Skying it off the tee

Where this can come from

These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.

1. 1

   Hitting down on a teed ball

   The low point falls before a ball that is sitting above the ground, so the club is still descending at contact. Spin rises, launch drops, and the strike climbs the face toward the crown. It is the single most common reason a driver goes shorter than a three wood.

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2. 2

   Tee height wrong for the delivery

   Teed too high for the way the club is being delivered, contact creeps toward the crown. Teed too low, it drops to the bottom grooves. Either way the strike leaves the middle of the face, and with a driver that is worth more distance than most swing changes.

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3. 3

   Delivery too steep

   The club descends sharply into the hitting area, so the margin between fat and thin narrows and any low point error produces a bigger miss. Divots are deep and narrow, and the same steepness usually travels with a path working left.

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4. 4

   Ball too far back in the stance

   The ball sits well before the low point, so the club is still descending steeply when it arrives and delivers less loft than the club actually carries. Flight is low and the ball meets the face while the path is still travelling right, which is why a back ball position so often adds a push or a hook.

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5. 5

   Strike high on the face

   Contact above the centre of gravity reduces spin and raises launch, which off a tee can be useful. Off the turf it usually means the club has slid under a ball sitting up in the grass. Ball speed drops either way, so the shot climbs higher than it should and still comes up short.

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Related symptoms

These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.

• I strike it well off the ground but badly off a teeShots off the turf behave, but once the ball is teed up the strike, the height and the direction all fall apart, because nothing in the setup or the delivery changed for a ball sitting above the ground.Shares hitting down on a teed ball
• I never know how high to tee the ballYou guess the tee height, or it changes from hole to hole, so teed shots come off the crown, the top edge or the bottom grooves, and the miss changes with the height.Shares hitting down on a teed ball
• Hitting it high on the faceThe marks sit above the centre of the face, up toward the top grooves rather than on the crown, and the shot climbs higher than it should and still comes up short.Shares hitting down on a teed ball
• Losing distanceShots carry noticeably shorter than they should with the same club, sometimes even when the strike felt solid, and a shorter club goes as far as a longer one.Shares hitting down on a teed ball
• Divots that are far too deepThe club digs a deep gouge out of the turf instead of a shallow strip, so even a small error in where it bottoms out turns into a heavy, short shot.Shares delivery too steep
• Hitting it low on the faceThe marks sit below the centre of the face, in the bottom grooves or on the bottom edge, and the shot launches low, spins too much and falls well short of the club's distance.Shares tee height wrong for the delivery

What this rests on

• 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
• The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013
• The physics of golf: The convex face of a driverA. Raymond Penner, 2001
• What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026