How to lower your ball flight

Whether you’re trying to keep your ball flight under the wind when it’s howling into you or you’re attempting to escape the trees whilst avoiding the lower hanging branches, the ability to keep your ball flight lower when required is a skill that can really improve your scoring. Sadly most golfers don’t know how to set up correctly and adjust their swing to achieve this. If you follow the following steps you’ll be on your way to control your ball in those sticky situations;

1. Take more club – when into a strong head wind or trying to punch out of the trees when need to select a stronger less lofted club e.g take a 5 iron if you would normally use a 7 iron
2. Place the ball middle to back in your stance – depending on how low you want the ball to fly. The further you place the ball back in your stance the more forward shaft lean you create, which reduces the loft of your clubface
3. Slow your swing down – the worst thing you can do when trying to keep your ball flight down is swing really fast. The more speed you create, the more backspin you’ll produce, causing the ball to lift more and be pushed back and offline by the wind.
4. Low Hands -a simple rule I use when trying to manipulate my ball flight is “low hands for low shots & high hands for high shots”. When trying to keep that ball down make sure your hands stay below shoulder height both on the backswing and follow-through. For really lower shots you should feel like you’re hitting a little chip shot with more body rotation and no hand release through impact

Make sure you practice these simple steps on the practice fairway first and you’ll be more equipped to handle the wind next time it whips up during your round. If you need any further assistance contact either Stewart & Paul for some professional advice.