(club whacks ball)
- Well hello, Adam Bazalgette here,
founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's subject, how to hit your irons farther.
Who doesn't want to hit that?
The pros hit it a long way and they spin it.
I'll give you couple of key, well two keys
as to the things you need to do
on one key is the thing you must not do.
And at the very end of the video
we should talk about balancing the books,
getting those things in the right order
so you get a combination that gives you a lot more distance.
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(club whacks ball)
(ball pops on club)
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(club whacks ball)
Well you guessed it, a big part of hitting your irons long
you gotta hit the ball before you hit the ground.
And by the way, you saw I took a small divot there.
You don't need to be smashing into the ground
but a small divot is a sign
that the shaft is leaning forward
and therefore applying pressure against the ground.
We'll get into that more in this video
'cause it's very important.
So, if you're gonna take a little divot,
which is a good idea, you've gotta hit the ball first.
Let me show you a couple of pros and show you a big,
big component in the ability to do that.
Tiger Woods on the left, Davis Love III on the right.
Back there at the Sea Island range now,
we'll look at Tiger in a moment.
Look at Davis Love, watch his head.
It wobbles a hair but it's pretty much in one spot.
So what he's doing, it's what I would call a centered axis.
His spine is pretty much right between his hips.
Let's look at Tiger Woods there at the top of the backswing,
again hitting a driver or something
he's gonna be tilted more behind the ball
but he's pretty much right there in the center
with his pivot.
Most players, I wouldn't say that, many players, let's say,
certainly get too much over on this right side.
They get their head too far behind the ball.
Unless you can really recover on the way down,
difficult to hit the ball first.
Notice as well, there is a pronounced shift of weight,
even though his head doesn't move much,
you can see the people behind him,
his lower body shifts forward coming down.
So, as he's getting ready to hit that ball,
there's a lot of his body in front of that golf ball.
His head is about right on top of it.
Most players do not hit that much weight to the left
coming down as Davis Love.
So centered pivot going back, weight shift coming down.
There's all sorts of ways to work on your pivot.
Pivots themselves, mirrors,
I like the one where the shadow is directly in front of you.
Frequently you're doing it without a ball.
It's a great way, if the sun's behind you,
to see what's going on with your pivot.
Sun's creeping out here
but it would be at the wrong angle anyway.
This is something you can always do outside.
It's an alignment rod leaned over the ball.
Now, from where I am, there's plenty of room
to swing underneath it.
It's not in the way in the least.
So, what I can do is I can get set up there,
I can sense where that is.
(air whooshes)
Try a backswing, I felt like I really didn't move much.
I'd easily be able to tell if I did that.
And to some extent I can tell if I'm bumping my hips
passed it a little bit coming down.
So let's try a shot here.
One more rehearsal there.
(air whooshes)
(club whacks ball)
Well, it felt like a pretty good look,
seemed like it stayed in the same position to me.
Get some feedback.
Point is, learn to stay on top of the ball,
centered pivot going back
and get a little bit of weight going left as you hit it.
(club whacks ball)
Well another thing that you have to do
if you're gonna get more distance on your irons,
you have to de loft the club somewhat at impact.
This isn't some gimmick,
this isn't a way to cheat loft onto it,
this is how the club's designed to work and,
as I say, if you do it this way,
you're not only adding loft, you won't hit it as solidly.
Let me show you close up how this works
and how the club's designed
and then we'll get out and work on it.
So we're gonna notice the sweet spot,
which is up about here,
and how the leading edge of the club looks.
And we've used a table here
because it's just a little clearer and easier to see.
If you tilt the club back at all, lack of forward lean,
you'll be hitting the ball way too low on the face.
You've got to tilt the sweet spot toward the ball,
and one of the things that does, look how the leading edge
of the club is actually off the surface of the table,
that's because the club designer
is anticipating forward lean
that levels the club out a little bit there at impact.
And when you lean the club forward,
you're hitting nearer the equator of the ball.
That applies more pressure and gives you more speed.
You start making contact down here
you get too much loft and spin.
