Can you hit it straight

[Swingtheclub]

the oldest question

hope this works

Hogan said if you hit it straight its and accident. I have been having accidents for 42 years my natural shot is straight

when I swing bad my safety valve is a draw and I can cut or fade it but its getting harder as I get older.

So whats your shot and do you consider straight and accident I consider it the dummest thing I ever heard

[Grum]

Driver - straight to draw

3 wood - straight to fade

irons - fade

wedges - fade

 

 

Generally the harder I swing the further left I go, the more I ease off the further right I go, its easy like sunday mornings! I can go both ways with everything, but some shots are easier and more dependable!

[Grimace45]

Up until last year my natural shot was a slinging draw that turned into a big hook when my timing was off. I made some swing changes and have not seen the left hand side of the golf course in a very long time mow that I have gone to a pwer fade as my natural shot. If I somehow manage to hit it straight it was definitely by accident since I move just about every shot that I hit.

[retep]

i hit it straight 9/10 times. but i am aligned wrong so it goes straight to the rough! my ball flight i try to draw, but can't with the driver, but can with 5 wood on down...

[blue-palasky]

i hit it straight 9/10 times. but i am aligned wrong so it goes straight to the rough! my ball flight i try to draw, but can't with the driver, but can with 5 wood on down...

 

 

I highly doubt that you hit it straight 90% of the time. If that were true you’d be a lot better than a 20 handicap. :)

 

[LSeca]

So whats your shot and do you consider straight and accident I consider it the dummest thing I ever heard

 

Unfortunately my straight shot is usually with driver, high and straight push to the right. :)

 

I play a fade with driver and slight draw with everything else.

[Swingtheclub]

the point is not if you can aim. Its if your ball curves when you hit it. Most of mine do not.

[littlepingman]

I pretty much try to do whatever the particular hole asks for.

[AcesAZ]

I believe most of the best ballstrikers work the ball on nearly every shot. Watch Tiger on the practice range. Most shots he hits are baby draws but he will hit some fades as well obviously. Rarely ever see him hit it straight.

[withdrew]

I hit a natrual fade. Straight is an accident, for me.

[ericld]

I hit it straight for the most part. There is about a 1-2 yard draw on my normal shot. The draw is subtle enough that I call my iron shots straight. My ball is more affected by the things that happen once it hits the grass than the right to left-ness :)

 

I'm switching to Mizuno MP irons because I feel like I gotta WORK to hit a cut or draw. It takes too much swing modification to work the ball with my Taylor Made RAC LT's. Who knows, maybe my balls will get crazy after the iron switch.

 

My misses with irons are hooks

[g8a_golf]

draw all day. I can cut and draw my driver, but nothing else unless its severe...

[chfd098]

I used to have a wonderful little draw to my irons and drives. Now it is a slight fade, although my driver still draws some but that may change with the new shaft. As long as I am making solid contact I will play what my swing gives me.

[mizuno67]

the point is not if you can aim. Its if your ball curves when you hit it. Most of mine do not.

 

 

you may find you have a slight curve as the ball takes off initially and then straightens you just don't see it

[thenewbie]

I aim at the left edge of the area where I want the ball to go with my driver, then it goes anywhere from straight to a 20 yard fade. since I aim at the left edge, that almost always leaves me in the fairway. good times.

[hattrick3518]

i always played a fade, all last year and the year before. BUT the first time i got out onto the range this season i was hitting a draw and have been ever since :) its been working for me but my miss is certainly coming when i get quick and then i just hook it a bit :( crazy crazy game

[Diesel]

i voted for no idea, cause my swing is so inconsistent most of the time, i don't have one shot that i can do repeatedly for an entire round...

 

i've been trying to play straight shots strictly, and since that just hasn't worked for me with consistency, i'm going to try and practice a fade and draw and see which one i can hit more repeatedly...

 

then go from there...

[CRutherford]

If I just setup completely square, I would hit a baby draw. I like to play a fade, but if the shot doesn't call for it, the draw isn't too wicked to work with, about 8-10yds. with a driver. The normal fade would be <5yds.

