Iron Play

Hit More Greens

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE HANDS AND CLUBHEAD is critically important. After all, it’s your only true linkage to the golf ball, meaning any slippage or loss of traction can lead to devastating shot results. And that’s no matter how well you swing it!

So, check your grips routinely for wear and tear, and/or any loss of tackiness. Furthermore, make sure your grips are fitted properly for both your hands and your golf swing. Typically, smaller grips are better for smaller hands, but they also aid in helping the hands rotate through the shot. Fatter grips have the opposite effect, and can actually lessen the rotation of the hands to prevent excessive hooking of the ball. Experiment with different sizes and see what works best for you.

NEUTRALIZE YOUR GRIP PRESSURE
YOU MAY KNOW THE CORRECT HAND POSITION, but how many times have you considered how tight or soft you should grip the club? In reality, it depends on both your natural grip strength and how well you set the hands at the top of your golf swing.

TOO TIGHT

TOO SOFT

To get a better hold of how firmly you should grip the club, first examine how well your hands are functioning at the top of the swing. In the photo above, you can see that the back of my left hand is flat, the clubshaft is on plane (it’s hidden behind my hands), and my wrists are fully hinged. Now, if I grip the club too firmly, my wrists won’t hinge enough, meaning I’m likely to release the hands too soon through the downswing.

If I grip the club too softly, not only am I likely to regrip and lose the proper club position, but my swing plane is going to suffer, since the shaft is likely to droop behind or in front of my hands.

NO!

USE YOUR LIES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
The intermediate cut of rough can actually be an easier place from which to hit a longer iron.

SWING DOWN THE FIRST CUT
A GREAT WAY TO check the direction of your swing path is to take a few practice swings along the first cut of rough. With the clubhead positioned just inside the first cut (the toe barely touching the rough), you’ll be able to quickly see whether or not you’re swinging down the line, too much inside-out, or as the small photo above shows, too much outside-in. You can even use a tee to get a better idea of where you want to make impact with the turf.

Another great swing thought to have is to try to swing the club par-allel to the line midway through the backswing, and again, parallel through the line midway through the downswing. You can see here, I’m almost perfectly parallel on the downswing, the toe of the club is pointing up, and my body is rotated through. I’ve definitely swung straight down the line here.

THE SHADOW CHECK
OUT ON THE COURSE, YOU PROBABLY WON’T FIND TOO MANY FULL-LENGHT MIRRORS, but that doesn’t mean you can’t check your swing to see whether you’re swaying or not. To do so, simply turn your back to the sun so your shadow is in front of you. Start at the setup and note where your head and hips are. As you swing back, watch your shadow and make sure you’re rotating, not sliding back and forth. This also is a great way to make sure you’re keeping your spine angle, too.

Once you’ve practiced with the shadow, turn around, face the sun and repeat the way a good swing feels. This will train your mind to ignore your shadow and keep you focused on the back of the ball come time to hit your next shot.

Give it a try, use your shadow and make sure you rotate, not slide, through the hit.

At the setup, your shadow should resemble a golfer with no arms. Pay attention to any tilt away from the target, as well.

The shadow you cast when you slide too far away from the ball will show you a lot of things: a slide, a greater separation of the hands and a clubshaft that’s not parallel to the target line.

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TWO-TEE DRILL
what’s the secret behind solid ballstriking? Ball-first contact! Hitting the ball first, before you make contact with the turf is critical if you want to become a better ballstriker.

A great way to practice ball-first contact (without actually using a ball) is to use two tees, situated gate-style in the position where your golf ball would be. As you swing, concentrate on hitting the turf on the target side of the tees, and not behind. Notice in the sequence above, doing so requires two key components. The first is a good extension of the arms. The second is a full rotation of the body through and up to the finish.

Iron Types

CHOOSING the right type of irons for your game ought to be your first step toward improving your score. And if a new set isn’t in the budget, or you’re content with what you have, at the very least, consider getting your irons properly fitted. This means having them inspected for length, loft, shaft flex and lie angle.

You may find that your irons fit improperly, and a few tweaks will make a big difference in helping you hit better iron shots. Or, let’s say your irons actually fit your game as they should. Then why aren’t you seeing any improvements? The answer may be in the type of iron set you have. If you struggle with a lack of distance, wayward shots or even getting the ball airborne, maybe it’s time to ditch those blade-style irons and opt for a cavity-back set–or better, a mixed set with a couple hybrid irons to choose from.

