Expert: Chip Aki - 1/21/2006

Question
I am having a problem with my ball tracking over the left side of my thumb hole.  It flares off of it quickly, but I still want to correct the problem.  I was wondering if I could move the track away by changing my thumb pitch?  Thanks for your time.

Answer
You could try to manipulate the ball track by changing pitch, but you would have to change the pitch in all three holes.  Even with that, it may not solve the problem.

Tracking over the thumb hole is usually a sign of turning the ball early, maybe even in the downswing.  This causes a bit of clockwise rotation during the release.  The release has to have a counter-clockwise motion to keep this from happening.

I would work on staying behing the ball longer before trying to correct this with pitch.  I feel that if you cannot correct it without the pitch change, you will still find a way to release it like this no matter what you change pitch wise.

Good luck,
Chip