A Malaska Golf Member wants to know how you get from a tee to the ground, where you start to control the angle of approach.

Mike was watching a tour recently, and even the Tour Players were hitting iron shots off tees. Mike sets a ball on a rubber tee in the studio and hits it. The object of this is to control path and clubface and hit the center of the ball. By using a tee, you don't have to control angle of approach, and this is a difficult skill to learn. Make sure that when you swing off a tee, your path and clubface are working first. Many of you get out there, and Mike is amazed at the lies you put the ball on. You miss-hit the ball, and you think your swing is terrible. No, your swing could be really good, but you didn't get the angle of approach quite right.

Mike always starts off from a tee or from such a great lie that it might as well have been from a tee. Tour Players hit the ground with their clubs to make a grass tee and place the ball on that.

When you start to control trajectory, you can make swings behind the ball to see where the club is hitting the ground. If your club is hitting even or slightly in front of the ball, you are good to go. You can then set up to the ball, hit, and see if you duplicated the same angle of approach.

Many drills help you with this but don't try to do it in combination with path and face control when you are warming up and working on your swing. Putting the ball on a tee makes you focus on path and control of the clubface first, without dealing with angle of approach.

There are only three variables: path, clubface, and angle of approach, and that comes last.