- Well welcome back, Adam Bazalgette at Napels, Florida.
Two-Time PGA Teacher of the Year Award Winner.
Today's subject, how to hit a
fairway wood off the ground, stay tuned.
(dramatic music)
So how to hit a fairway wood off the ground.
Pretty important subject, a lot of golfers,
unless they hit the ball a long way,
wind up with a lot of these shots.
We'll show you a little bit about the stroke,
we 'll show you a little bit about maybe
some different lies you'd encounter,
and we will show you, of course, preceding
the stroke about the set up.
How it varies, from an on, to
a driver, to a fairway wood, et cetera.
If you like the video please subscribe to the channel.
We have a lot of free content,
we'd love to get a lot more coming
your way, let's check it out.
So first thing to look at,
let's look at the requirement of impact.
This is an absolutely perfect lie to fade away but there
is certainly no cushion under the ball,
so if I was to look at the nine iron
and you can see a little bit of the way mark
there where the sweet spot is,
I will tilt that a bit so that you can see it.
I need some forward lean which
equates to a fractionally downward hit to
really hit that solidly.
Level isn't gonna really do the job.
I'm hit it too low on the club face.
Now compare that, pick that up again,
compare that with the loft of the three wood
and you can see, there's so little loft.
I mean the sweet spot's right up against the club.
So yeah, certainly don't wanna hit the ground first time,
might need the barest fraction of downward hit,
but I do not need a lot of downward hit
and shaft lean to get solid contact.
I need a modest amount for solid contact, and of course
a modest amount will also give me a little
loft coming off the club.
Now, if you compare that with the driver,
this is at the other end of our spectrum.
The sweet spot of the driver is pretty high but
because I've got a tee under it,
I can actually hit fractionally up and still hit the
sweet spot with a driver, so there's
very different requirements depending
on the loft and whether or not the ball is teed up.
Okay, so now that we see the needs and terms of descending
hit as something between the short
iron and something like a driver.
Let's try to make the set up something between those two.
That would make sense.
Now, let's say it's a round number average.
You play your driver about off your end step,
and your nine iron or whatnot about at the middle.
Just play this somewhere in between those two.
That should sort of do the job.
And fiddle a little bit around with it from there.
I might widen my stance a little bit
'cause I am making a hard swing,
but something in between a short iron and
a driver set up fits these really well.
And if you do that, you'd probably
get about the right descending angle.
Now let me just say, I've watched a
lot of people try to hit the golf ball
over the years, they're not all the same.
Some people are young, have quick hips and
a lot of lag, I was teaching a kid like
that a little bit earlier today.
Missing the driver at 285, I was rolling my eyes.
Not everybody is like that.
So if you have a lot of lag and strength
you could play the ball further forward
that still hit down on it than say a senior
who's just had a hip operation and
releases it a little earlier.
So customize it to yourself.
We're just saying it should be
somewhere between a short iron
and a driver to get the desired downward hit.
Lemme say one little thing here, I hope it's helpful.
If you're gonna be an effective fairway wood player,
and that goes for driving long irons as well,
you've got to create a little bit of speed out here.
That gives the ball some height.
It also gives it, obviously, some length
and some distance which is what makes you effective.
Now a little anecdote,
A buddy of mine who is a funny guy in golf instruction,
he was telling a guy once, the guy's all stiff and tight,
and he's whacking at the ball like this,
and he told him "look, you are like a tractor," he said.
If you've seen a tractor around the farm.
It's great, it can pull out tree stumps,
you can carry huge heavy loads in the mud and the dirt.
IBig diesel engine, he said, this isn't a tree stump
or a heavy load, it's light weight,
these are lighter than short irons.
And he said you need to picture a Ferrari.
That doesn't carry a whole lot of stuff
around our trailers, it's built for speed.
So when you get over this club,
you're trying to create club head speed
with an economy or a measured amount of body effort.
Sometimes that mental picture really helps.
So I'm gonna make a practice swing here.
I felt like that was pretty relaxed.
