One thing that separates the pro golfer from the amateur is ballstriking. The pro makes pure contact consistently when striking the ball, saving themselves strokes. But the amateur makes pure contact only occasionally, costing themselves strokes.
Nowhere is making solid contact more critical than with your irons. If you want to make a dent in your golf handicap, learn to make solid contact with your irons. By solid contact we mean ballstriking that’s free from any defects or faults—a solid strike that compresses the ball against the ground and takes a divot after the ball is in the air. Achieving solid contact consistently with your irons isn’t easy. But it can be done. Below are some golf tips that can help.
Forward Shaft Lean
Three elements help you make solid contact with your irons. Forward shaft lean is one. It is where your shaft is leaning so that the club’s grip is closer to the target than the club’s head at impact. Achieving this position compresses the ball between the clubface and the ground—a must if you want to make pure contact with your iron. Forward shaft lean is key to producing the kind of ball striking you need to shave strokes from your golf handicap.
How do you create forward shaft lean? You do it by making three moves. These moves must happen in the correct sequence and at the right time, as we tell students in golf instructions sessions. You must shift your weight to your front leg, move your trailing arm forward toward the ball, and maintain the correct angle of your arms and wrists. In other words, your iron must move downward first, then outward and forward toward the ball.
Swing On The Right Plane
The second key to making solid contact with your irons is swinging on plane. Swinging on plane is a problem for many weekend golfers, as evidenced by players in our golf lessons. Many have a hard time swinging on the right plane. Some swing over the plane from outside in and make a very steep approach to the ball. This causes all sorts of bad shots. It also robs them of power.
Other players in our golf instruction sessions swing under the right plane on too flat a trajectory—a common full swing error. Doing this produces hooks and pushes, depending on the clubface’s angle at impact. It also promotes a chicken-wing finish. To create solid contact with your irons, combine the proper sequence of body movements with an on-plane approach into the ball.
Clubface Control At Impact
The third key to making solid contact is clubface control. If you want to hit straight approach shots with your irons, you must square your clubface at impact. Many golfers make impact with an open clubface, resulting in a glancing blow that produces slices and pushes. Instead, golfers should rotate the clubface from slightly open before impact to square at impact to slightly closed after impact. Executing this face rotation correctly leads to making solid contact and hitting straight shots.
The Tee Drill helps improve ballstriking with your irons. With this drill you place a tee in the ground at the right ball position. The tee should be placed with its head pointing at the correct angle at which the clubface strikes the ball to achieve the correct forward shaft lean. Your goal is to drive the tee into the ground with a square clubface. Start with small swings then work your way up slowly to a full swing. Other drills like the Head Cover Drill and the Release Drill also help improve ball striking.
Good ballstriking is critical to hitting good iron shots. It also saves you strokes. Poor ballstriking costs you strokes. The golf tips described above will improve your ballstriking. The Tee Drill and the other drills we mentioned can help. If you’re serious about chopping strokes off your golf handicap, learn to make solid contact with your irons.
Why do people still say the ball gets compressed between the club face and the ground? It does not. The face is still pointed up even with forward shaft lean and negative attack angle. The leading edge separates the ball from the ground. The ball gets compressed against the face due to inertia, not due to getting pinched against the ground. If you literally pinched it against the ground it wouldn’t go anywhere. That’s what happens when you top a ball. You can place the ball on a tee and get great compression. The driver compresses it more than any other club. Why? More club head speed. Not the ground. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A good iron shot separates the ball from the ground, it doesn’t push it into the ground before getting it up. With all the high speed video of impact available, I don’t see how anyone still tries to teach that. It doesn’t happen. It can be a “feels like” thing, but it’s not what actually happens.
Keith, thanks for your post. We appreciate your input but we must disagree. If the clubface were pointed upwards when it strikes the ball, there would be no divot because you pick the ball cleanly off the ground. Or, there would be a divot at the point where the ball was sitting. In other words the divot would be under the ball.
But that’s not what happens.
If you watch pro golfers on TV, you’ll see that they create divots in front of the ball. The only way this could happen is with a swing that encourages the clubface to move down and through the ball. The downward movement of the clubface in this scenario compresses the ball against the ground at impact before moving onto create a divot in front of the ball. In other words it “pinches” the ball against the ground and takes advantage of the club’s loft to get the ball in the air.
This isn’t topping. Topping occurs when you hit a ball the above its equator. This type of blow forces the ball to go get airborne briefly before dipping down severely and hitting the ground.
Golfers who swing the club like you’re suggesting in your note commit a swing flaw called scooping. Scooping is when a golfer tries to help the ball in the air. It seldom works. More important, the golfer is more prone to topping the ball than if he’s swinging down and through.
Regards, Jack
I totally agree with Jack, and I am a high handicapper, I have played lots of shots to get out of trouble, were the only way I could hit the ball was to play it backwards with a descending ( NO ROOM TO MAKE A PROPER SWINNG) blow using a 56 degree wedge.
Almost like trying to push the ball into the ground, I have used it up close to bushes, walls and fences, and in most cases I have managed to get the ball either on the green or at least back into play.
The first time I tried it was when I was playing with a chap that used to try and scoop the ball off the fairway, and just kept hitting the ball fat. To make my point, that he would get better results hitting down and through the ball, I turned my back to the green took my 8 iron and hit my ball backwards with a descending blow and it took off like a rocket and flew over the green. Unforchantly he still could not quite grasp the idea.
Regards Martin