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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Pop Ups Are Steep

Pop-Ups are when the golf ball flies off the crown of the driver instead of the face. It happens when a golfer makes contact with the ball over an inch higher than the center of the club. The most common cause of this shot is getting steep. The most common cause of getting steep and hitting the pop-up is the forward lunge. Good drivers of the golf ball have a minimum of a 4-inch difference between the location of the upper and lower body. If your upper body is too much on top of your lower body (like you would have with an iron) then you run the risk of hitting pop-ups. 

Playlists: Get More Distance

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Enough Distance, Driver, Impact, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner

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This concept video is pop ups are steep.

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So I know many golfers occasionally struggle with hitting the sky ball, you know, right

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off the top of the club.

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So I'm going to break that down for you so that you can see exactly what's happening and

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know once and for all what's causing it.

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If you are hitting a pop up, then you are steep and there's really only two ways that you're

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going to get steep enough to hit this pop up.

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Because you'll see if the club is behind the golf ball, if I have the grip back here, then

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if you look from the face on view, you would see that I'd make contact.

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Even if I hit the ground, I would hit contact in the middle of the club or maybe

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high on the club, but definitely not on the crown.

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The only way that I'm going to hit and make contact on the crown is if I have the grip

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significantly leaning forward.

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So many golfers struggle with the pop up in trying to stay on top of the ball, not having

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enough extra silver, not let their upper body kind of fall away.

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They get that upper body leaning on top and they'll even take little steep divots and they'll

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hit it right off the crown and pop it up.

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The other option, the other common way that golfers get steep down at the bottom is more

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with the release.

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The lunge of the upper body having the upper body on top, I would say is 90% of the

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pop-ups that I see.

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So very much getting that upper body on top will have the club coming down and if you

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don't have the ball tee up really low, you're going to tend to pop it up.

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So you'll see, I can do that one again if I'm lunging kind of on top of it and I extend

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my arms, hit that one up near the top of the club, not quite on the crown.

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I've got to hit the ground in order to do that.

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So the other one would be the more of the release pop-up which would come from down the

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line getting the club more kind of outside through there.

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So getting the club outside with more of the internal rotation release will tend to get

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the ball to hit the top of the club just like I did there.

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Coming from that steep path or steepening really late.

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So if you're hitting a pop-up, I almost guarantee that it's one of those two different

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patterns.

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And so what I usually go at first is trying to do nine to three shots where you're

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getting enough tilt behind the ball, making sure that you don't hit it fat because a

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lot of golfers lunge forward because their arms go too early instead of extending through

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the ball out in front of it, they extend down at it.

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But if you're back behind it and you'll be able to hit through the middle of the club

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kind of a piercing higher launch but flatter flight trajectory shot.

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Doing that a few kind of nine to three's and then what you'll have to do is work through

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some of the bracing drills to get used to staying behind as those arms extend.

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It's usually a common barrier to work through for any golfer who struggles with pop-ups

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is the feeling of being powerful or hitting the ball hard while staying back.

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Some golfers only feel power when they're really lunging forward as opposed to being able

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to stay back and have a good solid release and get more speed in the clubbed as opposed

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to a lot of force.

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So if it's more the release style where it's coming this way then doing a gate drill

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or putting something on the outside or working on your motorcycle and your owner deviation

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so that you can unhing and supinate while staying behind.

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That will help shallow things out give you more center face contact as opposed to hitting

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it off the crown from getting too steep.

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If you're too lazy yet steep or either lunging forward or more of that internal rotation

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style release.

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