(ball whooshing in air)
- Hello Adam Bazagette here,
founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today's topic,
How to Hit Long Irons Pure And Straight.
If you don't hit them fairly pure
they won't go that straight to begin with,
but we'll get into it.
I'll show you how.
There's some similarities
with short irons,
but there's also some critical differences.
We'll show you a couple of big distinctions
let's say,
or big things you need to get done.
And towards the end,
are really nice drill I think
for your long irons.
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(ball whooshing in air)
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(ball whooshing in air)
So that's a five-iron,
it's not a long iron by the old days
definitions twos and threes and even one-irons
were the
order of the day back in my years.
But for a lot of people a five-iron's
about as long an iron as they carry,
regardless of whether you have a four in your bag.
Some of these longer hybrids,
these irons, for sure,
it's the same principles.
Now, if you're gonna hit the ball pure,
you've gotta hit it solidly obviously.
And believe me,
you're not gonna have much success
with long iron play if you can't get a solid hit
and get some speed,
compress the ball a little bit.
That's the key.
Because the ball's
just not gonna get up in the air
enough for it to really
be a playable shot coming into green
certainly so.
One tip for that,
which we'll get into is
if you can't, certainly
you've gotta release the club,
but if you can't create a pretty good
lead on club relationships or impact,
you're not gonna compress the ball that well.
Look at a baseball player.
You have to have that sort of align.
It's mechanically advantageous.
So we'll get into that.
The second thing is though,
when you do that,
you must not hit too much down at the ball.
That's the key.
Let's have a look at a great player in action
with two different clubs,
see how he does it differently.
Then we'll get into these cues.
So there's Justin Rose
hitting a shorter iron on the left.
I've chosen actually a fairway wood
on the right because
it even exaggerates
the feel we want for a long iron.
So it really shows us the difference here.
The similarity though
is he's in a great line
of compression lead arm to club
as that ball leaves the club face.
You will not hit it,
you will not compress
it properly if you scoop at it.
But
you can certainly see
there is a little more
of an upward tendency there
and a little bit more
of a downward tendency there.
And we'll get into the reasons
for that as we go along.
So the similarities,
line of compression
left arm lead the arm, let's say club shaft
but not as much of a downward hit.
Now, this video is about hitting it pure.
Obviously you've gotta do that to hit it pure,
and if you don't hit it solidly with a long iron,
you're not gonna get
the kind of heightened distance
you need
and you're not gonna hit it straight either.
We're not gonna get into a ton of straight stuff here.
We're gonna deal mostly with hitting it solidly.
So less of a downward hit,
but still a strong line of compression.
That's the moral to the story.
Have a free course down in the description box,
Solid Strike Formula.
Feel free to grab that while they're available.
All right let's get into this.
Then we're gonna start
with this lead arm club relationship
that allows you to compress the ball.
But I don't wanna spend much of the video on that.
I wanna spend more of the time
showing you how to adjust that kind of a hit
so that you're hitting less down
on the ball and can launch the ball
a little bit high up.
So first thing,
take a short iron.
I would not work on
this with your long iron
and just hit a few little shots.
Feeling a good robust crack of the whip,
a snap of the club head,
but stop a couple of feet right after impact.
Right about there
give or take.
And if that club's
in line with your arms,
if it hasn't bounced up here,
you're doing it correctly.
Let me try one here.
This is actually a pitching wedge.
(ball whooshing in air)
Yeah that's nice and firm.
There that club's right in front of me.
You've gotta squeeze
your glutes a little bit here
and activate these core muscles
to stop that club as well.
Great practice for your swing
and your on game in general.
But again, that's too much of a downward hit.
Let me show you a close up
before we get into our two keys
to take some of that downward hit out.
Let me show you close up
why you don't need such a downward hit
with a long iron
as you might need with a short iron.
The pitching wedge five iron,
the sweet spot several grooves up.
So unless you wanna hit
the ball at the very bottom edge
of the club and you certainly don't,
you have to have more forward tilt
when you have loft.
And that equates
to more of a downward hit.
Now watch the difference
in how the five iron looks.
Yeah, with so much less loft.
I mean it's literally resting almost
on the sweet spot as is
so sure a tiny bit of forward lean.
But you don't need a big downward hit
to hit a less lofted club solidly.
