Why do I always hear that Pros hate a left miss

[kjmtthws]

So every time I watch the golf on TV (tons of rain here lately and haven't been getting out myself) I hear announcers talk about "that is a great anti-left miss swing"... Also hear about pros driver set ups needing a very firm tip in the shaft to "avoid a left miss".. I never hear about a pro wanting to avoid a right miss.. 

 

I just am wondering why this may be -- sure a left miss isn't great,, but isn't a right miss just as bad... I understand wanting to eliminate part of the fairway and make your miss more predictable, but just unsure why they want to avoid the left miss, but none of them want to eliminate the right side (maybe left handed golfers do).. 

 

I am just really curious and want to learn something

 

 

[tm3]

First lesson with a new pro, she watched a few shots and announced that the first thing we were going to have to work on was getting rid of my draw.  Her explanation was that with a right miss the ball may be bordering the creek or woods or whatever and one could stand on the fairway edge and have a decent shot, while the left miss would put the right handed golfer standing in the trouble.  According to her, "all pros try to miss right."

[Itsjustagame]

Draws get on the ground and run. Fades are easier to control.

[Krt22]

9 minutes ago, Itsjustagame said:

Draws get on the ground and run. Fades are easier to control.

It might be semantics, but it's not the draw that runs, it's the hook. And a fade is predictable, a wicked slice is not. 

 

Nicklaus hated the left miss as well, subsequently almost all of his courses punish you for the left miss.

[oldpalchamp]

As Trevino said, You can talk to a fade, a hook won't listen.  So true.

[Old Tom Morris]

A left miss is usually more powerfully hit,  hot, and can roll deeper into worse trouble. A miss right will generally be higher and come down softer and generally will be less severe.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

29 minutes ago, kjmtthws said:

So every time I watch the golf on TV (tons of rain here lately and haven't been getting out myself) I hear announcers talk about "that is a great anti-left miss swing"... Also hear about pros driver set ups needing a very firm tip in the shaft to "avoid a left miss".. I never hear about a pro wanting to avoid a right miss.. 

 

I just am wondering why this may be -- sure a left miss isn't great,, but isn't a right miss just as bad... I understand wanting to eliminate part of the fairway and make your miss more predictable, but just unsure why they want to avoid the left miss, but none of them want to eliminate the right side (maybe left handed golfers do).. 

 

I am just really curious and want to learn something

 

A draw can very easily turn into a hook. Not a pull, but a hard curving hook.

 

Those possessing any semblance of a decent swing from in to out have more difficulty hitting slices and fades based upon flight path principles. So, if your typical shot is a fade, more misses will end up straight.

 

Other responses are quite valid as well. Courses could possibly be biased for right handed fade players such as Jack.

[Lincoln_Arcadia]

I also agree that fades tend to roll a bit less.

[glk]

Cause announcers have a lot of time to fill and say plenty of other inane things.  

[davep043]

This is a guess on my part.  I believe a lot of really good players learn fairly early in their golfing lives to swing from inside to out.  The guys who will never get good swing more out to in, the ones who have a chance swing in to out.  They tend to hit draws, and mistakes end up being hooks.  Once they develop enough swing speed, they then learn to eliminate that big miss left, to they learn to hit a fade as their default shot.  The "hatred" of the left miss is a remnant of their developmental stages, when their big misses were the wild hooks.

And of course the commentators have to say something, to fill air time.

[DFS PFD]

In addition to Davep's comments, it's also a big part of eliminating a two way miss. If you can get rid of that trap hook that occurs occasionally when learning to hit a cut or fade it's much easier to trust your shot shape. But mid round when trying to hit a cut, all it takes is one snap hook to lose all faith in where the ball is going to go off the tee. 

[SNIPERBBB]

You like to keep the ball in front of you. I don't want the ball to cross the line.

.

[acekun]

1 hour ago, tm3 said:

First lesson with a new pro, she watched a few shots and announced that the first thing we were going to have to work on was getting rid of my draw.  Her explanation was that with a right miss the ball may be bordering the creek or woods or whatever and one could stand on the fairway edge and have a decent shot, while the left miss would put the right handed golfer standing in the trouble.  According to her, "all pros try to miss right."

Do you have a hook or a draw? I don't understand why she would want to get rid of a draw. There's a LOT of pros whose natural shot shape is a draw. And not "all pros try to miss right." Their miss is dictated by the hole. 

 

 

[Zitlow]

The answer can be found in the Bible; "A wise man’s heart turns him toward the right, but a fool’s heart turns him toward the left ."

[RichieHunt]

It's because when they start missing left (for right handed golfers) they start to develop what they call a '2-way miss.'  

 

Typical shot dispersion on Tour is to miss short on pushes and long on pulls.  The short-push tends to be far more common of a shot result than the long-pull.  As good as the pros are at controlling the face, sometimes it gets slightly open more than they need and the flare to the right happens.

 

A couple of years ago I did research for this in my Pro Golf Synopsis examining the best vs. the average vs. the worst players on shots from the fairway or par-3 tee box from 175-225 yards.

 

Essentially every golfer has this shot dispersion pattern (short-push to long-pull).  The better the player from 175-225 yards their shot dispersion is obviously tighter.  However, the worst the player was from 175-225 yards, the more likely they were to have the leftward miss. 

 

So let's say the best from 175-225 yards has 5% of their big misses end up left of the target.  And the average player is at 15% left on their big misses and the worst may be at 30%.  Occasionally you may find one of the worst players from 175-225 yards have only 15% of their big misses to the left.  That's a situation where they just have a problem with the rightward miss that they cannot eliminate.  But there is a correlation between performance from 175-225 yards and the % of big misses that are left of the target.