Either way, the era of sizing up one’s golf game based on the types of equipment in the bag are long gone. Many of the best players in the world not only have adopted cavity-back styles, but also have worked hybrids into their sets. This is all in an effort to stay competitive and hit shots that, frankly, you could never do with a long-iron blade.

FEET-TOGETHER DRILL
IF YOU HAVE TOO MUCH UPPER-BODY ROTATION, a great way to check is to try the feet-together drill.

Too much upper-body rotation is usually the culprit behind bad balance and bad positions at impact. To check yours, stand with your feel together and make a few swings at full speed. If you’re falling over in any direction, you probably have more upper-body rotation than your lower body can handle. The solution? Either scale back your backswing or add more middle-body rotation to the mix. This will help stabilize your motion and, in turn, lead to better balance and more consistent ballstriking.

DRILLS

STEP-INTO-IT DRILL
PROBABLY THE TOUGHEST aspect OF THE GOLF SWING is understanding how to make a solid transition from backswing to forwardswing. In reality, there ought to be three things working together. First, the weight shifts to the forward side. Second, the body rotates. And third, the hands drop and release over the ball. Seems simple enough right? Not quite. Understanding the order of these motions is the toughest part.

To better train your body to follow a proper sequence, consider this drill. First, start in your setup position, and then move your forward foot (my left in the first photo) along your right foot. Then, initiate your backswing as you normally would. Once you reach the top of your backswing, lift your forward foot (again, my left in the photos) and plant it back into the position in which it would normally be. As you do this, you’ll sense a greater feeling of the body wanting to turn toward the target and the hands coming down over the golf ball.

By stepping into it, you’ll get a better feeling for making a proper weight shift. The rest of the swing ought to fall into sequence naturally.

Iron Shafts

DRIVER SHAFTS tend to garner the lion’s share of attention when it comes to club shafts, but don’t forget about the ol’ iron shafts in the bag. What you don’t know might actually be hurting your game.

To become better-informed, first make sure your iron shafts are cut to the right length and have a flex suited not only to your overall ability, but also to your tendencies with each type of iron. For instance, maybe you prefer making short, aggressive swings with your short irons, meaning, stiff shafts will work better in the higher-lofted irons. Or, perhaps you prefer swinging easier with your long irons, thus requiring a softer flex profile in the long irons. Either way, a set can be dynamically arranged so each iron flexes exactly as you’d like. Go to a fitter and see what we mean.

TEE-FLIP DRILL
HOW MUCH OF A DESCENDING BLOW YOU NEED? Now that you know you need to clip the ball first before you make contact with the ground, how steep should you be?

A great way to practice the perfect descending blow into the ball is to try to mimic my position in the photo to the right. See how my hands are just ahead of the ball, my hips have rotated, and my head is slightly back? This is the position you want at impact, but getting here is going to require some practice.

To get started, try the tee-flip drill. Take a tee, and place it in front of the ball (toward the target). Push it into the ground so it’s snug and doesn’t pop out too easily.

From this position, make a swing! If you execute the proper downswing, you should not only hit the tee, but also be able to pop the tee out of the ground.

Practice this drill anytime you feel as though you’re hitting it too fat or too thin. You’ll quickly be on your way toward making crisper contact.

SETUP VS. IMPACT The reality is, there’s actually a big difference between the setup and impact position. At impact, the weight is on the forward side (target side), the hips and lower body are open, and the shaft is leaning forward.

WALL CHECK
MAKING A GOOD BACKSWING DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DIFFICULT. A simple way to check and see if you’re taking the club back straight along the target line is to check with a wall behind you.

The goal is to make a ¾ backswing and a ¾ followthrough. (Eventually the club will hit the wall, even with a good swing. So, stop
the downswing ¾ of the way through the forwardswing.) If you take the club back too far inside, you’ll hit the wall on the backswing. If you do the opposite and take the club back too far outside, you’ll likely come over the top and hit the wall through the downswing.

As a bonus, this is a great tip to ensure you retain the needed spine tilt toward the ball.

Lies, Lies, Lies!