So de lofting the club at impact, again,
this isn't going to be an exhaustive look at that
but let's give you a couple of ideas.
Here's a simple face magnet, this is an eight iron.
You can see about how much loft it has at impact.
Now people always say, oh I can't do that, the pros,
that's not true.
Take the golf club, if you don't have a face magnet
that's fine, and just tilt loft forward.
If you can do that, you can learn to do this.
Might take you a little while but you can learn to do this.
So, what I'm feeling, I'll leave that on there for a second,
is as I come through, I release the club
but I just tilt the loft forward slightly
and as you see that tilts the face up onto ball.
Hang out with it a little bit, you can do it,
at least you can improve it.
Hit some little shots and I'm gonna finish down here,
face tilted forward.
Naturally, my wrist is gonna feel
a little bit more like that.
(club whacks ball)
Right down there, nice low shot.
Might've caught it air heavy but I really like the way
that felt in terms of loft there through the ball.
(club whacks ball)
Just nipped the turf a little bit there.
A final thing, your swing plane.
Listen, when you've got the handle leaning forward,
and you've got your weight toward the front,
those are things that are adding steepness
or adding downward hit to your shot.
You do not want to add any more
by having a steep swing plane.
I'm telling you, you come down like this,
if you've gotten the other two elements right,
you're gonna be way too much smashing down at the ground
so you've gotta take some out with your swing plane.
Let's have a look at how the great players do it
with their swing.
We'll get out and we'll see if we can add this in
and balance everything up.
There's Justin Rose both down the line and face on.
I have a free, three part video series for you
down in the description box, solid strike formula.
Really gets into the nuts and bolts of making solid contact.
Help yourself to that.
So as we look at Justin here,
certainly, let's look from in front here.
Certainly he's go his weight to the left,
certainly the handle's forward,
but it you watch the club here,
let's dot the handle about there.
Let's go forward a bit, maybe there,
forward a few more frames, that club, couple more.
That club there as he's hitting the ball
is actually arcing away from the turf slightly,
or at least the handle is.
The only reason he's registering a downward hit
is the forward lean of the shaft.
The handle's going up a little bit
and that is much easier to do
if you swing it on a good plane.
If you get that swing coming down from more behind you,
or flatter if you like,
it will be much more of a brushing kind of a hit
and it will promote that little rise
of the handle of the club.
You wanna be in that sort of a plane
to help you get the right combination here for good impact.
Okay, here we go.
So you've got, this is the way I describe to students.
This is the front of your body,
this is the side of your body.
Most of the downswing, that club should be over here
at the side of your body.
People see that ball and they get so excited to hit it
the club goes straight in front of them.
To me, that's the number one reason
people have this persistent problem of being too steep.
But what you wanna do, use maybe a low tee.
I'm gonna sneak forward, you could do this,
use a little bit of a spongy lie there.
Make it as easy as possible.
Again, we're trying to cultivate
less downward hit with this move,
a little easier if the ball's sitting up.
Make some little swings, and again,
willy nilly of good contact, let the club swing down
and stay over here to the side of your body.
If you miss hit a few you probably, you very well might,
don't worry about it, keep swinging,
you'll kind of figure it out as you go along subconsciously.
So, little swings, side of the body
and eventually that club starts to come through.
And when it comes from here,
it will almost always be traveling
a little more up with the handle through the ball.
This way makes it smash down.
So here we go.
Little swing, not trying to whiff it inside or anything.
(club whacks ball)
There we go.
I was able to clip a little of that turf,
probably a little more than I wanted
but I felt like I could do it with more of a brushing action
in my swing.
You've gotta balance the books.
Most players, I watch people all day long
giving golf lessons, they're not steep enough from here,
they're weight's to far back, the handle's too far back,
they're not creating enough downward hit
and de lofting of the club here.
And they're far too steep from this angle.
That is a bad combination.
Other way round, you'll be hitting your irons further.
I hope those keys are helpful for ya,
those drills for how to hit your irons farther
and if you'll do these things and practice these things
I'm confident you'll have success.
Please hit the thumbs up button if you liked the video,
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in addition down in the comment box.
Thank you
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