[gir2]

not counting utter mishits, shanks, fat, etc, probably about 20% of mine go dead straight. the rest disperse some.

[steventoo]

A standard shot for me with my woods and irons is straight to a 10 meter draw, but it's inconsistent. Misses are pull hooks.

 

I can fade my driver and fairway wood but I'm rarely able to fade my irons - I don't practice doing so, though.

 

Wedges are straight.

[Dariusz J.]

hope this works

 

Hogan said if you hit it straight its and accident. I have been having accidents for 42 years my natural shot is straight

 

when I swing bad my safety valve is a draw and I can cut or fade it but its getting harder as I get older.

 

So whats your shot and do you consider straight and accident I consider it the dummest thing I ever heard

 

 

Ken, dead straight shots (with a perfect vertical backswing axis) are practically not existing. Clubface angle and swing path correlation while a ball lies in front of the golfer practically excludes mathematically such a possibility. We can witness almost straight shots because either wind is helping or the correlation is luckily and casually close to give a straight shots.

Thus, what your eyes perceive as a straight shot it is only an almost straight shot in reality.

What Ben Hogan said, is one of the wisest things about golf I have ever heard. Moreover, one of the most helpful things - it forces a curious reader to learn more about physical factors influencing the flight of the ball.

 

Cheers

[noputt]

When I have my decent swing, every club is dead straight.

[ezra76]

I've started hitting it pretty straight. Used to have a fade, then a draw. Now I'm trying to work it off straight setup, open fade, close draw. Looking real good so far.

[Swingtheclub]

hope this works

 

Hogan said if you hit it straight its and accident. I have been having accidents for 42 years my natural shot is straight

 

when I swing bad my safety valve is a draw and I can cut or fade it but its getting harder as I get older.

 

So whats your shot and do you consider straight and accident I consider it the dummest thing I ever heard

 

 

Ken, dead straight shots (with a perfect vertical backswing axis) are practically not existing. Clubface angle and swing path correlation while a ball lies in front of the golfer practically excludes mathematically such a possibility. We can witness almost straight shots because either wind is helping or the correlation is luckily and casually close to give a straight shots.

Thus, what your eyes perceive as a straight shot it is only an almost straight shot in reality.

What Ben Hogan said, is one of the wisest things about golf I have ever heard. Moreover, one of the most helpful things - it forces a curious reader to learn more about physical factors influencing the flight of the ball.

 

Cheers

 

 

I disagree Hogan believed every shot should be attempted with some sort of side spin he preferred left to right He never gave a thought about vertical backswing axis You and I would disagree on a lot of things because you make the game way to complicated.

 

If a shot starts on a line and stays on that line that in my opinion is straight.

[Diesel]

i hit whatever shot i could get to land softer, if i knew i wanted to fly is all the way to the pin...

[Dariusz J.]

OK, Gents. Without a help of basic physics it would be difficult to explain my point, but it's not that hard, though :)

 

Imagine a theoretical situation that the ball is being hit with a golf club on a shaft that is perfectly vertical to the ground; e.g. a golfer lies on a horizontal shelf (say, 1 meter above the ground and vertical in relation to the ground) and hits a ball that is directly under him (not possible in a standard situation because noone is able to swing through one's legs...lol) - of course, the lie angle of such a club must be 90 degrees and the ground perfectly flat.

This hypothetical situation excludes the impact of a swing path since it will always be square; if the clubface is also dead square - the ball will fly dead straight.

 

However, in a realistic model, the ball lies always in front of a golfer what makes the ball flight dependent on the swing path; the correlation between swing path and clubface angle at impact is very complex. Physicians estimated that the ball flight direction depends in ca. 85% on clubface angle at separation (direction) and ca. 15% on swing path (curvature).

We could end the whole thing just now - since the probability of hitting a dead straight shot taking into account only those two variables is extremaly low.