IF YOUR IRONS DON’T FIT, there are some surefire hints as to why that might be. For instance, if you struggle with shots that fly too far to the right, your irons may be too flat for your swing. If you tend to hit most of your irons to the left, they might be too upright for your natural ability. Bending the lie angle of your irons is a simple fix to help you hit straighter shots in no time.

DIAL DOWN
UNLIKE WITH THE DRIVER OR EVEN SOME OF YOUR FAIRWAY WOODS, you don’t necessarily want to hit every shot with your irons as far as you possibly could. In a given round, you’re probably just as likely to have as many in-between distances as you will distances that set up well for a particular iron in your bag.

A great way to practice and to get a feel for different distances is to practice hitting each iron in your bag three different distances. Start with three balls, and with your first shot, hit with your average swing speed, which should be somewhere around 80 percent full power. Then, with the second ball, dial it back to 70 percent and monitor the difference. Then, with the last ball, take a swing at 100 percent and, again, track the difference in distance.

Once you get a better idea of how far you can hit a single iron at three different swing speeds, you’ll likely see that some of your distances overlap from iron to iron, which essentially fills any distance holes in your set.

Also, becoming more versatile with each iron, you’ll get a better sense of what type of shot a particular hole requires, especially in relation to trajectory and spin (typically the faster you swing, the higher the launch and greater the spin).

Do this for every iron in your bag and take the guesswork out of choosing the right club once and for all.

MAKE SOLID CONTACT
DON’T GO OVER THE TOP. Speaking of swinging over the top (as the wall-check drill alluded to), an outside-in swing path is one of the worst and, sadly, more common mistakes amateurs make. It not only produces a weak and inconsistent shot, but also causes slices and duck hooks, both of which we all could do without. The opposite problem is a swing that’s too inside-to-outside the target line, which causes pushes, hooks and even the likely shanked shot. That’s just as bad.

To make sure you swing more squarely, try hitting a few shots with something along the outside of the golf ball. In my case, I have an OB stake, but I suggest you try using something softer, like a headcover. Set it as close to the ball as you can without touching it at address. The goal, obviously, is to avoid contact with your headcover through the entire swing. If you’re too outside-to-inside, you’ll hit it. If you’re too inside-to-outside, you’ll still hit it. The right amount is to swing inside-to-inside the target line, straight toward the target. Practice this often and you’ll hit straighter shots.

FINISH STRONG ON YOUR FORWARD LEG
JUST BECAUSE IT’S NOT YOUR DRIVER, that’s not enough of an excuse to quit on your swing and not make a solid rotation. For even the most delicate of shots, whether it be a 100-yard pitch or an easy 7-iron, you always want to finish on your forward leg. If you don’t, you run the risk of not making a full rotation, releasing the club too soon, and, well, you can guess what types of shots will ensue.

As you practice, work on finishing on your forward leg, even with shorter-iron shots, punch shots, 3__ã4 shots or what have you. In this photo, I’m hitting an easy 6-iron. Even though my finish is abbreviated, my weight shift is anything but. I’m fully rotated, and my weight is solidly placed over my left leg.

Some of the best players in the world have said they don’t think about anything in the golf shot other than how they finish. Give that a try and, no doubt, you too will see how a finish-focused swing will help the rest of your motions fall in sequence automatically.

Jeff Johnson is currently the director of instruction at the beautiful Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Ojai, Calif. To learn more and to book a lesson, visit www.ojairesort.com.

Rough And Tough Shots

USE A WEDGE FOR BETTER CONTACT

When your ball finds the deep rough like the position I’m in here, the smart play almost always is to take a higher-lofted club and either lay up or pitch the ball back into the fairway. Why you ask?

The shorter the club, the more descending the blow you’re going to have into the golf ball. The longer the club, the flatter the angle you’ll come into the ball. This is the main reason it’s so difficult to hit longer irons and fairway woods from the rough. Because of the shallower angle of attack, there’s too much rough coming into contact between the clubhead and ball, making it difficult not only to get the ball airborne, but also to move it out of the rough.

The right play? Punch it out to a comfortable distance in the fairway, with a high-lofted iron or wedge.

