Shot Shaping

[Tyler Pisiak]

I've been playing with the M4 iron set for a couple years now and have been tinkering with my shot shaping for a little bit now and am really struggling with consistent movement. i can play a nice 5-10 yard cut almost at will but am having a really hard to overcooking my draw. I can play the shot I want more times than not but can't seem to dial it in to a repeatable shape. As all golfers do I want to blame it on my irons but I'm probably just need to practice more.i don't have the same problems if my woods (stealth 2) or my Driver (Paradyme) if any tips let me know 

Edited June 15 by Tyler Pisiak

[RickyBobby_PR]

Why work on shot shaping? The number of pros who shape shots both ways is less than 10, more can do it but don’t.

What you will from a lot of pros is a fade type swing with driver and slowly moving towards a draw as they go down the bag.

IMO it doesn’t make sense to work the ball both ways. Flighting the ball up and down is  better skill to have especially for anyone not scratch or better. 

Edited June 16 by RickyBobby_PR

[TylorJudd]

59 minutes ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Why work on shot shaping? The number of pros who shape shots both ways is less than 10, more can do it but don’t.

What you will from a lot of pros is a fade type swing with driver and slowly moving towards a draw as they go down the bag.

IMO it doesn’t make sense to work the ball both ways. Flighting the ball up and down is  better skill to have especially for anyone not scratch or better. 

Why can’t he work on shot shaping? What if he plays a course on a regular basis that maybe needs a little shaping to the left or right? I agree with the flighting of shots, but there are always scenarios where you’ll need to shape a shot. I’m willing to bet more than 10 pros shape shots, seems a little arbitrary. 
 

Let’s look and see he’s a new member, and maybe be a little more inviting?….

[cnosil]

12 hours ago, Tyler Pisiak said:

As all golfers do I want to blame it on my irons but I'm probably just need to practice more.i don't have the same problems if my woods (stealth 2) or my Driver (Paradyme) if any tips let me know 

You could add the ball into the equation as well; they trend toward going straight.    Essentially it comes down to practice and learning how to control the face to path angles.   You might be at the point where you need a launch monitor that measures those things so you know what you are actually doing and not guessing.    Your irons might have a little bit to do with the finer control since most GI type irons are designed for straighter ball flight.   

Learning how to control things like path, face angle, low point, etc are really good skills to have.   I tend to agree with the other  poster that stock shot is what should be played 90% of the time with irons and 100% of the time with driver/woods on the course.    

[RetiredBoomer]

11 hours ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

Why work on shot shaping? The number of pros who shape shots both ways is less than 10, more can do it but don’t.

What you will from a lot of pros is a fade type swing with driver and slowly moving towards a draw as they go down the bag.

IMO it doesn’t make sense to work the ball both ways. Flighting the ball up and down is  better skill to have especially for anyone not scratch or better. 

Controlled draws and fades do indeed require a significant skill level,
but intentionally hitting huge bananas in either direction
is pretty easy at any level of play.

Exaggerated  cast over the top for the slice and exaggerated inside out with hooded face for the hook.  You can learn both at the practice tee in fifteen minutes. 

They're also both useful shots in certain situations.

[DaveP043]

From everything I've read, and for MOST players at almost all levels, your dispersion will be tighter whenever you play your stock shot, wider when trying to vary your shot shape.  So what do you want, consistently closer to your intended location, or not?  Sure, work on the skills required to hit controlled draws and fades, that's all valuable.  But on the course, hit YOUR shot unless you absolutely are required to do something else.

[RickyBobby_PR]

11 hours ago, TylorJudd said:

Why can’t he work on shot shaping? What if he plays a course on a regular basis that maybe needs a little shaping to the left or right? I agree with the flighting of shots, but there are always scenarios where you’ll need to shape a shot. I’m willing to bet more than 10 pros shape shots, seems a little arbitrary. 
 

Let’s look and see he’s a new member, and maybe be a little more inviting?….

Point to me where is said he can’t work on it?

I asked why work on it and pointed out that the the number of the best golfers in the world that move the ball side to side is small. Pretty good indication that amateur golfers who aren’t scratch or better probably shouldn’t either. A mid handicap should be focused on developing a stock shot and being able to consistency hit that every time with woods and irons, developing and improving their wedge play and putting. Then work on hitting the ball lower and higher to be able flight the ball and play shots into the green based on pin location front to back.

This is how they will score better.

As for trying to practice shaping the ball side to side it brings in unpredictability and usually creates more issues than it fixes like two way misses.

I got that number from an instructor that works with tour pros, consults with other touring pros, coaches for tour players, and has been a tour pro who recently qualified and played in the us senior open. Again it’s not that more can’t they just don’t on a regular basis or hardly ever. They want predictability and control.

Just because a course may have holes that favor one shot shape over the other doesn’t mean it’s required. Nor does it it necessary to try and reach or 5 in 2 to win. Zach Johnson played a draw around Augusta and also never tried to reach a par 5 in 2 for 4 rounds and won a green jacket. He also won The Open by playing a draw for 4 rounds.

 

 As to the bold you have chosen to minsterpret a pos you disagree with as non being inviting. All I did as mentioned above was ask why. This give anyone who is going to offer advice an insight into what the op is thinking and to dive more into what’s going on. I then offered some insight into shot shaping and why it may not be the best idea at the moment.

The post creates the possibility for engagement rather than what we see from some first time posters who create a thread and then disappear from th at thread or even the site.

Edited June 16 by RickyBobby_PR

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, cnosil said:

You could add the ball into the equation as well; they trend toward going straight.   

Exactly. The current ball is designed to spin less than balls from the early 2000s and before, it’s part of the reason we don’t see a lot of shot shaping on the tour side to side. Even Someone like bubba uses a very big open stance to help move the ball the amount he does and he suing clubs that are going to create more spin than the OPs.

With the lower spin and higher launch design of those clubs a bigger manipulation is needed to create the movement of the ball to either side. That brings in the opportunity to have more misses, bigger misses and higher scores.

Ball flight laws don’t change because of the equipment being used MB vs GI/SGI just that the difference in what creates than movements has to increase due to design