Junior flaws due to lack of strength

[LaterOn61]

My son was a solid hitter in baseball but has switched to golf as a 13 year old. He is small for his age at 4'9" and 85lbs. I have noticed two things this summer and wonder if they are strength related or not. They are:

• Lack of quality contact. A slight mishit results in significant loss of speed.
  
• The lack of height on his shots. Is he not generating enough clubhead speed to spin the ball upward?
  

BTW....he did have clubs custom fit. An old Ping set of woods and Mizuno set of irons that I had played with new shafts in them. For some reason I think the shafts were ladies versus senior.

[HoffTTM]

That can be part of it, I always played with a strong grip to get more distance, which I have gotten back to a more neutral position about 2 years ago. Another thing to watch out for is overswinging in the quest for distance and thereby losing balance and sacrificing solid contact often

[belacyrf]

I dont know if this helps, but my son is 6 years old and has no issue getting height and/or spin on his irons and even woods. Now to be fair, for some reason my boy just naturally took to golf in a way I can never understand (I'm actually learning from him).

Here is what I've found working with my boy. Fundamentals are the key...

Setup
Ball Position
Grip
Tempo


If my son gets those right, he'll hit a good shot. Just the other day he hit a 3W 110 yds, landed on the green, checked up and rolled to 6 ft. Most kids aren't able to stop a 3 wood on a green.

All of this is to say, I don't think strength has much to do quality contact. It's the same things you and I deal with but to a slightly lesser degree. Their lack of clubhead speed produces less overall spin but the ball reacts the same. Also keep in mind, kids clubs are inferior to ours by nature, so mishits will product poor shots, due to the lack of technology (cost) invested into kids clubs.

As for ball flight, well Ball Flight (height) is a result of the clubface at impact
ClubFace loft could be a result of almost anything ball position, grip, tempo, etc....

Personally I would just keep working his fundamentals, try to get him to be consistent with setup and then go from there. If setup is the same every time, then you can start looking at swing characteristics.
Good luck.

[jollysammy]

Your son is about the size my boy was at 9-10. At that age mine would hit about 200 yd drives, 170 yd 5 wood, 140 yds 5 iron, 90 PW. Plenty high. If he's not hitting straight or off the ground, then its a question of on center contact which is something wrong with grip, swing, whatever. Strength is usually not the 1st problem.

[papichulosteve]

could possibly be a swingweight issue. you said the clubheads used to be yours, just with different shafts. maybe try a full ladies set or senior set and see if he notices a difference.

[Ajlepisto]

How is he mishitting them?

Lack of height could be caused by a thin shot, which would also be a mishit. Are they mutually exclusive?

[jollysammy]

[quote name='papichulosteve' timestamp='1421694298' post='10777409']
could possibly be a swingweight issue. you said the clubheads used to be yours, just with different shafts. maybe try a full ladies set or senior set and see if he notices a difference.
[/quote]

What kind of Mizunos did you use?

If they were blades and you had lighter shafts put in them without regards to swingweight issues you may have effectively increased the swingweight as the heads would still be the same weight. So in addition to your son being smaller he might be swinging very head heavy clubs which would make control more difficult as well.

What do you mean solid as a baseball hitter? Was he a contact hitter or a power hitter? Mine was a contact hitter with power and when he played baseball I always had him using the heaviest bats 31 inch / 21 ounce or 32 inch / 22 ounce endloaded. This gave him extra power, as it was harder to swing vs the lighter shorter bats the other boys used. So he had to learn how to swing faster with heavier load and made his transition to power in golf easier.