Hitting out of the toe

[SaintHacker]

Took my oldest lad out for a few holes the other night, first time he's played in a while due to cricket. Not sure why but he was hitting everything hard right, off the toe of the club I'm guessing by the angle it was shooting off at. I had a look at his swing path and it looked ok to my untrained eye. Could it just be a case of standing a bit too far from the ball?

 

[the_coach]

Very difficult to say from that alone, but ....

Junior golfer? what sort of age range we talking here?

Did you notice if he was really going after clearing his hips a lot through the swing motion & did he appear to be getting taller through the strike, having trouble keeping his heels on the ground coming into & through impact?

Were the shots going a good ways right on a diagonal little ways like a shank? Or just starting right & staying a ways right while being overall a little shorter than they should be?

 

[SaintHacker]

Hes 15. I didn't really notice what his feet were doing to be honest as I was watching his swing path to see if he was coming over the top. The shots were going hard right off the club and staying there.

 

[the_coach]

When he's hitting it good what's the normal swing pattern, is it mostly right to left, maybes few hooks in there. Or normal shot pattern the other way left to right few slices?

These shots going hard right, 20 feet of aim point or much further right? & are they just short of there normal distance of travel.
Take it they are not reacting like a socket?

Just trying to get a handle on what's happening. What's his level of golf game, beginner kinda standard or mid handicap?

 

[SaintHacker]

Thanks for your help.

He's still a beginner really but he's had a few decent rounds, not broken 100 yet but no far off. His good shot is a nice gentle draw, or a straight shot. These were going off at least 20 ft right of where he was aiming and probably not far short of how far you would expect that club to go. I'm 99% sure its not a shank.

One thing I have noticed is that he overdoes his backswing sometimes, which I think makes him lose control a bit. Don't know if it could exacerbate this problem though.

 

[the_coach]

You can have toe hits swinging out over the top out to in but from what you say doesn't sound anyways this is happening.

Thing about it, although hard to say definitely without seeing the swing, juniors, I know your boy maybes a little older, intermediate. But they all tend to want to swing & get that ball out there, nothing wrong in that at all. So the super effort involved in the swing to find distance with the big arm swing plus really active hips & legs can cause it, without their being a big in to out swing path either. But effort plus hips gets everything raising upwards coming into impact.

As a junior, & although your boy getting a deal bigger & stronger, they tend to have less upper body core or arm strength, so develop a pretty strong leg drive & hip movement, which is a good thing, but oft times tend it gets overdone some.

So legs drive, hips have a strong lateral shift, they have a big arm swing as less arm strength so feel they need a longer arm swing (but really it's the rotation of the chest the turn that will provide the power), so they feel they can get it out there, but this sometimes causes a bit of a standup coming into strike, heels come off ground the hands & arm raise up some. This has the effect of moving the club head so instead of the middle you get toe contact.

Can only surmise here, but sounds like he has a pretty good swing path (re the draws, straight shots) so path sounds as if it's a ways neutral to 0º target line (no big move from the inside)

So could well be the the left hip is moving laterally little way too much (back to the hip drive to help get some speed to the club) so what can happen then is the raise up presents the toe & also the hip because of the bigger lateral movement towards target they get a ways too far forwards so left hip gets in the way of the handle & hands so the club face can't release properly through impact so it's swinging a little ways right through impact & the contact point is off the toe of a face that's swinging right with face square to path. So the straight toe-ish push.

So the swing is swinging through impact, because the hip is blocking it some, out to right field.

What you can try is getting him at transition to feel some weight pressure in his left heel & feel when he's swinging down through to impact, the left hip is turning left not sliding forwards to target so much.

So he's going to want to be swinging feeling the clubhead move back inside through impact to feel it's swinging & get it swinging left towards left field. The complete opposite direction to what he's been feeling, feel weird at first for a while but hopefully he'll get it, need to have a good practice go on the range though as it'll be difficult for him to trust doing what will feel like the complete opposite to what's he been when doing out on the course.

As I said earlier though can't guarantee this is what he's doing to cause it, not having seen it, but have seen many juniors & bigger with this characteristic, if that's what he's doing then if he can get this feel of swinging through impact to left field it should help him get rid of the toe contacts.

When on the range starting to do what I've suggested, will help if you have a rolled up towel that you place to the opposite side of the ball to where's he standing 2" from the ball & parallel to the target line so it's both blocking the direction the toe hits start off on plus blocking swinging the club head to right field.
Will help him swing down to the ball then swing to left field, as if he doesn't he'll hit the towel. To end at finish with the chest having turned through impact to face left of target with the hands & club swinging up over his left shoulder.
__________
<<<<<<<º

So black line rolled towel. º = ball, so majority of towel is target side, just couple inches rolled towel non target side. << just direction of target.

 

[SaintHacker]

Brilliant, we'll give it a try. Thanks very much again Coach:thup:

 

[freshcat]

By the sound of it, your lad was/is a strong off side player at cricket. I was exactly the same. Every golf shot I hit was a cover drive.

Ask him to try to hit the ball to cow corner. It worked wonders for me.