 

It's basically a situation where they have lost control of the clubface.  

 

 

 

 

 

RH

[dubbelbogey]

56 minutes ago, davep043 said:

This is a guess on my part.  I believe a lot of really good players learn fairly early in their golfing lives to swing from inside to out.  The guys who will never get good swing more out to in, the ones who have a chance swing in to out.  They tend to hit draws, and mistakes end up being hooks.  Once they develop enough swing speed, they then learn to eliminate that big miss left, to they learn to hit a fade as their default shot.  The "hatred" of the left miss is a remnant of their developmental stages, when their big misses were the wild hooks.

And of course the commentators have to say something, to fill air time.

This was pretty much my path to hitting a fade by default (at least off the tee.) Coming from a tennis background, hitting "inside out" was a natural motion for me. I hit a draw from the first day on a golf range. But, like described above, the bad misses were hot, running hooks that had a propensity to keep running past the OB stakes.

 

A pro suggested I give hitting an intentional fade a try, and the rest is history. That was nearly 20 years ago. My bad miss with a fade is a slice, but it tends to die out of the air and land softly. More often than not, still in play.

 

Maybe I could've well have learned to control my draw and eliminate the running hook, but I found a solution that worked well and have stuck with it. I can still hit a draw off the tee when the shot absolutely demands it.

Edited February 18, 2021 by dubbelbogey

[Cwebb]

A "straight to slight fade" will generally have a slower rate of face closing into impact.  Making it less of a handsy timing shot, which can lead to tighter dispersion.  Especially for those with a refined swing, good enough to play at the more elite levels

[pinhigh27]

2 hours ago, tm3 said:

First lesson with a new pro, she watched a few shots and announced that the first thing we were going to have to work on was getting rid of my draw.  Her explanation was that with a right miss the ball may be bordering the creek or woods or whatever and one could stand on the fairway edge and have a decent shot, while the left miss would put the right handed golfer standing in the trouble.  According to her, "all pros try to miss right."

Would find a new pro, she must have forgot hazards don't only exist on the right side of the course. 

Edited February 18, 2021 by pinhigh27

[Krt22]

5 minutes ago, Cwebb said:

A "straight to slight fade" will generally have a slower rate of face closing into impact.  Making it less of a handsy timing shot, which can lead to tighter dispersion.  Especially for those with a refined swing, good enough to play at the more elite levels

I am not sure of that. 

[MonteScheinblum]

10 minutes ago, Cwebb said:

A "straight to slight fade" will generally have a slower rate of face closing into impact.  Making it less of a handsy timing shot, which can lead to tighter dispersion.  Especially for those with a refined swing, good enough to play at the more elite levels

I understand what you’re saying, but those things are not correlated that way.

 

 

[MonteScheinblum]

It’s usually a function of hating your ugly miss, which for “most” good players is left.

 

My miss is right.  I couldn’t care less if I hit an over draw, or even a hook, but that high right miss of the heel makes me want to abandon golf and join a convent.

[pinhigh27]

There's also never been a proven correlation with ROC and skill level/consistency. Pga tour players at all levels of the spectrum 

[ferrispgm]

37 minutes ago, MonteScheinblum said:

It’s usually a function of hating your ugly miss, which for “most” good players is left.

 

My miss is right.  I couldn’t care less if I hit an over draw, or even a hook, but that high right miss of the heel makes me want to abandon golf and join a convent.

 

[getitdaily]

Left miss means the face is closed to path. That means there will be less spin, sometimes significantly less spin. Closed face also usually means ballspeed loss isn't significant. 

 

So, a left miss can have wildly low spin while maintaining ballspeed. For drivers it means a shot offline that runs forever. For irons it usually means total loss of distance control.

 

It's why Trevino said you can talk to a fade but a hook won't listen.

[Zitlow]

Can you hit a fade with a slightly in to out (positive) path?

[dlygrisse]

2 hours ago, davep043 said:

This is a guess on my part.  I believe a lot of really good players learn fairly early in their golfing lives to swing from inside to out.  The guys who will never get good swing more out to in, the ones who have a chance swing in to out.  They tend to hit draws, and mistakes end up being hooks.  Once they develop enough swing speed, they then learn to eliminate that big miss left, to they learn to hit a fade as their default shot.  The "hatred" of the left miss is a remnant of their developmental stages, when their big misses were the wild hooks.

And of course the commentators have to say something, to fill air time.

Exactly this

[cardoustie]

I'm sure the nuns would love the swinging tips

 

Maybe we need a new Golf Channel series .... "Monte stops nuns from Hooking"

 

Sort of a modern sports take on The Sound of Music

 

@MonteScheinblum, wear your long drive medal around your neck vs a cross for the show if you could

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by cardoustie

[cardoustie]

1 hour ago, MonteScheinblum said:

It’s usually a function of hating your ugly miss, which for “most” good players is left.

 

My miss is right.  I couldn’t care less if I hit an over draw, or even a hook, but that high right miss of the heel makes me want to abandon golf and join a convent.

 

I hear you .. nothing worse than aiming right for your draw and hitting a high flare to nowhere. 

Nice double

[MonteScheinblum]

26 minutes ago, ferrispgm said:

 

 

[Pepperturbo]

You can talk to a fade but draws/hooks never listen.  In other words, the spin of a fade limits run out, can't say that about a draw.

 

I hit the ball relatively straight, but misses are left.  Typically, the result of me going after one.