fade and draw

I am having problems with my driver(like everyone else) I have been trying to work on my tempo.My usual swing speed is just over 100mph.I have been trying to slow that down to gain control.It seems that I hit the ball just as far with a nice smooth swing.My problem is that If I line up to the ball and play it inside left heal I seem to fade the ball(25 to 30 yards) I tryed to position the ball back alittle and then I tend to draw or pull it left still about 25 to 30 yards.I am getting tired of the aim for the middle and hope for the best mentality. Would appreciate any thoughts.


Cly

Well, after years of being very traditional, I found an easy way to draw and fade. Unlike many who recommend all sorts of things, I merely close my stance a little and move my right hand more to the right for a draw-also I swing easier to give time for the clubface and lag to do their thing.
Reverse the above for a fade.

If you have the ability to move from a
fade to a draw by simply playing the
ball back, my opinion is that you are
definitely doing something right with
respect to your swing fundamentals.

This is no place to go into it in detail,
but in better players, it is the outward
or inward tracking of the head as it makes
contact with the ball that produces,
respectively, draw spin or fade spin.
A true fade or draw, incidentally, starts
off slightly right and then turns.

What's unclear is to what you are
concerned about. As far as philosophy
goes, some feel the shaped shot is
superior to the straight because you
can aim at the trouble and work the
ball away from it. Further, the general
consensus is that a draw is superior to
a fade in that it tends to run further
off the tee. I'd question not the validity
of that second assumption, but whether
or not the advantage of the draw holds
up through the green. I play a straight
ball, not too long off the tee, but on line
with the irons. Quite often, the straight
irons help compensate for lack of distance
off the tee while, at the same time,
the right to left power hitter who just
faced me down on the tee is attempting to
control that left to right path into a
green with that shot he just hit with
an eight iron.
Interesting topic.

this seems to be a swing path issue because in a sound swing path, posistioning the fall further UP should be the draw while further back should be the fade. sounds like you are coming OTT a little

With a driver, I control the draw with how far away from the ball I stand. To fade the ball I stand at normal distance away and take a more upright swing. Standing a 1/4 inch farther makes my swing flatter. Is this a bad concept?

With the irons i draw or fade the ball positioning my feet, back foot back or front foot back. I also dont know if this is the correct way.


I have no control of a driver fade. I just know it will fade everytime. The ball seems to come off the club head too far right then start fading. Almost like a push fade, if that makes sense.

As in life, there are many ways to reach the end; it is up to you to choose the best choice for you.

Make sure your follow through for either set up is above your left shoulder. This will ensure the arms are coming down the line of the swingpath. You may, in a sense becoming around with the arms to much on the follow through - hence pulling or slicing. It a little hard to explain, but your hands should not go behind your body, rather up over the left shoulder and feel in front of you.

Shootin4Par:
I appreciate your commenting on my posts, I'm really
not into bantering back and forth. Anything to promote
taking the ball on an inside path tends to promote
draw spin. As pointed out, closing the stance and
strengthening the grip are traditional points.
I was surprised at your comment that playing the
ball back encourages a fade. This thought opposes
tradtional understanding and my experience. I googled
"how to hit a draw" and the first link was this one:
www.ehow.com/how_1166_hit-draw-shot.html
Here's the quote from that site:
Tips from eHow Users: How to hit a draw by eHow Friend
For beginners, place the ball roughly 2-3 inches back in your stance than normal. Aim your stance further to the right. Close the clubface slightly (really not that much). Make sure to take the club back slightly on the inside or closer to your body than usual and follow through toward the target line that your feet are pointing at.

Thanks for all the input..I know that I can't expect to hit the ball straight every time but it seems that I very rarely hit a straight tee shot.For the first couple of years I played golf I played one of those monster slices.I knew that I had to straighten it out to improve my scores.At first I went back-wards but stayed committed that I was not going to go back to that slice.I am now shooting mid to high 80's.Played Yesterday and shot 88 with 4 shots O.B.(I lost 3 of them right and one left)I was ok with the round considering..But if I could just hit the driver straight or straighter than I am I would hopefully take those trees,water or highway out of play.I guess maybe some time with a teaching pro might pay off.I love the game and just want to be better at it....