On a side note, because the rough is a lousy place to hit long irons and fairway woods, it’s not an accident that hybrids are designed to be played with a steeper angle of descent. Try hitting your hybrid like a middle to short iron from the rough, and see if it helps you.

UP AND OVER

Vertical Shaft = Higher Shot

In this scenario, I have two options. I can go over the limbs hanging between the green and the golf ball, or I can go under them. Let’s imagine the pin is on the short side and I need to hit it high and stop it quick. In this case, hitting over the limbs is the right shot.

To hit a high pitch, I like to keep things simple. Address the ball as you normally would with your high-lofted wedge, with the ball positioned center or slightly forward of center. Only now, concentrate on releasing the hands faster through impact. With a quicker release, the clubhead will outrace the hands and add both loft and bounce to the club. Because of this, don’t be afraid to hit down aggressively onto the ball and use the club’s bounce to avoid hitting a fat shot. As for your finish, the shaft should be vertical, as you see in the photo to the left. This is a sure sign of a quick, handsy release through the ball.

DOWN AND UNDER

Lower Shaft = Lower Shot

Now, let’s say the pin is at the opposite end of the green and I have some more room to roll the ball. The right play is to hit the ball below the limbs and play for more roll. I don’t really make a lot of changes to my pitching stance and setup. As with a high shot, I play the ball in the center to slightly forward in my stance. Only now, instead of concentrating on a faster release of the hands, I try to delay the release of the hands to help hit the ball lower and with forward roll. I’m not intentionally trying to keep my weight on my left side, nor do I change my impact position all that much (for proof, check out the two sequences and note the similarities). Instead, by delaying, or slowing, the release of the hands, I’ll make contact with less loft and create less backspin. The key is to remember to rotate the body and finish the shot with the shaft below the hands, as you see in the photo to the right.

BEND IT LEFT

ALIGN TO RIGHT
Just because you found the fairway, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll have an open shot into the green. In this case, I need to hit a draw around a tree to have any chance at a birdie. To start, align your clubhead as you normally would: right at the target. As for your body, aim to the right. The face will look closed, but trust you’re setting up correctly.

RELEASE THE HANDS
To hit the draw, the hands have to release, and the clubface has to close through the shot. Notice how the shaft is parallel to the ground? Now look at the clubface. It’s facing down, further indicating I’ve hit a draw/hook effectively around the tree.

SWING ALONG BODY LINE
The key here is to trust your alignment and swing out to the right! Don’t feel as though you need to tug the clubhead back to the left. Because the clubface was square to the target (and closed relative to your body line), a draw is imminent. Swing along your body line and be ready for a right-to-left ballflight.

BEND IT RIGHT

ALIGN TO LEFT In case I need to hit a big fade or a slice, I’ll need to do the exact opposite of what I did when hitting a draw. Aim the clubface at the target, and align the body left of the target. This will effectively open the face relative to your body line, helping you to not only hit a fade, but hit it higher, too.

DELAY HANDS
To hit a good fade, the goal is to delay the release of the hands and hold the clubface open (relative to the body line) through the hit. The key to doing this? You have to keep rotating the body! Look how much more my body has rotated here vs. the draw swing. This is what you want to achieve in hitting this shot.

SWING ALONG BODY
Once again, swing along the body line, not the target line! Don’t let fear keep you from rotating your body and swinging to the left of the target. Also, when you do set up to hit this shot, take one more club than usual, since fades from this setup fly shorter and higher than do normal shots.

BRUTAL BUNKER

Tough bunker shots require tough practice! To hit a high and long bunker shot, you need to activate your hands and whip the clubhead through at impact. In the sequence below, notice how my hands are cocked and, just before impact, they release and make contact with the sand and ball. Through impact, my hands release, but I retain the extension of my arms. That’s what you want to help hit better, more consistent bunker shots from farther distances.

IN A DIVOT!

ROTATE!
Just because you’ve found a divot in the fairway (life just isn’t fair, is it?), the shot isn’t lost. The trick is to remember that effective ballstriking requires a full rotation through the shot. In the case of the divot shot, play the ball back in your stance to help encourage a steeper downswing. Just remember, the steeper you get, the more critical it is to rotate the body. If you get steep and don’t rotate, you’ll hit it fat and probably off line. Instead, swing with confidence and rotate through on the downswing.