 

But, there is also another variable - time of the contact with the ball and how a given ball type reacts when being hit by a clubface, and what the clubface is "doing" in this small period of time. Usually, it runs on an arc, since the whole golf swing runs on arc. Therefore, a ball that flies "straight" at the target is being hit e.g. with a X* swing path from the inside with a Y* open face at first contact and Z* closed face at separation. This ball will not fly perfectly straight in a mathematical/physical point of view.

The only theoretical possibility of excluding the path angle from the equation is the situation in which the first contact is being done with a square path and a square face and this lasts until the separation.

But this scenario is very unlikely.

 

So, all patterns of the flight of the ball is like a constant war between swing path angles and clubface angles during the contact with the very ball.

 

Lastly, I don't want to split hairs and admit that ball flight can appear straight or even dead straight to our eyes (including Moe Norman's shots)- but a truly really straight ball is just a rare accident, just as Mr.Hogan said.

 

Cheers

[Swingtheclub]

you may be right with your physics, but that is not what Hogan meant he knew nothing of physics. He belivieved you had to spin the ball one way or another and that it was to hard to hit it trying not too. If I hit the ball with what appears not to spin to me thats straight, If I hit the ball from point a to point b on a relative straight line thats straight.

 

Hogan was no genius and no physics major your twisting his words is hilarious.

 

You on the other hand are very intelligent. I wonder if it gets in the way of your playing good golf. May I ask what your handicap is?

[Dariusz J.]

Ken,

 

You underestimate Hogan. He was a genius of the swing and his physical knowledge was much bigger than you think. Have you read Haney's book "The Only Golf Lesson You'll Ever Need" ? In case you haven't there is a quote worth reading at the very beginning of the book:

 

" [...] Because you are standing to the side of the ball, the club should swing to the inside of the ball target-line in the backswing, to straight at impact, to back to the inside in the through swing. So you want to contact the inside part of the ball with the clubface closing as it comes through in order to start your little draw to the right of the target.

When I first started working with Mark O'Meara he represented the Ben Hogan Company. One day, in Mr.Hogan's office, Mark asked him what the correct flight on a perfectly struck shot should be. He told Mark exactly what I have just told you.

Mark then asked another question: "When you hit that draw should the clubface be square, closed or slightly open but in the process of closing ?" Mr.Hogan looked at Mark for a long moment. Then he asked who had told Mark to ask this question. Mark said, "My teacher, Hank Haney". "You tell him he's right," was Mr.Hogan's reply. When I heard that I knew I had asked an intelligent question and I knew I was on the right track. "

 

This short fragment shows that Mr.Hogan not only knew the physics of the ball flight but also know that the "natural" shot for all golfers is always a slight draw - just because the ball lies in front of you and the clubhead should close naturally during the contact. If golf was about hitting the ball lying behind us with our arms directed to the back - the natural shot would be a slight fade. This is just an additional remark, though. :)

 

 

FYI - since you asked, I have been playing golf since 2001, my current EGA HCP is 10.9 and my IQ is ca.135 - so, as you see, I am hardly a great golfer yet and hardly brilliant, but I believe I am over a world's average in both cases...LOL :( Thanks for your good words, though.

 

Cheers

[Swingtheclub]

I love this debate. Hogan was a flat swinger that duck hooked it for years. He finally learned that if he rotated his core fast enough he could hold the club face square and hit a fade.. I admire that he dug it out of the dirt and trust me he turned into a great player.

 

Then again so did Lee Trevino and I do not intend to teach anyone to swing like he did either.

 

Lol I have been playing 44 years and was probably a plus handicap at one time now I 58 play twice a week never practice and play to a 3

 

From what I have read Hogan loved playing the god. Yet Snead beat him three out of four times they met head to head and Byron kicked his butt way back to the caddy yard.

 

Not that it matters but I score well on IQ test as well, not that it impresses me.

 

Golf is a simple game that people try so hard to complicate. At least thats my opinion.

[Diesel]

Golf is a simple game that people try so hard to complicate. At least thats my opinion.

 

no kidding...?

 

LOL...