Why You Need This: In this video, "How to Stop Topping Your Fairway Woods | Golf Lesson"...

You'll find out how to overcome one of the most frustrating pieces of the game.

Wasting a prime scoring opportunity with a fairway wood in your hands will drive you crazy and kill your scores.

Whether you're topping or chunking with these clubs...

...it usually stems from one problem.

You're going to discover the leading cause for this problem...

And then you'll learn how to simplify your swing so you can hit crisp, clean fairway wood shots.

Watch this video now to reach more par 5s in two and make more birdies!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:59

Video Transcription:

Topping the fairway wood is one of the most frustrating pieces of the game. Now a good news is, even if you’re chunking and topping, that really stems from one problem. I’m going to go over that problem, and then the leading cause that forces you to do this.

It’s going to simplify your swing, and make you hit crisp, clean, fairway wood shots. Let’s go ahead and get started.

The good news is whether we’re chunking or topping the ball with our fairway woods, it’s all caused from the same thing, and that’s from the bottom of our arc being behind the golf ball.

As we’re swinging this golf club, it swings in a circle. The bottom of the circle is going to be the low point of our swing. With every single swing we make, whether it’s a fairway wood, a wedge, an iron, even the driver, we want to be contacting the ball before the bottom of our arc.

So our club is working down, contacting the golf ball, then the bottom of our arc is happening in front of the golf ball. We’re making contact here with the ball, then the bottom of our arc.

If we’re topping the ball, or if we’re chunking the ball, what’s happening is we’re making the bottom of our arc behind the golf ball.

If we hit the ground hard with the low point of our arc behind the ball, now we’re going to hit a bunch of ground, get mud, and dirt, and all that between our club and the ball. It’s going to force us to hit a very poor shot.

Or, if we’re having that bottom of the arc behind the ball, the club is going to be missing the ground and coming up and hitting the top of the ball, that’s what the top comes from.

You can see here if we zoom in on my club, as I go to the bottom of that arc I’m barely missing the ground, then the club’s coming up and I’m hitting the top of the ball with the bottom of my club.

That’s causing that ball to dribble across the ground, which as you know is extremely frustrating. Everybody’s done that before, and there’s nothing that will make you madder than topping the ball, especially with a fairway wood when you’re really looking to rip one.

So in today’s video, let’s talk about the root cause, and how we get the low point of our swing in front of the golf ball every time.

It comes back to something that we teach in the Top Speed Golf System called the stable, fluid spine, and getting our weight to shift to the left but being very, very consistent as we do this.

If we do this properly, as I set up to the golf ball here at address, you’ll notice that my spine is tilted slightly away from the target at address.

As I go to the top of the swing, I’m going to let my weight transfer a little bit more to the inside of my right leg, just like if you’re loading up to throw a football, you’re going to let your weight transfer to the inside of your right leg, then come on through.

Same thing happens in the golf swing. I’ve got a little bit of tilt at address. As I go to the top, transfer I to the right, get a little bit of weight shift here, and then as I come into the downswing, my weight’s now going to be shifting to the left which allows my arc to be in front.

You’ll notice again here, as I’m at contact, my spine is going to be tilted slightly away from the target. This makes it very, very consistent as we swing. A little spine tilt, shift to the right, shift to the left, the bottom of my arc is going to be in front of the ball every single time.

One of them main things, I would probably say 70 to 80 percent of all golfers struggle with this, is not getting the proper spine angle, and then the weight starts to flop around almost in the reverse order.

What I mean by this, is as I see a lot of people set up that struggle with topping the ball, as they go to the top of the swing, their spine starts to tilt back toward the target this way, and the weight is a little too much on the left side.

Then as they start down, now we’re going to fall back to the right, and you can see the bottom of my arc is behind the ball, and I’m coming up topping that golf ball.

I have what’s called a reverse pivot, meaning my weight goes to the left, spine angle left, and then I’ll fall back to the right as I’m coming down. There’s nothing more frustrating because you’ll chunk and top over and over again, and you feel like you won’t be able to hit that clean contact with the ball.

It actually has nothing to do with what you’re doing with your hands, arms, or club, and more to do with what’s going on with the body.

Now let’s go ahead and get a couple drills that are going to walk you through this step by step, how we can eliminate this problem once and for all.

All right, so now I’ve got a great drill to really help you combat this and get the right motion, and stop topping and chunking, which is so frustrating, we all know.

Now as we set up a golf ball here, I’m going to go ahead and put one golf ball in my normal position. I’m going to go ahead and knock that ball off the tee, and I have a little tee under the golf ball, and I also have a tee about five or six inches in front.

This is going to be some great feedback as you’re working on your body angles and doing this. First, we’re going to start out by even losing the club. I’m just going to drop the club, put it on the ground.

As I set up I’m going to put my arms across my shoulders, and I’m going to get a little bit of tilt with my spine. Now I’m slightly away from the target.

I’m going to shift my weight as I turn to the top, and I’m going to make sure that the weight is on the inside of my right foot as I’m doing this, and I should feel as though my spine is still tilted away from the target as I’m doing that.

A great way to check that is making sure that my nose is shifted just to the inside of my right foot, or again, I’m going to feel very athletic like I’m loading up to throw a football, as I mentioned before.

So a little shift to the right, and a good full shoulder turn as I go back. You can see my shoulders are turning at least 90° as I’m doing this.

Now from here, I’m going to shift to the left and I’m going to make sure my weight goes to the inside of my left foot, and I’m going to pause at contact where I’m still slightly angled away.

You’ll see even though my weight is shifting to the left, I’ve kept about that same angle that I had at address, and the top of the swing with my spine.

Then I’m going to come all the way on through and get all my weight stacked over my left foot, so as I finish my hips are going to be toward the target, my body’s going to be rotated all the way through, and I’m going to be facing my target just like I’m standing up and down and talking to someone that’s in that direction.

Let’s go through this again, we’ll do about 100 repetitions of this. A little spine tilt, weight to the inside of the right foot, weight to the inside of the left foot, now all the way through. That shift to the left is what’s going to make us be able to get that contact point in front of the ball golf.

After we’ve done about 100 repetitions, you feel pretty good with that, now let’s go ahead and grab a club and do the exact same thing.

So we’ve got a little bit of tilt, swing to the top and pause, swing to the left, come into contact, and you’ll see that I can easily clip both tees, then I’m going to come all the way around to the finish.

I’m going to do another 100 repetitions of those, to where I’m feeling really good and confident with that. Now I’m ready to do this full speed.

Set up to the ball again, shift to the right, shift to the left. You can see I knocked both tees off the ground. Very easy drill to do once you get enough repetitions to get comfortable with that.

Now if I was falling back, I’m going to go ahead and put this tee in the ground. If I’m leaning to my left as I go back and then I’m falling back away, well now I’m going to have a hard time hitting the tee that would be in front up here. I’m going to swing right over top of that.

I’m going to either chunk, or thin, and never get to that front tee. So another 100 repetitions with the tees, full swing. Then you’re going to be confident enough to take a golf ball out and start getting those same repetitions in with the golf ball.

Remember to put the tee in front, even when you’re hitting the golf ball. Do a few hundred repetitions of all of this, and you’re going to feel so much more confident, you’re going to be able to put that arc in front of the ball every time, and hit good, crisp, clean shots.

Good luck to you guys, I’ll see you all soon.