Fixing a Whiff or Topped Shots

Whiff is an air shot where a golfer completely misses a ball. Whiff can happen a lot to a beginner. After playing golf for a while, you probably won't miss a ball a lot, but you may hit lots of topped shots instead. One of the reason why you miss a golf ball or hit the topped shots is lifting your upper body on the backswing. If you do this during the backswing, you are going to drop down to compensate.

This can cause lots of topped shots or fat shots.

Checking Your Address

To avoid or stop lifting your upper body, you have to check first your address position. If you have rounded back at address, that may be causing you to lift your upper body. When taking your address, try to bend from the hips. Lots of players bend from the waist. You don't want to do that. After bending from the hips, try to hang your hands and arms naturally. When taking your grip, lower your right shoulder before taking your grip.

Stop Lifting Your Upper Body

To stop lifting up, you need to understand how you should hit the golf ball. Because the golf ball is resting on the ground, golfers naturally try to hit down on the ball too much. But this will cause  you to lift your upper body during the backswing.

 

Instead, you want to sweep the ball off the turf. Technically, you want to hit it with a slight descending blow with your middle and short irons, but you can forget about that for now. As you look down on the ball at address, try to focus on the back of the ball instead of looking at the top of the ball. This will help you sweep the ball instead of hitting down on it.

 

Reference: http://www.golfsamurai.net/fault-fix/whiff-topped-shots.htm