re: Need help developing a cut shot. Can’t stop shanking it.

Like someone said earlier…put something on the ground just outside your ball so you’ll hit it if you come in steep/over the top. A shoebox will work and not damage the club. Hit some half speed punch shots until your body starts working correctly. Hands need to work down immediately (not out) from the top of the backswing

Two things that have helped me tremendously have been (1) doing a grip check, and (2) focusing on rotating with the upper body in the back swing (no swaying) and feeling like I'm pulling from my lead shoulder in the downswing.

I seem to do best with a pretty strong grip. When my grip weakens over time I end up taking the club back with a very open face/cupping my wrist at the top.

In my experience with myself, for whatever reason this promotes a more more hands driven down swing which is steep and a more neutral plane or even a bit out to in. The open clubface at the top of the swing, coupled with the steep, pulling-with-the-hands downswing means I have to early extend and/or flip in order to make decent contact with the ball. In that position, if I really try to hold on to the face through impact (so as to not flip), that means I early extend and produce a very swipey ball strike almost accross the ball. This produces a very weak fade/slice. Like 20-30 yards short of what I know I can hit and terrible descent angles. If I get flippy, then imperfect timing leads to the big pull hooks that will go a mile OB.

Everyone has different issues/fixes, but making sure I have a strong grip promotes me having a square clubface throughout the swing and crucially at the top of the swing. From there, as long as I rotate through the ball, leading the downswing with my shoulders and not my hands, I will most likely make a good strike on the ball. Still trying to tighten up my dispersion, but when I do those two things I know 9/10 it's going to be within a shot pattern that I am "happy" with.


I've found that almost every single time I've developed a really poor swing/strike pattern, it starts at the beginning. Grip and set up at address. If you can match up your grip and set up at address to what you naturally do in the swing, it's a lot easier and quicker to improve your ball striking. When your set up is matched to your "natural" swing, there's going to be less tension and less consciousness in your swing. If you're set up and swing are mismatched, your brain is trying to make all these compensations and it just doesn't work the majority of the time. Some are subconscious, sure, but not all are fully in the background.

You have the be very vigilant. Xander Schauffle has spoken about fighting a left miss for months, only to realize he simply was gripping the club in such a way that he was closed at address. It was probably workable for a time, but the more you stray, the more you stray. He said he eventually put a glove box down and lined the club square to the box. He said it felt like he was wide open, but he was actually perfectly square.