WEBVTT

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This concept video is looking at topping the ball. So topping the ball is

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definitely one of those frustrating misses that you can struggle with from

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time to time. And we're going to take a high level in this video and kind of

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look at the two major causes of why may be topping the ball. Now first let's

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get

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on the same page as far as what the general path of the club is when I'm

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typically topping the ball. So if I were to pick up the ball and hold it here

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is

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if it were on the ground basically what you would see is if you remember the

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ball striking or the contact video ideally we want the club to be hitting the

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golf ball as it's traveling slightly down. Well what a lot of people think

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they're doing when they top the ball is they think they're just kind of going

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down but the club is a little bit above the ball. 99 times out of a hundred

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when

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you're topping the ball it's reaching its low point behind the ball like this

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and

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it's a it's hitting the golf ball on the way up kind of like so. So if I did

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that

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down here basically it'll end up looking like that and that's how I end up

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getting that top shot. If the club were actually traveling down as I hit it

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typically the the ball unless you hit it just on the top typically you would at

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least get some kind of shot out of it. So now we have to look at kind of the

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more common reasons why maybe having the bottom of my swing there or not

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getting the club to brush the ground because most of these top shots if I

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were to get the club to brush the ground virtually all top shots would be

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eliminated. I could still hit it fat but at least I wouldn't top the ball. So

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the

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two major issues that I'm gonna see when someone is topping the ball are simply

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this. If I set up to the golf ball I'm a certain distance away. My arm

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especially

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my right arm has a little bit of bend in it so if I was to stay right here and

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just straighten my arms you can see I'd hit behind the golf ball. So we have to

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account for that in one way or another. What a lot of golfers do is they're

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going to stand up so the most common reason for topping the ball is having

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this loss of posture having this upper body kind of early extend or stand up

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especially during the downswing and now even if I were to extend my arms the

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bottom of the swing is right back here and I'm still gonna top the ball. So if

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we address this and I'm still topping the ball right if I keep my upper body

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down and I'm still topping the ball then what it means is that I'm probably

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doing the other common thing which would be bending the arms. So instead of

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having my arms kind of extend through the shot as I talk about in the follow

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through position because if you remember in the follow through position we're

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trying to kind of say about the same distance away from the golf ball or even

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get closer to it as my arms extend out towards the target. Well if my arms if I

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keep my upper body the same distance away but my arms were to bend I can whiff

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or

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top the ball. Now that's usually because I'm going to be slamming the club into

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the ground if I don't because I'm coming into steeply or too vertically so you

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want to pay attention to kind of the path of the arms and what I talk about in

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transition but if you're topping the ball pretty much there's two options

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either

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I'm not straightening my arms or I'm standing up even if I'm not feeling like

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I'm doing either one of those. So I've had you know juniors as young as six

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seven

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years old understand these concepts and be able to really kind of zero it in so

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that if I don't make solid contact if I top the ball I just check my follow

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through replay it in my mind I'll figure out if I either stood up or I didn't

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straighten my arms. Once you have that figured out you can go through kind of

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your checklist to figure out well why would I be standing up or why would I be

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bending my arms and then figure out a way pick one of the drills to figure out

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a way to kind of practice getting your body to stay down and the arms to extend

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but I promise if you do those two things this stays the same distance away and

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your arms are extending through the shot it's virtually impossible it's

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top the ball.