Top 5 Mistakes Golfers Make on the Course and How to Avoid Them
- Trevor Bundus
- Mar 30
- 7 min read
So 12 years ago, I took the plunge: I became an entrepreneur!
I can remember the feeling in my stomach when I pressed 'transfer' on the banking website transferring my hard earned savings to Canada to put 50% payment onto my golf simulator.
It was a feeling of excitement, of commitment and of anxiety. But then again, I was 31 years old and it was now or never.
To see the indoor golf market flourish hear on the backs of that move, is great to see. The more the better is my motto, as it only makes more golfers join the game.
In saying that, those golfers that do come for lessons or to learn often make the same mistakes that cost them shots on the course. These easy tips can help your shots go just like they do in the lesson and help you improve their contact and ball flight:
Mistake #1: Not Paying Attention to their Ball Position
Ball position is easily the biggest generator of swing faults. Golfers know that they need to hit the ball first and they are looking for that feeling of ball and turf contact. However, they almost always play the ball back in their stance too much.
A ball that is too far back in the stance means the club will meet the ball in a more open position, therefore making the all too common slice a certainty.
A Ball that is too far back in the stance will also stop the proper weight shift and sequencing completely, otherwise the golfer will completely miss the ball.
How to Fix This Issue?
The butt end of the golf club needs to point at the left side groin area (Left side belt loop as example) for each club. Follow the same set up process and you will start to see a much more consistent ball flight, strike and curvature.
Mistake #2: Not Paying Attention to the Orientation of the Club Relative to the Target
There are a few tricky little visual design techniques that club designers use to stop people from hitting a slice. The main invention is the introduction of offset onto the golf club. This basically means the clubface is offset behind the club hosel by a set amount. This helps the club to square easier in the swing, allows a few milliseconds for the club to come through behind the hosel which helps for a more centered strike. This is all excellent, except what it does is mis-align the club face and create aim issues for almost all golfers.
I see golfers line the toe of club up with the hosel, which actually aims the club about 30 yards to the left (for a right handed golfer). This changes the entire behavior of the club, make other issues with the ball position and generally destroys the alignment.
How to Fix This Issue?
The leading edge of the club needs to line up parallelly to the hosel of the club. The club will look very open to the golfer at set up. Secondly, the center of the clubface should point at an intermediary point along the target line.
Mistake #3: Trying to Keep the Head Still & Down after the Strike
Most golfers have it in their head to not move the head. This makes an entire host of issues for the golfer not only from an injury issue, but also from a physics perspective.
Because your head is attached to your spine (I hope anyway!), and that spine is orientated in the center of your two hip sockets, it must have some movement to be able to let each leg move independently. If you keep your head totally still and you are asking to shift your weight from right to left through the shot, you will create very strange shoulder tilts in the back swing (usually a reverse C position) and then you will tilt upwards through impact. This causes major strike issues with thin and fat shots.
From a physics perspective, we are trying to apply force to the ball. The force equation is Force = Mass x acceleration. By keeping your head still you are stopping the mass movement portion of this equation. That means weaker shots, less distance and poor strikes.
Who the hell wants that? Seriously!
How to Fix This Issue?
Learn how to let the pressure shift into your back foot by moving your upper body with the club in the takeaway. Be sure not to let the upper body drift beyond the hip structure or you'll be back into the same issues I described above. The key here is to have a wide enough stance to be able to support the movement of weight onto the right foot in the backswing and then to the left on the follow through. Once you start moving, your body co-ordination will be so much better as will your strike and consistency.
Mistake # 4: Poor understanding of how to hit the ball = Poor Attack Angle
This is a real killer and it comes simply from a conceptual error. 85% of golfers try to bring the club to the ball from behind the ball. That actually causes the same swing faults as above with the keep still issue: Poor strike, poor distance, thin and fat shots, poor direction. I could go on here all day, but those are the big ones.
When golfers think that the club should come from behind the ball, they will have a very difficult time creating distance. When golfers start to hit from the top down on the ball, you will immediately see a big jump in distance, a big improvement in strike quality, and of course a big change in enjoyment through proper ball flight/ball striking.
How to Fix This Issue?
First thing is first, get that ball more forward in your stance. Wrong ball position creates poor attack angles, and it isn't what you think. Putting it forward in the stance gives the clubs space to strike down without hitting the ball from the sole of the club. So this is step 1, the next step is to improve your wrist hinge, and work on a chip shots with a very negative attack angle. It can be that simple!
Mistake #5: Not understanding the effects of ball flight due to the Lie of the ball on the course.
This one is actually 2 fold, but I see many golfers not understanding how the lie of the ball effects the flight. Uphill/Downhill, Downslope, upslope, all a part of this great game. We need to know what will happen to the ball to be able to select the correct club.
How to Fix This Issue?
Uphill and Downhill lies - think of this like plane wings. Whatever angle the hill is, image that the hill is like plane wings. If the plane is tilting to the right (downhill lie), then it will fly to the right. This is same with the ball. It is going to fly just the same as a plane would. More severe slope, more severe curvature.
The same goes for the Uphill Lies. If the hill is tilted to the left, the ball will curve left. The more severe the hill slope the more sever the curvature.
Ball sitting below the feet on a downslope, that means our attack angle needs to be improved even more. This is the worst situation, because it means we have to either hit down must more or we need to change the ball position further back to account for this. My advice is to take a longer club and stand more upright in your stance. This isn't great advice, but I am just giving you the easiest way to make solid contact.
Ball sitting above the feet on an upslope, this one is actually much better because we can still hit the ball first. However, this one is going to massively effect your distance as the ball is already sitting with the same launch angle as the hill.
For an Uphill lie, you will need to take significantly more golf club. A launch angle change of 2 degrees on a 6 iron will shave off about 5 yards and that is in no wind scenario. If you are hitting uphill into the wind, you'll have to take even more club to be able to hit the green. Also you will need to account for almost 0 roll, so that means you'll have to really calculate a massive distance loss on the shot.
Focus on these 5 things and 5 easy fixes and you'll start to surely see improvements in your ball strikes, your accuracy and of course your scores!
Of Course the above fixes are generalized fixes on the issues, but if there are any additional questions on clarifications, please book in to see us and we'll go through this in great detail.
Need More Help with your Game?
Send us a swing or video of your question to the below booking and we'll give you some proper feedback and analysis/clarification on the biggest errors in your game. Let's get it all tidied up!
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