Flush Your Fairway Woods

Gary Gilchrist

Gary Gilchrist

Head Coach, Golf Digest Top 50 in America, Golf Magazine Top 100 in America

Let’s talk about fairway woods. A lot of you sometimes hit them well, but then you start hitting them fat, you’re hitting them thin.

And the biggest reason is you start swinging the club too long. As soon as you swing too long, your weight goes to your left. And now what happens, you start moving to the right, and the club comes steep. So you go up, hit a thin, or you stay down, you hit it fat.

The first thing you need to do in a practice swing, is really feel a shorter backswing. So you can see my arms and the club make a Y now my Y becomes an L, and then come back to the ball.

This is going to help you shallow, the club head into the ball so you’re brushing the grass, which allows you to use the loft of the club to get the ball up in the air.

The first thing that I would do when you’re on the range is to grip it shorter, narrow your stance and make short little swings. So you go back… through, and you can see there I brush the grass and the ball went like a little draw.

Now all I need to do with the normal swing is take a wider stance. I’m behind the ball and feel the same thing: short and through.

Every time I’m just brushing the grass. So remember, as soon as you swing long, the club will fall out of balance. Now you’re trying to find balance. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to come steep, lift up, hit it thin or hit it fat with a shut face.

So remember, just by shortening your swing, you’re going to keep your weight between your feet. Now when you come back to the ball, the face is going to be nice and squar at impact. So work on shortening the swing, better impact and more solid shots.