I don't know if I would say like a Ferrari,
but I am saying that's my mental picture.
So let's try one here, this is a five wood.
Nice set up, ball position about where I wanted here.
And just kind of relax.
That was a pretty good five wood for me.
Knocked it out there with a little bit of height.
Okay so now we have a sense of what's required,
we have a little bit of a sense of address.
How you might wanna make adjustments
for sun, create a little bit of speed.
Here is another very, very important thing
if you're gonna be a good fairway wood player.
These other, than the driver, which is on a tee,
these are the longest flattest lying clubs you have
other than the driver, and they have
the least amount of loft, other than a driver,
and when you try to swing these,
and let's not say try to swing these,
when you accidentally swing these too steeply,
they will not perform well.
You cannot play these clubs while doing that.
So it's very ,very important that you have what I would
call a shallow angle of attack, more of a brushing swing.
If you can picture skipping a rock
it's this way, you don't skip a rock from there,
from there you throw the rock into the water.
So hey, we got plenty more on that at Scratch Golf Academy.
It's a whole subject in and of itself,
but let's touch on it at least a little bit.
If you can take a golf club from a golf set up.
This is my five wood,
and you can just toss it out there along the ground,
or at least a couple of feet above the ground,
you are on a pretty good swing plane.
Most people swing planes, if they
truly were to toss the club,
would hit the ground with the club like that.
Now, I will bet you, and I'm not in a position
to collect or pay on this but I will
bet you anything you want that
under no pressure, with no golf ball,
you could take a golf club
with no swing thoughts and propel it out there somewhat.
If you can do that, you are swinging
on about on the right swing plane.
Well, let's just touch on it, and at
least say if you practice that,
you might get a few of those alignment rods
and just toss it out there.
And when you do that all you gotta think about is,
hey, what's my mental picture,
how does that feel, and try to re-create that.
And as they typically say on these videos,
'Cause I'm a big believer in this.
Start small, relax a little bit.
So, this is a hybrid and I'm gonna make a little
shallow swing and just pop one out there,
and I'm starting to feel a motion
that would be able to propel that club out
there and skims along the ground.
Just kind of feel your way into it a little bit.
Very, very important component of
hitting fairway wood, as well.
So finally lets touch on different lies a little bit.
We've been taking a lot about the fairway,
again a beautiful lie in the fairway.
This is a five wood, you can see
the ball meets the sweet spot with
only a very, very slight downward hit,
I can hit that solidly.
But if I'm over here a few inches,
I happen to get fortunate.
Nice spongy rough on the ball sitting on top of it.
Not uncommon in Florida in the summer.
I don't need any downward hit now.
I can literally brush along the tops
of the grass and nail that solidly.
So I can actually adjust my ball position
to make this a little bit more like a driver
if I wanted and hit this just fine.
And that would give me the advantage
of launching it a little bit higher
and releasing it maybe a little bit freer
than squeezing down on it.
So, the variables of the lie might
cause you to adjust the ball position we talked about
at the beginning to suit the situation.
Now, let's say we're in the rough.
This rough is pretty good here,
but let's say the ball's sitting down
there a little bit, a little bit harrier.
If I'm in a situation like that.
I now need a little more descending hit again.
I've gotta hit down for solid contact.
And that pretty much means I need a more lofted club.
Either a considerably more lofted fairway wood or whatnot.
And if the grass is pretty thick, I've
got to get the ball up out of the grass.
So I'm hitting it down with the need to get it up.
I need a lot more of loft, likely an iron.
But we can talk about that on another video.
We've got lots about that at Scratch Golf Academy.
But just bear in mind the differences
of what's under the ball or how the
ball sitting under the grass
can call for a little different angle of attack
according to making sweet spot connection.
I hope you've found this helpful.
Hope it gives you some guidance in how
to hit a fairway wood off the ground.
Again, if you like the video please subscribe
to the channel, plan to get you
a lot more free content coming.
scratchgolfacademy.com is my website,
all the content is there and much more.