What's the proper ball position and setup for using the 3 Wood off the tee? How about off the fairway? I can't find a section in the School for these clubs. Up until the past couple of months, I used to be pipe my 3W off the tee and into the fairway consistently 230+ yards (Thanks Arccos data!) but now that swing is gone. Now my ball flight looks like a knuckle ball that goes visibly downward and tops out around 100 yards if I'm lucky or just a flat out top that goes no where. I desperately need to get my 3W back into game. Any suggestions!
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@bryan.p.atchison - Stock ball position for the 3W is slightly behind the inside of the heel of your lead foot - perhaps by about the width of one ball.
Oftentimes when golfers are hitting everything well except for the longer clubs - which is quite normal early in the swing change process as a golfer gets used to applying the weight-forward concept to the fairway woods and driver - it can be attributed to one of the following:
1) Their hips are not continuing their lateral slide through impact. This is common with the longer clubs as the wider stance means that the hips have a greater distance to travel. If the hips stop moving laterally towards the target on the downswing then their rotation takes over, inhibiting any further necessary forward weight loading (we should be 80/20 forward halfway down, 90/10 at impact, and 95/5 in the finish), changing the low point and rerouting the club into a steeper angle of attack. This can produce a variety of undesirable results including fat and thin contact, topped shots and popups, straight pulls, and “banana” slices. Here is a drill from the Fixing Common Swing Problems section specific to building in more lateral hip slide in the downswing.
Of great importance is keeping your upper torso/head in place (in other words, not moving towards the target from a face-on view) while the hips execute the lateral slide action. This preserves the swing center and the desired shallow AoA.
2) They are not allowing the length of the club to dictate the backswing path and are getting too steep as a result. The shaft length of the longer clubs encourages more of an around the body backswing as established by the shaft plane at address. It may "feel" flat as they take it back along the shaft plane for the first few feet, but as long as they maintain the "weight forward, shoulder down, and hands in" components while allowing the club to work around them, it should put them in the proper position at the top so they can attack the ball from the inside. (A good feel for that lead shoulder is "down and in, under the chin".) This KFC Club members video may help in this regard.
As mentioned, this is a common issue that I am regularly asked to fix, so if yours doesn't relate to any of the above causes - or if it does and you are experiencing difficulty resolving it - we can always arrange for a V1 swing video analysis to pinpoint the culprit and offer an appropriate solution.
TS