Skied Drive

A skied drive happens when the ball hits the upper part of the driver face instead of the sweet spot near the center. Sometimes the strike is high enough to leave a visible scuff mark near the crown of the club. The driver's center of gravity is engineered for contact low-to-center on the face. So a high strike adds huge, uncontrolled spin and launch angle. The result is a towering, weak shot that goes almost straight up. It comes down a fraction of the normal driving distance, sometimes barely past the tee box.

One mechanical cause is a steep, descending angle of attack combined with the swing's low point arriving before the driver reaches the ball. The club is then already moving upward and contacts the ball high on the face. Another cause is a ball positioned too far forward and teed too high for the swing's natural arc. Ironically, a skied drive often comes from trying too hard to "help" the ball up. The golfer swings with an exaggerated upward scoop, which actually moves the low point and strike location the wrong way.

The driver face is the largest and most forgiving in the bag from side to side. But vertical gear effect still has a real impact on it. So a skied drive also tends to add heavy backspin from the high-face vertical gear effect. That comes on top of the poor launch conditions and compounds the distance loss. The most direct fix is addressing setup before making any swing changes. Check ball position and tee height against the swing's natural low point, since many skied drives are a setup mismatch, not a swing flaw.