Cly

say you line up square to the target line and swing on an inside square inside swing path. Before you get to square the face would be open, producing fade swing then you are square, no side spin, then you are closing the club face, draw spin. He did not specify that he was trying to play a draw and a fade, he was just saying what happens to him when he plays.

I have said this before, but probably bares repeating. If you try to hit a straight shot and aim for the middle of the fairway, you are seriously limiting your self. one, it is very unlikely you can hit a straight shot with any consistancy, and you are subject to hook or slice, draw or fade, either way you are moving away from your target. Two you are reducing the fairway to half a fairway, left of center or right of center.

First thing to do is decide to fade or draw and setup for that, if it is a fade, aim for the left side, now you have the entire fairway to work with, hit it straight you are on the left side, fade as intended you are in the center of the fairway, overcook it, your still in the fairway, just on the right side, point being you are in the fairway, the only danger is the double cross setup for fade and pull hook, not likely if you used a weak grip and open stance. For the draw same thing setup for draw, aim for right side, straight you end up right, draw to center or overcook a hook, your on the left side of fairway. Much more room for mistakes taking this approach. The same applies for approach to greens work the side with the least amount of trouble, think about the worst shot you can do, and where it would end up, and setup to avoid it, draw or fade, but never, never try to hit it straight to a target, alway use the draw or fade so as to work TOWARDS the target. This is what is meant by course management.

I agree with you 100%, great post. hopefully my post did not throw anyone off, I made it in reference to him going both ways and since he did not state which type of shot he was trying to hit, or how he was set up, I generalized using a straight set up. But yes, it is best to take one side out of the equation

Oh, OK, Shoot4par, I am with you now. I was a little confused
at what you were getting at. I'm still not going to say I agree
with your idea, though, but I follow your reasoning. This whole
thing about ball flight principles gets hot when people start arguing
about Dr. Gary Wiren's section on ball flight in the PGA Teaching Manual.
I'll say it like this, Dr. Wiren better be right, because he has sold one heck
of a lot of teaching aids based on his ideas.
My question to you, S4P, is what are the three primary force vectors
in a tee shot? Not trying to be NASA or anything, here, but the big
one is a vector that sends the ball ahead, toward the target. What are
the other two?

I dont know what vectors are, expand a little please. But if you are asking what affects ball flight I will say angle of attack/seperation, line of attack/seperation, and clubface at attack/seperation

OK, and I'm not too sure what separation is.
A force vector is the amount of force delivered to the ball
by the mass of the clubhead. The clubhead is moving in
three directions: toward the target (that's the big one) toward the
ground (until it bottoms out, then it moves towards the sky) and
towards the ball or target line (until it reaches its farthest point out,
hopefully the ball, at which point its direction becomes that of away from the target line, towards the golfer. What you call the line of attack, I
think, is the first vector. The secondary is what you call the angle
of attack. The third vector is the one than produces either right to
left or left to right spin. As the cluhead travels down the target line
at 100 mph, I think it also travels toward the target line at about
15 mph. I'd have to look. It is also traveling toward the ground at about
the same, 15 mph, and those secondary forces are not incidental. They
are enough to influence ball flight considerably. Obviously, the direction
of mass that has the greatest influence delivers force forward, toward the
target.

The downward movement of club mass as
it contacts the ball is the one that produces backspin.
The big vector, that's the {(100 mph)squared times mass] force vector,
is the one that produces mainly forward motion of the ball, but
is also a significant factor in backspin when it contacts the ball
below the equator, as it certainly does with the lofted irons, and
that big vector also can most certainly create sidespin,
in those cases in which it sideswipes the ball either from the outside in (slice) or inside out (hook.)
You identify open, closed, or square (to the target line, I think) clubface
as a factor, and it certainly is a factor. However, it has been
argued that Dr. Wiren may have overstated the effect of face
angle (open or closed) as a factor in hook or slice spin.
I hope you understand I am not trying to sound like a rocket scientist here
and understand that any of these ideas are open to debate. I have put a lot of thought into this issue. Assuming a correct arc and knowing
the clubhead speed and mass, all these factors can be calculated
and such things as expected distance and degree of curve are
predictable.