(ball whooshing in air)
Maybe a little more divert
than I wanted there
that's halfway decent shot though.
How far forward
is the right amount for it?
That's our first adjustment then.
Is how far
are these pros playing the ball forward?
Well, the answer is you've gotta play around
with it yourself.
You may not wanna play the ball
where Tiger Woods or Justin Rose plays it.
You may not be able
to hit it solidly when you do that.
So
start by experimenting a little bit.
If your normal ball position,
and it likely is
with a shorter iron
is about in the middle,
nudge it's somewhere
between middle and front end step
and see what happens.
Now
if you're drop kicking a little bit
or catching it just too low on the face,
in other words,
the club's almost rising too much,
move it back a little bit.
You may be able to do just fine
with the ball fairly near the middle.
But certainly
the more dynamic you are,
the more you're able to transfer weight,
drive the handle forward,
the more you're gonna need the ball forward.
Somewhere again,
between middle
and up towards where a driver is
will be right for you
and that could even vary
a little bit according to
the life it's sitting up.
Play it a little bit more forward.
Let's have a look from this view.
(ball whooshing in air)
Not a bad hit,
a little bit of a hook.
But before we go to that drive,
I think you're gonna really benefit
from this drill here at the end.
Let's touch on variable number two
about no hitting down on it too much
and that's your swing plane.
Now that again,
that's something that torments a lot of golfers.
We have a lot of content on that.
It's a subject in and of itself,
but if you video yourself from this angle,
your club mid down swing
will say when your arms about parallel
to the ground,
should be somewhere
between your shoulder and your elbow.
Ideally a little bit more towards
the bottom of your sleeve,
a little bit more towards the elbow.
If you come too steeply on the ball,
if you see that
all bets are off,
that is always
more of a downward strike.
This is always a little bit more
of a brushing hit,
so work on that too.
And again, hey listen,
you can't just jump
to the finish line
on some of these things.
If you film yourself
and you notice divots going
that way and you steep,
take a break from the long irons
and work on your plane a little bit.
Okay, let's have a look
at that drill.
Okay, here's the drill.
I recommend as usual,
we're gonna start slow.
That ball is teed up,
you can see it
and it's not teed up as high as a driver certainly,
but it's teed up a lot lot higher
than I would ever tee along on on a par-three.
But that's the goal of the drill.
So I'm going to play
the ball fairly far forward.
Hit some soft ones,
or hit some less than full ones.
And the key is this,
the club's gotta be rising more as you hit the ball.
You do not wanna try to pick it off
the tee by scooping the club head up.
So keeping this forward,
the handle of the club
is arching up,
my hips are tucking underneath me.
Basically,
I'm hitting (murmur)
up on it with the shaft leaning forward.
That's the feeling I'm trying to cultivate.
All well forward,
get back to about there.
(ball whooshing in air)
Yes, picked it right off the tee there.
I even hit that a little low on the face.
I don't care with this drill.
That's what I wanna feel.
Let me try that again.
Now,
if you don't wanna do this,
or maybe
off at the side of the range,
there's some little spongy grass.
Put it on top of the spongy grass and try it.
Let's try it again.
Again the feeling is
not hitting up on it like that.
Keeping the handle forward,
hitting up on it
with the rise of the hips
and the rise of the handle of the golf club.
I promise you,
you get a great player
from about here on a typical shot.
That club handle rises quite a bit before impact.
The only reason
they register a downward hit
is forward lean,
not the club going down.
So here we go.
And I'm trying to hit
this as high as I can so to speak,
without adding any loft with my hands.
See how we do.
(ball whooshing in air)
Yeah, that was really good.
I like that one.
That was up in the air.
Now I don't wanna stand up quite
that much when I really play,
but you've gotta get the feel for it.
From this view,
always remember
when you swing more from the inside,
it's a lot easier
to have the club rise.
If you are swinging from here,
that club will descend to too much.
So
they pretty much work together.
Work on these drills,
work on your impact,
play with your ball position.
You can get those long irons going off.
They're pretty pure
and pretty straight.
Well hope that helps you
with how to hit your long irons pure and straight.
If you like the video,
I certainly hope you did.
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Appreciate you being part of Scratch Golf Academy
or at least watching these videos.
Hope you have good success with you on long irons.
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