Surge here. There was a question on the blog and it's a really good one. According to this, we've got a really sick puppy.
Ruben says, “I'm shanking my short pitch or short chip shots. I do not know what I am doing wrong.”
Well, for starters, Ruben, there's a really good chance you're really not shanking. What you're doing is hitting them with a wide open blade. It could be right in the middle of the face and it still could go extremely right for a right-hander. The odds are, shanking it is not what's happening.
What you might be doing, and I see this fairly often, is that when we get to short chips and pitches, the player stops taking the club back, rotating the arms and hands and taking the club back toe up. In fact, they just take the club away keeping the face square to the aiming line which is shut.
So if the club face comes back square, if you're a right-hander, the back or right arm would be coming back a little bit high, when you come back down it's going to open up because for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
So if that club face is coming back staying square to the aiming line and not coming back toe up your are, in fact, having a shut to open swing. Opening up on the way down is turning the face wide open, turning the hands skyward, which turns the face skyward, which means the ball is going to go off to the right. That could sound and look like a shank.
If, in fact, you are shanking it, meaning the ball's being hit in the hosel, then the chances are you're probably falling or leaning into your shot. It could behaving you weight too far forward or you're so far ahead of it that the club has no time to square up and your hands are still leading so much that you're putting the hosel into it.
The odds are it's one of those two issues. Again, the second issue would also mean, you have a setup situation where the ball is too far back and body too far forward where you're hitting it too soon and before the release the ball's going to be hitting the hosel.
Check the ball position, the body position, and if it isn't the hosel, it's probably the setup. If you're striking the ball in the middle of the face, you're very likely coming straight back, shut to open. That's why you're getting what appears to be that shank.
The Surge!