on your back foot when you start the backswing. And your pressure eases to your front foot at the follow-through. “Reverse Pivot” is the most common weight transfer mistake. To be more precise, the reverse pivot is – your weight is on your front when it supposed to be on your back foot. And on the other hand, when your weight supposed to be on your front foot, it is on the back.
The reason it happens to top the ball is when you transition from backswing to downswing, and your weight is supposed to come to the front from the back that, in turn, will move your body towards the ball. The opposite is also happening.
Drill Style 2
When you are on the top of your backswing, the club equivalent to the ground stops the swing and holds it there. Off the floor, try to lift your front foot. If you can’t, that means your weight remains on the front foot. Continue this until you get to the point where you can lift the front foot off the ground. After that, complete your swing and hold your follow-through at the same time. From that position, try lifting your back foot off the ground. If you can’t do this, that means you didn’t transfer your weight to your front foot properly.
First of all, do this drill without hitting any ball. Once you feel what your weight transfer should feel like, do this drill when hitting the shots.
7. Maintain your spine angle
If you lose your spine angle anytime during your golf swing, then bad things can happen. I am here talking about the golf ball. The problem of spine angle breakdown is that it starts the progress of another problem. Do you remember the posture checkup? Bend your waist and don’t hunch your back. When you bend at the waist and continue the spine angle, it determines whether you contact the ball by the middle of the clubface or the club’s bottom edge.
8. Straighten your left arm
One thing is for sure that anyone can enjoy golf. There are some features of the proper golf swing that are inaccessible physically by some people. Like – keeping the left arm straight, but it doesn’t reduce the importance of this; instead, it means “It is what it is.” Stretching will help you gaining the range of motion you need. But do your best. When you can’t straight your left arm, then you need to be careful how much further you want to take the club. It would help if you practiced strengthening your left arm as much as you can.
Drill Style 3
There is no such drill in this case; instead, it is a suggestion to find your limits. When you take the club to the top of your backswing, and when you have the feeling that your left arm starts to bend, that is the moment you need to begin the downswing. Mainly, there will not be much distance between a full swing and this abbreviated swing with the driver. After swinging in this way, you will find that you will end up keeping your left arm straight no longer. You also can try isometrics. Get a consultation from a doctor or physical therapist before doing this. Isometrics can be tricky, but it can increase your range of motion if you can use it correctly.
9. Don’t drive your legs forward too much
The timing issue is the mistake of driving your legs forward. Could you imagine what kind of swing you would make if you don’t move your legs forward? The key thing to this is to coordinate your leg drive when it is supposed to happen. If your leg drive takes place so early, then your arms will lag too, and it will cause you to slide through the impact area.
Because of the sliding, probably there might be a recoil effect at the same time. And that will shift your weight back where it needs to be going forward. If you are lucky, then you will not have any power behind your shot at all. Don’t drive your legs too much on and pay close attention to your timing.
10. Get a friend who can help you with specific drills
Golf sometimes seems a lonely game. We continuously try our level best to get better. But the only measurement is the scorecard that doesn’t always tell the truth. Sometimes a good score can be attributed to a couple of lucky bounces or a hot putter—all you need meaningful feedback to know how you are progressing your swing. If you are fortunate, you might find a golf professional who can help you by giving feedback. The best option is finding a friend someone you can trust and who can provide you with input, not advice. Some drills are impossible to practice if you don’t have an extra set of hands. Getting feedback is vital for self-evaluation.
11. Keep your knees flexed
All parts of your body need to work together, like – hands, arms, shoulders, wrists, legs, etc. basic posture is vital to start your golf swing. Your power begins from flexing your knees. When you stand straight and swing the club, you will achieve swaying towards the ball, which would be the only weight transfer. So it is important to flex your knees. It is also equally important to maintain this throughout your swing. Before impact when you straighten your legs, you will likely top the ball. So would you like to start swinging on the right track?
12. Many people might think that should initiate your shooting from your arms and shoulders, but they seem to be the muscles that are responsible for getting your swing started. Once Jack Nicklaus quoted that – “the golf club should dominate you, instead of you dominating the club.” He was trying to say that – in a natural flow, let your downswing start, and your rest parts of your body will react according to the motion. The danger of allowing your arms and shoulders to dictate the movement is that – you might get anxious easily at this moment of your swing.
The anxiousness might make you act too quickly or forcefully in your first motion. Let’s start naturally, enable your hips, shoulders, and hands to collect before giving control to the legs and feet. Golfers are not known as having good footwork, and Jack claimed that he never worked on legs; instead, he worked on feet.
13. In the gold swing, the takeaway is the essential part. If you are having issues with a takeaway, it is impossible to compensate virtually to rectify the problem and get back on track. Some advantages teach people to forward-press the wrist before taking away the club. To me, this doesn’t seem right. You need to take away the club low and slow, with one motion. Don’t do anything about raising your wrist until the clubs get to parallel. After that, you only need to think about getting your wrist and hands in the right position. The next thing is to keep your head steady. But I am not saying to keep your head still. You can see any golf player moves slightly throughout the swing. Steady is vital, and you don’t want to jerk it all the time.
Drill Style 4
You will need a weighted club for this drill, preferably a driver. If required, you can add some weight to the driver. The added weight will make it challenging to jerk the club away to begin your backswing. Please take out the club and hold it when it becomes parallel to the ground. Repeat the process until your forearm gets tired and do this at the start of every practice session. That will help you develop a smooth takeaway.
14. Keep your head and shoulders level through your swing
I probably have mentioned it before, but if you think that you must always need to remain your head still, then this is a wrong idea. If you look at some of the golf players, you can see that they have some degree of head movement on the horizontal plane, and they don’t have much vertical plane movement. If you have excessive movement of your head and shoulders in this area, you might suffer from topping and chunking the ball. There is a trick you can follow – you need to imagine that there is a smooth marble tabletop below your chin. You have to try keeping your chin touching the tabletop through your swing. You can’t do it, but try to keep from lifting. Throughout your swing, this drill will help you to keep your shoulders and head level.
Drill Style 5
Get a friend stands opposite side of you, who will hold his/her driver upside down. When you are in your address position, he/she will hang the club grip above your head. Don’t lift your head, when you swing and contact the squeeze on your backswing.
Try to keep that head position on your downswing. During this drill, don’t hit the ball. Now ask your friend where your head was at the impact.
15. Don’t lift during the swing
That is one thing that many people assume is the problem when topping off the ball. Probably you might have played with someone who offers the timeless advice “keep your head down” after watching you topping the ball. Guess what? He is not correct. The fact is that you lifted your head because of other processes earlier in your swing that is the reason your head to come up. Topping ball comes from the chain reaction. First of all, you need to remain your knees flexed. Then the chest will retain the spine angle. Then stay down the head. If you pay your attention to only your head down, perhaps you will make another weak golf swing, because of other circumstances. Don’t forget that the head lifting is the outcome of improper knee flex and not maintaining the spine angle. Don’t lift during the swing.
I hope now that you will not suffer any more of topping the golf ball. But if you do, think that you are not alone. It has happened to many other golf players. It happened to Jack Nicklaus, and it will happen to other golf players from all levels. I hope that you like reading this article. If you learn anything after reading this article, then I should consider myself successful in a small way. You can share your experience with us in the comment and feel free to share this article with your friends or near ones who love playing golf.
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