problem with low irons

stockdam

GreeBo wrote: »

stockdam wrote: »

Sometimes people get it into their head that they can't hit a club. They are ok at the range where it doesn't matter where the ball goes (and it's easy to fool yourself that the shot was good even though it was offline). On the course you have differing lies and penalties if you go off the fairway too much. Sometimes you then start to worry about where the ball will end up and that affects your swing (you'll try to steer the ball or look up etc.). Try swinging freely and let the ball go where it likes.

Its also very hard to chunk it off a mat...with long irons and woods/hybrids a mat can artificially give you the required flatter swing by allowing the club to slide into the ball.
A steep swing on a mat can give you an ok shot whereas the same swing on grass will be a big old chunk.

Yes very true. Playing off a mat is different to playing off grass which is different to playing off links "grass".

Insecurity Guard

I think the suggestion to "slow down" is a good one, but it's actually not that easy to do.

This helped me swing more smoothly, particularly off the first tee and early in the round:

Practice taking a full swing but only hitting it 3/4 of your normal distance.

freddie1970

yeah i find it really helps if i slow down and not swing back as far ...

prawnsambo

freddie1970 wrote: »

yeah i find it really helps if i slow down and not swing back as far ...

No, his exercise is to do a normal backswing but just slow down the body turn. A helpful tip here is to pause at the top when you're practising so that you can get the body action going before your arms start coming into it. The feeling should be as if you are pulling the club around/down with your body rather than starting with the arms and trying to catch up with your body.

stockdam

Insecurity Guard wrote: »

I think the suggestion to "slow down" is a good one, but it's actually not that easy to do.

Probably better to grip down and restrict the back swing a bit and think of it as a punch shot than to slow down. Everyone has their tempo and I don't think that slowing down works.

Mantis Toboggan

stockdam wrote: »

Probably better to grip down and restrict the back swing a bit and think of it as a punch shot than to slow down. Everyone has their tempo and I don't think that slowing down works.

It's not a question of slowing down though it's about maintaining your natural rhythm. When we take out the low irons we're generally looking at 200+ yards so it's easy to think we need to swing harder to get the distance when really the key is to maintain your swing and let the club do the work.

Insecurity Guard

Tyson Fury wrote: »

It's not a question of slowing down though it's about maintaining your natural rhythm. When we take out the low irons we're generally looking at 200+ yards so it's easy to think we need to swing harder to get the distance when really the key is to maintain your swing and let the club do the work.

Yes exactly - it's really about trying to replace the "hit" impulse (usually destructive) with a smooth swing.

Rikand

I played at the weekend there and my long irons were atrocious. After my round was well and truly gone, one of my playing partners remarked that my long irons were way too far back in my stance.



Might help

GreeBo

Post #14
Ahem!

PARlance

Rikand wrote: »

I played at the weekend there and my long irons were atrocious. After my round was well and truly gone, one of my playing partners remarked that my long irons were way too far back in my stance.



Might help

It's not often that people say you should also be standing a little further away from the ball either as that illustration shows too.

GreeBo

PARlance wrote: »

It's not often that people say you should also be standing a little further away from the ball either as that illustration shows too.

Unless your name is Bryson, that part takes care of itself.

Rikand

GreeBo wrote: »

Post #14
Ahem!

Well I don't know how I missed that, lol

But my post had a picture, so its better!

CalamariFritti

I think people who are not so assured of their swing (myself included) tend to tighten up with the longer irons. There is the adage out there that you need real good swing speed to use the long irons, possibly some truth in that too. So rather than playing their normal swing they try to hit it harder. Especially when you're not terribly long like me.
Basically it gets into your head that the long iron is harder to hit and then it will be.
I'm fairly decent up to the 5 iron with normal increase in distance. But dont really get much purchase out of my 4 iron. I have a 3 and 2 hybrid and they rock but there shouldn't really be any difference. So I figure its a bit of a head thing. I simply keep using / working on it. But at the moment that leaves me with 170m (+-5) being an uncomfortable distance. Thats where my 4 iron should be.

Skyfloater

If the swing is ok when on nice square mat, but goes to pot on the course that tells me that this could be an alignment issue. I've lost count of the times when I'm mi****ting on the course, only to set up, then put the club across my toes only to find that I'm aiming 20 yards right of where I thought I was!

CalamariFritti

Skyfloater wrote: »

If the swing is ok when on nice square mat, but goes to pot on the course that tells me that this could be an alignment issue. I've lost count of the times when I'm mi****ting on the course, only to set up, then put the club across my toes only to find that I'm aiming 20 yards right of where I thought I was!

Thats one thing I really have to pay attention to. A friend pointed this out to me a while back as I couldn't figure it out for myself. I suspect its a dominant eye thing or maybe how you walk into the ball and look over your shoulder when you think you're lined up. Still haven't figured out the root cause but its probably secondary. More important is to know it and how to allow for it and aim correctly. A nasty one as it requires discipline and a meticulous routine. Which can sometimes go out the window when concentration wanes.

Basically I was aiming to the right like yourself but would swear I'm aiming right at the target. But my subconsciousness somehow knew where the real target was. So I was pulling everything around in order to get the ball going to the 'real' target, coming over top inevitably even with a proper body turn on the back swing and I couldn't help it. My setup made it impossible for me to swing freely at the target and it took this friend of mine to point it out to me. Was a real eye opener and since then I observe this regularly on other players
I guess there is a reason why pros work so hard and continuously at their setup. You often see them practicing with these sticks down. They say the majority of swing faults happen during setup.

And coming over the top is a thing you get mostly away with with shorter clubs but gets progressively worse with longer clubs.

GreeBo

If you are aiming to the right, which is default for a right handed golfer, you will automatically come over the top, not because you know you are to the right, but because you will get sick of missing everything to the right.

Since you believe you are lined up correctly, it must be a swing thing and hence you compensate by swinging left.

Hello pull hooks and blocks right!

CalamariFritti

Not sure I understand what you mean with 'is the default for a right handed golfer'. I would have thought what any golfer should do is have their feet (and hips and shoulders, their entire body) lined up parallel to the ball target line. So for a right handed golfer their feet should be lined up about 1m left of the target. When I say I'm lined up aiming to the right I mean my feet are lined up aiming about 10 metres to the right of the target for say a 125m shot. I think I'm lined up for the middle of the green but in fact I'm lined up outside the right bunker. My feet and my shoulders are way closed.

Edit: Just to clarify. I walk into the shot, I line myself up. I look over my shoulder. I look down at my feet trying to gauge where they are aiming. Everything looks perfect to my eye. Lined up and looking straight at the middle of the green. Ready to go. Now I take the club and place it down in front of my toes, touching them. Then I step out and walk behind looking down the line of the club on the ground and the thing is aimed outside the right bunker. My natural eye if you like sets me up way closed.

GreeBo

CalamariFritti wrote: »

Not sure I understand what you mean with 'is the default for a right handed golfer'. I would have thought what any golfer should do is have their feet (and hips and shoulders, their entire body) lined up parallel to the ball target line. So for a right handed golfer their feet should be lined up about 1m left of the target. When I say I'm lined up aiming to the right I mean my feet are lined up aiming about 10 metres to the right of the target for say a 125m shot. My feet and my shoulders are way closed.

I mean that this is how most right handed golfers line up incorrectly.
It's very rare to see an alignment issue where the person is unknowingly
aiming too far left.

Aligning to the right looks correct when viewed from your setup position, which is why you should never judge it from here.