Iron Play Faults And How To Correct

Golf Monthly

In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Tour coach, Liam James to offer some insight into fixing your iron play faults.

Transcript

00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club. In

00:03this video, looking at the biggest iron play faults and how to fix them. Now we've teamed

00:08up with Ping and tour coach Liam James to offer you some really simple and effective

00:12advice in three key areas. So if you're missing your approach shots, short of the green or

00:18you're struggling with pushes or pulls, there really should be something in this video that

00:21will help you out. Right, let's head out now to the golf course here at the London Club

00:25and get started. Okay Liam, so the first fault that we're going to look at here is missing

00:36short. I think for a lot of people watching this, their most consistent miss when hitting

00:39into the green is going to be coming up short. It's no surprise that's where most golf courses

00:44tend to have the most trouble, tends to be short of the green. So how do you make sure that

00:48you're striking the ball that bit more consistently so that you're hitting the yardage as you want

00:52to hit? Yeah, so as you refer to obviously most of the common faults when a player's hitting

00:57short, we tend to see all that come from the contact. So if we can do everything possible

01:02in order to enable ourselves some ball first contact and a bit of a more solid hit, the

01:07golf ball as a result of that is going to go its full distance. Yeah, so you're looking

01:10to hit the ball before the ground. And how do you get the right angle of attack into the

01:16ball to make sure that you do that? So we've got a basic drill here. So quite a common fault

01:20that we start to see with a lot of players is, as obviously they take their golf club

01:24up to the top, we start to see a lot of head movement away from the target. Now, as a result

01:29of that, the weight shifted quite a long way away from the target now. So if it's not moving

01:35back, we're going to start to see some contacts before this stick, we're going to hit the ground

01:40early or if anything, we're going to thin the golf ball as well. Both of those contacts,

01:44we're not going to get the full yardage. So a little drill here and a nice basic drill is

01:48I'm just going to place this alignment stick here. That's just inside my right heel. Now,

01:54as I do some practice swings, my only focus really here now is just to make sure we stay

01:58nice and still all the way up to the top of the backswing. So I'm going to go up to the

02:02top, stay nice and still. And now when I swing down and through, we can start to see the divot

02:07is plenty after this stick. That's going to ensure my contact.

02:10Yes, a lot of golfers might think, well, I've been told that when I move to the top of the

02:13backswing, my weight goes onto my right side. Is that not the case?

02:16More so with the woods. We start to see a little bit more movement away from the target,

02:20only a hair really with the woods. But again, really consistent iron players and really solid

02:25iron players. We don't see a lot of head movement, so there's not much movement away from the

02:29target at all. So we want to try and stabilise that as much as we can.

02:33Okay, go on then. Let's hit a couple of shots.

02:35Okay, right. So again, two or three practice swings here. I'm just going to have a nice

02:39practice swing up to the top. No real head movement away from the target. And then full weight

02:44transfer into my left side, making sure that I'm taking a divot. Let's give it a go.

02:55Lovely. And I guess, Liam, no one's really in danger of actually striking that alignment stick,

03:01but it's a really clear visual guide for you just to know.

03:04Absolutely. It just gives you a little bit of an awareness, really. It's a bit of a cue on the floor,

03:09just to make sure that we're staying nice and still on the way back and we're getting the weight

03:13shifting on the way through. Yeah. So if you're coming up short with your iron shots, make sure

03:16your angle of attack is correct into the ball. You should be able to get the strikes that little

03:20bit purer and get your distances more consistent. Okay, Liam, so I've got another ball striking drill,

03:25similar sort of thing, but slightly different way of approaching it.

03:28Yeah, same concept. It's another drill that's really going to help and ensure some weight transfer,

03:33some weight shift towards the target. So I'm just going to take my normal address position here,

03:38just one to two inches behind the golf ball. Okay, so that's going to obviously make the ball

03:43a little bit further forward in my stance now, as it normally would be. Same concept up to the top,

03:48we're going to make sure that we're staying nice and stable with our head. But because that golf ball's

03:52now two inches further forward than it would originally be, we've got to make sure that we're shifting

03:57over to it to ensure that contact. And if you don't, you're catching it sort of three inches

04:00fat and it'll be very, very clear. Exactly right. And it will just really highlight

04:04how stable your head needs to stay on the way back and how much you need to shift on the way through.

