I'm down here in Florida this week pulling double teaching duty. Starting in Orlando, today (Monday) and tomorrow, I'm working with DJ for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. On Tuesday afternoon, I'm hopping in the car and heading down to Port St. Lucie, Florida to do a Peak Performance Golf School at the PGA Golf Learning Center.
I met DJ about one o'clock. We had a nice lunch then headed out to the putting green where we had a good putting session. Standing over the ball, his stroke looked great and he was rolling the ball very nicely.
We did that for about 30 minutes. Then we went over to the chipping green. That's where I noticed one of the best things I've seen in a long time. He was putting a really good roll on the chips. What especially pleased me were the pitch and runs.
As I've talked about in previous articles about chipping and pitching, with square grooves these pros were able to hit a ball and everything grabbed. You're trying to hit a pitch and run but as soon as the ball hits the green it starts to bite a little bit, or “nibble” as I call it.
I've always said that doesn't make sense, doing that with a pitch and run. A pitch and run is much easier to judge, in terms of line, for the break and the distance, when the ball hits the green and it just rolls out. There's no nibbling. I've always said that if a pitch nibbles, how do you really judge how much it's going to nibble? Too much nibble and it comes up short. Not enough nibble and it goes too far. When you just drop it and it runs, it's has to be easier to judge.
I predicted and I told DJ I bet this year, short game stats are going to go up and improve because of the fact that without the square grooves anymore — and you know, on the PGA Tour, square grooves are outlawed — adding that extra spin on the balls, not getting that nibble, he's going to see that just dropping it and the chips and pitches just running out, he's going to get much better control of his distance and direction.
I saw that today on the chipping green. He looked so good, his stroke was so consistent, the balls just landed and rolled out. I noticed a lot of guys around the green chipping, they had no nibble either. I'm willing to bet that for the whole Tour short game stats around the green are going to go up because the square grooves are gone.
From there we went to the driving range and I noticed another really unusual thing that I'd never seen with DJ before. Having done the Peak Performance Golf Swing all his life, where we swing up to the T-Finish, we've always teed the driver up quite high, almost a whole ball above the clubface.
He hit some short irons, mid-irons and some long irons with a minimum 20 mph cross wind, and he was hitting the ball so pure. With that soft draw of his, the ball was holding its line against wind. Then he hit some 3 woods. He has a new shaft in his 3 wood and he said it's really helping him to hit the ball longer and getting more carry when he wants it.
But when he teed up the driver, I'm looking down at it and I didn't say anything, he had it teed up really low. I mean barely half the ball was above the clubhead. He was just bombing it. He was hitting these high trajectory take off shots that were just penetrating, holding the line against that cross win. He hit about 5 or 6 in a row and teed every one of them really low.
So I finally said to him, “DJ, what's the deal with teeing the ball so low?” He said, “Dad, I just decided that I tried it and I just feel that it helps me stay through the ball longer and when I swing up it's a lot better. I just seem to be hitting it more solid and getting a better launch angle and penetration. I don't know why but it's working.”
The issue here is that, in the last few years, most of the drivers being built by all of the major manufacturers, have the sweet spot very high in the clubface. Part of the reason is that for golfers who swing out and over the top, they're coming down pretty steep on the ball and tend to hit the ball high in the clubface. So the manufacturers moved the sweet spot so golfers can get a more solid feeling hit and get a little better distance.
If you're a Peak Performance swinger, and you're teeing the ball high and swinging up on it, there's a high probability you could be catching the ball in the center of the clubface or even a little lower. So even if you're catching it dead center, with the new drivers, you're catching it below the sweet spot, which will give you a lower penetrating flight and eventually will not feel quite as solid and definitely not go as far.
Ironically, I've been doing that for about the last six months, lowering it quite a bit. In fact now I don't even play with long tees. My ball is barely half over the club. I find that, even though I'm trying to swing up, I'm staying lower approaching the ball to swing up and catching it higher in the clubface. There is a big difference of how much farther that ball goes when you hit it dead solid but high on the clubface.
If you've been hitting the ball in what seems to be in the dead center of the club, where you think the sweet spot would be and you just don't think you're getting the distance you want and maybe causing some directional problems, try teeing it a little lower. Even though you're swing up, tee it low and hit it a little higher in the clubface .See if that doesn't give you a lot more “pop” of the ball off the clubface, which will give you a higher launch and, very likely, more distance.
The Surge!