Hitting Push Fades, shaft issue?

I normally draw or hit the ball straight, with a hook as a miss. However, got a new driver (SIM Max) and after hitting it for a while, started to develop a case of the push fades. They aren't weak slices, they go pretty far. Could this be a shaft issue? It's a Taylor Made Ventus Red 5S (not the real one with Velocore). Is the shaft too soft? I've also hit some snap hooks with it as well. The problems occur when I get more aggressive with my swing. If I take a nice easy "slow" and smooth swing, the ball goes straight.

Check out Tom Stickney's article... How to hit a push draw and a pull fadeYour Push-Fades plus Snap Hooks might be two bad results of a control problem caused by over-swinging. As you said, "The problems occur when I get more aggressive with my swing. If I take a nice easy "slow" and smooth swing, the ball goes straight."

Any chance this new shaft is quite a bit lighter than your old driver shaft?

And... did you get fitted for the SIM MAX?

The previous driver had a similar weight shaft but i had much worse hooks. I was fitted into the sim max but didn’t have the opportunity to hit many shafts. Overall the performance of the sim max is really good for me, and the push fade is a better miss on the course i play at. Just trying to see if there is a shaft profile that will help optimize my dispersion a bit.

Club path in to out (like for a draw), but face angle open to path = push fade, so the issue at impact is the open face angle, you have to close it more to get strait or draw. Look at your lower hand, and a adjust to a stronger grip who closes the face more during the swing, or start from a more closed face angle at address.

Thanks. I was previously struggling with too closed of a face at the top of the swing, so maybe i am compensating too much in the other direction.

Im NOT the best when swing tech issues pops up, but this was simple..."been there done that" and had the 2 way mishit with hooks or push / push fade until i went way larger on grip size who made it easier to control and time face angle closure, so if you ends back with hooks when you try to avoid the push fade, try a larger grip, it works for many of us. Grip charts suggest that i should be playing STD with 2 layers of BU or 0.930, but i play Jumbo and with less taper than todays norm, and i have been all the way to Jumbomax XL but the total weight was to high, so i dialed back to 72 grams Jumbo and have played that since then. Even a small change like the PLUS 4 grips who has less taper than standard can fix it in some cases. Remember this if you still struggle to make it work.

Thanks, I tried a plus 4 in the past and my hand started cramping (cramping might not be the right word, but it was uncomfortable). I think I now know what is happening with my swing that is causing the push fade.

On the course, there are many holes where this is the shot I would love to hit. But when I try to hit it, then I get a double crosser.

what shaft wgt is in your irons?

Both wgt and flex is triggers for use of power, but we always need to do some trial and error testing to find the right direction since all this is "relative" to what we got.

I actually recently moved down in weight to 98 gram shafts (Nippon Modus 950 GH).

Outside of golf, i would consider myself to be fairly fit and strong. Not sure if that matters at all.

Then a 50 grams in the driver dont sound crazy, but sometimes a few grams matters....whats your PW carry vs Driver? a tread i opened in October last year came up again today, and it seems like we can use the formula PW carry x 2 = driver carry, so if your driver is shorter than 2 x PW, there might be more to get by some tuning.

Pitching wedge carry is 120 to 130 depending on how hard i am swinging, generally not swinging super hard though with a pitching wedge. Driver carry is about 230 right now.

I can only suggest you try off whats in that DIY driver tune up since your average PW say you should be able to get 250 carry with your driver, and you are 20 yards short of that, so there is a mismatch on something, but if its CS or impact/ball speed...i cant tell without LM numbers and knowledge of impact position.

I was at the range today and straightened out my drives. Had a little tiny fade action at the end of the ballflight, but not in a bad way. Would still be in the fairway. The SIM Max with this shaft seems to be hard to draw. The snap hooks I was hitting previously would have snap hooked with any driver and shaft.