[Burner]

Hello all, this is my first post. I'd like opinions on reading divots, particularly with short/mid irons. I've noticed lately that on a good portion of my iron shots, the divots are actually curved to the hook side of my target line. That is, you can definitely see a radius in the divot that starts in front of the ball and curves a bit toward my feet. The shots may be well struck, but they are usually pulled by 5 to 10 degrees.

The club must be swinging from the hands (as opposed to from the shoulder)at the time that the ground is entered, which explains the curving divot. But what I'm not sure of is whether this is indicative of a plane misalignment or a release problem.

Thanks, your help is appreciated.

Zin14

Remember that the divot occurs after the ball has been struck and the sweet spot may, at that time have been on plane - no problem there.

However, let ball flight be your judge. Divots curving left and ball flight curving left also indicates impact on the rear of the ball with a club face square to the line that the club head is travelling on - a pull; resulting from steering, which is trying to hit the ball on a straight line path to the target, possibly.

Impact a tad inside of center rear of the ball will produce a draw. Use the same swing but allow the sweet spot to find its own way down and out to low point, i.e staying on plane without any intervention from you to hit at the intended target. In this scenario, your target is a bit right of where you want the ball to finish up and draw spin will get it there.

Edit

To really get into this stuff have a look at this thread, post #5, and pay particular attention to our leader, in his youth, demonstrating these concepts.