04:08Yeah, and if you can get that part right, if you can get that angle of attack into the ball right,

04:12you should start striking your iron that little bit better. Okay, so next up, we're going to look at

04:16the push. Liam, where does it come from? Where does the push come from in the golf swing?

04:21So as a rule, obviously, if we start to see the golf ball, a push defining as the ball starting out to the

04:26right and staying to the right, we start to see the golf club is too open at some point during the

04:31golf swing. Now, the most common fault that we start to see that leads to that is the wrist position

04:37at the top of the backswing. So we start to see quite a cupped left wrist position, which obviously

04:43as a result of which causes the club face to be too open at the top of the backswing. Right, okay.

04:48And you don't, I guess you don't want people to be thinking too much about the angle of their wrists

04:53at the top because you've still got to play golf. How do you sort the problem out without getting too

04:58technical? So a little drill that you can just do on the driving range, and I think it's important as

05:02well, you know, you can do a few different practice swings and we can do this tee drill in a second.

05:07And it's important to just do two or three of these in a practice swing and then go ahead and hit a shot,

05:12as you say, without getting over technical or too much thinking. Now, the simple drill is if you just

05:17place your left hand on the golf club as you normally would and you just slide a tee peg here

05:23just down the glove. Okay. So that's just inside my glove hand now. And all we're going to try and

05:28fulfill now as we swing to the top in my rehearsal is that when I get to the top of that backswing,

05:33if my left wrist position is in the right place, which is a flat left wrist, this tee peg just runs

05:39perfectly flat down my forearm. Now, if I start to get too much this way, that's now just applying a bit

05:45of pressure so I can feel like I'm in the wrong position with my left wrist. Right. And it's

05:48really nice. I guess it gives you a little something to think about. Exactly. You realise

05:52that you've done it at the top. Just a little trigger and a little feel for you when you're

05:55having your practice swings to make sure you're doing it right. Right, fine. So you wouldn't

05:58actually hit a ball doing that, would you? No, I would just do two or three practice

06:01swings without no ball, just getting a feel for what it is I want to do. And then I'd go ahead and hit

06:06a shot with that new feel. Okay. Take the tee out then. Okay. Just hit one for us. Just show

06:11everyone on camera, hopefully, what a good top and back screen position looks like. So if I just run

06:16you up to the top, I'm just going to have two or three rehearsals. I'm just going to have a little

06:19look at that at the top. So that's my flat left wrist. And I'm just going to go ahead and hit one

06:23with my flat left wrist. Perfect. And it didn't push it. I can confirm that was not a push. And okay,

06:33so I guess it's probably not related, but for those players who've got the opposite problem,

06:39so their bad shot into the greens tends to be a pull. What's the best drill to help them out on

06:44that? Again, so the rule will be what's the club face doing? So we're starting to see,

06:49generally what we start to see with a pull is the club face is closing too quickly through impact.

06:54Okay. So obviously that's making the golf ball start to the left of target and stay to the left

06:58of target. So a very simple drill again, and just refer that back to a practice swing. If I hold the

07:04golf club just down at the bottom here now, so I've got all of this golf club running at my left

07:09side, all I'm going to feel now as I just mimic impact is that as I swing through the golf ball,

07:15I want this shaft to stay firmly away from me. So if I'm doing that, that's showing me that I'm not

07:21flicking my wrist or impact. Okay. And as a result of which, that's going to stabilize the club head for

07:26me. So if you're releasing the club, if you have that tendency, uh, to release the club a little bit

07:31too early, show us, you'll feel the club. Absolutely. So you'll just feel as you come

07:37into the golf ball here. If I, if I release the golf club too early, you can see that that's making

07:42contact with me. If I just delay that release for a little bit longer, I've got plenty of room between

07:47me and the golf club. And as a result of which that club face is staying square. Yeah. And it's,

07:51I guess the whole point here is that's really simple and a really effective way of giving you a feel for

07:56what to do. Absolutely. And it's always good to have a reference away from the golf ball, two or

08:00three practice swings, just getting a feel for it, and then go ahead and hit a shot without too much

08:05thought. So there you have it. No matter whether you're coming up short of the green, you're pushing

08:09your approach shots or you're pulling them. Hopefully Liam's tips here will help you get your ball

08:14striking back on track and help you hit the ball closer to the flag.

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