Toe up

You know, I see a LOT of golfers who address the ball with the driver at such an angle that the toe is significantly higher than the heel. It may be my imagination, but I seem to see this most often with those who are using the drivers with very large heads (but then, almost everyone is using them, so never mind). Granted, these are all recreational golfers who have, for the most part, swings just as ugly as mine, and most of them hit the ball better than I do, so I'm not criticizing. I'm just curious. Setting up in this way has the shaft of the club at a lower angle to the ground, obviously, so I'm wondering if this is part of the one-plane setup, in order to take the club back at a less upright angle.

The thing that makes me curious is that it seems to me that this tilt would affect the ball flight because the loft of the club would no longer be oriented vertically, but would be tilted toward the golfer. Maybe this helps to cause a draw or correct a slice?

Even more curious...I see plenty who putt this way. The putter isn't soled, or even close. The toe sticks up.

Maybe the simple answer is that these guys are all hacks like myself (and who knows what I'm doing that THEY wonder about), and that's fine. I'm just wondering if there's any more to it than that.

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Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller

I'm pretty sure I've seen a few PGA pros who putt that way, with the toe slightly up. I'm not sure if it's just the camera angle, or if it looks much more severe than it really is, but I did wonder about this a few weeks back looking at one of the PGA tournaments.

Ahhhh, the wonder of loft.

Just something to try, the next time you're at the range.

Hit your driver extremely toe-up. Then hit your 9 iron the same way.

Two different ball flights, you say?

That's because with little loft, the ball will go more where force puts it. With more loft, the loft becomes the controlling factor.

That's why you can dead pull a 'quite toe up' nine, but your 'quite toe up' driver goes relatively close to where you aimed it, just like your putter, that has 4º loft or less.

Umbizmo,

There are two answers to this, the first being that very few golfers ever have drivers fitted, because there is less access to the equiptment to do this unless you visit the manufacturer or at the range on a visit day.

The second is that the toe should be slightly up on every club and more so on the driver, if you look at the impact position the shaft bends slightly, this levels thing up.


Hope this helps


ian.

But does the shaft bend toward the ground at impact? If not, how would this level things up?

Yes, the shaft flexes down as well as laterally - this downward flex is called toe droop.

No kidding! Who knew? This site is a gold mine of info--just as Ricky says (snort)! Now I'm wondering if toe droop could help to explain my tendency to push, given that I always try to sole the club dead flat at address.

I never had an inkling of this before.

Lowpost is of course absolutley correct....................


The shaft bends both ways.........strange but true.



Ian.

I find I have to set up with the toe 'uncomfortably high' up, but it sure makes for a straight shot. When I set up with the toe where I think it 'up but not too up', I start losing shots right.

That's interesting LowPost. I know you're an advocate of the One Plane Swing and looking through Jim Hardy's book the other day, there's a side-on photo of him at address and his hands are unbelievably low. I suppose if you're more bent over, as per the 1PS, it stands to reason that your hands will be lower and your driver will be more toe up. One more experiment for the range.

Hmmm....I'm *not* doing a One Plane Swing, but this certainly is interesting. For some reason, I've never seen any mention of this in any golf book or article--or maybe I have and it just didn't register in my mind. I definitely need to experiment.

More importantly is that your arms are hanging loosely from your shoulders, not so much that the toe of you club is up. It all comes down to getting a proper swing on the ball. But a general rule, the shorter the player is, the more the toe of your driver will be up based on the fact that it is much more difficult to adjust drivers/fairway woods/hybrids than irons.

The lie is not adjusted on woods because the material the heads are made of is not designed to be adjusted for lie, unlike the material used iron heads.

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Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall

It's the ragged edge of the season here in Philadelphia. We've been lucky to have some mild weekends, so I did get to play on Sunday, and the weekend before, and I'm hoping to get out tomorrow. It's supposed to be in the mid-40s, which is okay if there's no wind. Anyway, if I get out I'm going to try setting up with the toe raised a bit, and see what happens. I'm glad I started this thread because I knew nothing of "toe droop," and it could turn out to be important.

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Todd
Philadelphia, PA
USA

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing. ~Phyllis Diller