What happens when I step up to the tee

I stand looking out at an immaculately groomed tee box, and stare out into the fairway fronted by hazard and guarded by bunkers. “Ahhh, first tee”, I think, “where do I want this ball to go?” I step up to the tee box and examine the alignment of the white markers relative to the fairway, then decide where to place my tee to give myself the best chance of smacking that first ball into that inviting fairway.

So where do I place the ball? At this time that is a conundrum for me because I have a problem choosing which side of the tee box to place my tee. Why is that you may ask? It is because conventional wisdom is that you should NOT place your tee smack in the middle of that expanse of space, instead you should place your tee on a side that takes advantage of your predominate shot shape or if possible on the same side as trouble if the trouble is particularly daunting, like water or OB. So, for example, if my predominate shape was a cut or fade (or slice) I should tee up on the right side of the box, aim up the left side of the fairway, and whack it knowing the left to right curve will bring the ball back into play. For me the conundrum comes because, off the tee, I don’t have a predominate shot shape.

With my 3-wood it tends to be a fade, but as I noted in the last blog, my misses are a push-cut/slice so egregious that only 40% of 3-woods end up in the fairway. My next choice is the 3-hybrid. I manage to hit that into the fairway around 60% of the time, but 40% misses adds up to a lot of lost balls and penalties.  The shape of my 3-hybrid is straight to a slight fade, but the 40% misses can be a pull, or a push, or a hard push-cut. How do I choose a side of the tee when I don’t know where the shot will go? If I find in the pre-round warm-up I’m hitting pulls, I line up on the left side of the tee and aim left-center and hope I can keep it in play. If I’m hitting fades, I line up on the right side and aim, again left-center and hope it curves back into the fairway. But when I hit a pull from from the right, it’s a goner left. If, on the other hand, I am on the left of the tee to account for the pull but hit a strong push-fade/cut – it’s a goner right.

So why blather about tee shots in a blog about shot shape?

I’ve recently asked myself why I don’t have a predominant shot shape off the tee. It is a good question because over the last couple of years I have developed the ability to hit a draw or fade with irons pretty much at will. It is easier for me to hit a fade than a draw, but when I have to, I can hit either when I strongly visualize the shape and rehearse the swing that produces the shape.

Most frequently, I use the ability to shape shots to get out of trouble. Because my most common fault is a pull, my favorite escape from the trees on the left is a low, punchy hook when I can see a clear path back to the fairway. A prime example of this occurred on the #1 handicap 5th hole on Avery Ranch. A dogleg left Par 5 with a pond fronting the green, I normally layup my third shot in front of the pond leaving a 90-100 yard shot to the green. But in December, when the fairways were dry and dusty, I slightly pulled my 3-hybrid 217 long yards off the tee. However, a tree blocked the path to my usual intermediate layup spot. I noticed though, that I had a clear shot to hit a medium high 7-iron hook around the tree and back into the fairway. So, I placed the ball a bit back in my stance, aligned the slightly closed clubface to where I wanted the ball to start right of the tree, rehearsed the low punchy, hands-turning-over swing a couple times to recall the hook shot feel, then gave it a crisp whack. I rejoiced to see the ball slide by the tree and start curving around to the left, land with a bounce, and roll out of sight in the middle of the fairway. I hit that 7-iron 179 yards and parred the hole for the first time with a cleanly struck wedge and two putts.

I have learned, though, that I tend to pull that draw/hook so I have to aim a bit further right of the obstacle to pull off the shot. I have successfully hit this shot so often that I have great confidence in pulling it off. The first time I tried to pull off a deliberate low slice from the right side of a fairway, I thwocked the ball dead in the center of the huge oak I was trying to avoid and added another 50 yards to the hole on the rebound. Lesson learned and in the two or three subsequent times I needed to slice around a tree I pulled it off because I aimed the clubface a lot further left of the offending tree.

The feel of shaping shots

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve learned that I do better when I think about the dynamics of swing and “feel” what I want to accomplish. I’ve read a lot of technical approaches to shaping shots and I do employ them in the setup, but to really accomplish the shot, it’s not just the setup, but the feel that helps me produce the results I desire. My natural iron shape is a fade and the feel I have when I hit a good fade is that my right hand stayed down the line. Sometimes I hit a cut or slice and in that case it feels like my right index finger tried to overpower the shot and stayed under the club and pushed right and away. I really hate that feeling and I try my best to keep my left hand dominant and right hand passive because when the right hand (or shoulder) takes over I hit ugly slices and push-fades or strong pulls.

When I’m hitting a draw or hook, I feel like the right and left hands turn over rather than go down the line. It feels like a proper release instead of a held-off release. A couple of videos say that to promote an inside-out swing and hit a draw, make sure to bow the left wrist at the start of the downswing. I have tried that a few times but hit a massive snap hook when I bow the wrist. When I get back to swinging L-to-L drills I plan to see if I can feel what a flat wrist will accomplish as far as shaping a tamer draw.

I knew that the feeling of turning the hands or not lead to my shaping shots, but recently I came across this video from Malaska Golf that really helps visualizing and understanding the feeling of how the hands shapes shots. After watching that video several times I started working on holding the clubface itself in the hand and feeling how manipulating the clubface with the hand produces shot shapes. With this, I have learned how to feel the face so much more clearly when I grip and swing the club normally. I’m not there with every shot yet because I only recently learned the concept, but I know it will become a regular part of how I shape shots.

What's the shape of things to come?

When I get back to hitting balls at the 5th or 6th week after my surgery, I will start off with very easy L-to-L swings. In these swings I will first work on sequencing to ensure I start the swing with the lower body and not my arms and shoulders. Next I will work on contact drills. In last years Open Championship the camera happened to focus on the face of Jordan Spieth’s hybrid during that amazing bogey save on 13. I noticed that the face of that hybrid was totally shiny right in the center of the face and hardly marked at all outside of that. I want to work on getting that center face contact much more often than I do now. And finally, I will work on shaping shots with my hands. At first I will work on getting one shape until I get it down. Then work on the next until it’s down. I will work on shaping a high draw, low draw, high fade, and low fade. Then I will create pressure tests of randomly hitting shapes and keeping score of the results.

When I get back to the full swing, I will have created a library of shapes and will work on one predominant shape, first with the 3-hybrid and then with the 3-wood. If I can develop the ability to hit a high fade with at least 90% probability then I will know I can confidently tee my ball up on the right side, aim left, and hit that left to right shape to put the ball into play on the fairway. Then I’ll be in great shape to lower my score!