That frustrating, white scuff mark mockingly appearing on the glossy crown of your driver has a name: it’s a sky mark. It is the tell-tale sign of a skied shot - where the club hits down so steeply on the ball that it strikes the top half, sending it almost straight up and leaving a a paint mark on the top of the clubhead. This article will break down exactly why this happens, give you simple and effective steps to stop doing it for good, and even show you how to clean that mark off your favorite club.
A sky mark is a cosmetic blemish on the crown (the top surface) of a wood or a driver. It happens when your clubface comes into contact with the top of the golf ball, taking off a tiny bit of the ball’s white paint cover and transferring it onto the club. Sometimes, if you tee up in a sandy or dirty area, it can also leave a scuff or a scratch.
Among golfers, you might also hear this called an “idiot mark.” Let’s clear the air on that term right away: there’s nothing idiotic about it. Almost every single golfer, from a complete beginner to a seasoned player having an off day, has put a sky mark on their club at some point. It’s a common miss-hit that’s part of the learning process. The great news is that in almost all cases, it's just a paint smear. It doesn't mean your club is broken or damaged, and it an have little to zero effect in how the club performs. Your main concern in not the mark, but what the mark represents: a swing flaw that’s costing you distance and consistency.
A sky mark isn't random, it’s a direct result of physics. Specifically, it comes from an angle of attack that's too steep. To hit your driver well, you want to make contact with the ball on a slight upswing. Imagine an airplane taking off, that is a good mental image for a driver's sweet “sweeping” motion. A skied shot is the opposite. Ypur driver is coming down on the ball lin a steep angle, more an airplane in a nosedive. This downward chop causes the clubhead to pass well under the ball's center, allowing its top edge to catch the ball on this way up. Let’s look at the primary swing faults that cause this steep attack angle.
As we’ve established, this is the number one cause. An overly steep, downward strike is great for creating compression with an iron on the turf, but it’s a total disaster with a driver on a tee. Your goal with the driver is to catch the ball on a slight ascent, launching it with a nice high trajectory and low spin. When you ski it, that steep downward hit does exactly the opposite - it launches the ball very high with a massive amount of backspin, which robs you of distance, sending the ball up, and not forward.
This is probably the most simplest (and easiest) to fix of all the issues. While you want to "hit up" on the driver a lot of golfers take this cue a little too seriously, jacking their tee height sky high.. If you tee the ball so high that its entire mass is above the crown of the club. you making impossible no to slip under the ball.
The Fix: When you tee down your gld ball, a very good rule of thumb rule is to have half od it peeking ov er the rop of the diver when you sit the clunext o he ground behind if.
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