Bobby Hinds, PGA, has developed a golf instruction curriculum designed to help all golfers become better through applying instruction that’s easy to understand and execute. For more information, and to book a lesson, visit www.bobbyhinds.com.

Photo location courtesy of Crystalaire CC in Llano, Calif. For more info, visit www.crystalairecc.com.

Be The (Middle) ball

A very important variable to better ballstriking is “centeredness of contact.” It doesn’t matter how dialed in your swing becomes, if you’re missing the center of the clubface at impact, you’re going to have trouble controlling your distances and hitting the ball in your intended direction. Hitting it on the “sweet spot” not only feels pure, it will also help you to maximize your distance.

Here’s a drill that will help you get better at making contact in the center of the clubface. Simply set up with three golf balls, and place each ball a few inches apart, with the middle ball being the ball you intend to hit. Make sure the three balls form a line perpendicular to your target line. Leave just enough room for the clubhead to pass through without hitting the two outside balls.

If this is too easy for you, here’s a variation of the drill. From the original drill, move the ball closest to you forward approximately 2 inches and the ball farthest from you away approximately 2 inches. Leave just enough room for the clubhead to pass through without hitting the two outside balls. This aligns the three golf balls diagonally, which now forces you to not only make centered contact with the middle ball, but it discourages you from coming over the top and hitting the ball from too outside-in the target line and encourages you to swing the club with an inside path on the downswing. Either variation drill will help you hit the ball more in the center of the face.

Boyd Summerhays, PGA, is a former PGA Tour player and the Director of Instruction of the McDowell Mountain Learning Center at the McDowell Mountain Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. To contact Boyd or for more information, go to www.summerhaysgolf.com.

Be The (Middle) ball

A very important variable to better ballstriking is “centeredness of contact.” It doesn’t matter how dialed in your swing becomes, if you’re missing the center of the clubface at impact, you’re going to have trouble controlling your distances and hitting the ball in your intended direction. Hitting it on the “sweet spot” not only feels pure, it will also help you to maximize your distance.

Here’s a drill that will help you get better at making contact in the center of the clubface. Simply set up with three golf balls, and place each ball a few inches apart, with the middle ball being the ball you intend to hit. Make sure the three balls form a line perpendicular to your target line. Leave just enough room for the clubhead to pass through without hitting the two outside balls.

If this is too easy for you, here’s a variation of the drill. From the original drill, move the ball closest to you forward approximately 2 inches and the ball farthest from you away approximately 2 inches. Leave just enough room for the clubhead to pass through without hitting the two outside balls. This aligns the three golf balls diagonally, which now forces you to not only make centered contact with the middle ball, but it discourages you from coming over the top and hitting the ball from too outside-in the target line and encourages you to swing the club with an inside path on the downswing. Either variation drill will help you hit the ball more in the center of the face.

Boyd Summerhays, PGA, is a former PGA Tour player and the Director of Instruction of the McDowell Mountain Learning Center at the McDowell Mountain Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. To contact Boyd or for more information, go to www.summerhaysgolf.com.

Middle Game: Plane & Simple

When was the last time you checked your swing plane? Scratch that…do you even know what your swing plane is and should be?

If you’re like most golfers, you probably don’t think about your swing plane very much when, in fact, you should! Your swing plane is essentially the angle you swing the club on relative to the ground. Some of us have steeper swing planes, while others have flatter swing planes. The trick is determining which is right for your game. If you’re too steep or too flat, there will be a lot of manipulation on the downswing, leading to incorrect contact, distance and direction. The solution? Look to the butt end of your grip at the top of your backswing. The butt end should point along the targetline, which is actually a line from the target through the golf ball. Now get this. If you can manage to get the butt end to point at (or maybe just slightly inside) the targetline with a middle iron, you should do the same with your woods, driver, short irons and so on. But here’s the interesting part. As you follow this constant (the butt end pointing to the targetline), you’ll naturally see that your correct plane angle gets flatter with longer clubs and a little steeper with shorter clubs. That’s a good thing! The worst thing you can do is try and keep the same plane angle for every club in your golf bag. That won’t work.

Let your swing plane flex, and point that butt end toward the targetline, as I’m doing here. Follow that advice, and you won’t have to think about swing plane as much, and you’ll hit straighter and longer golf shots.

Jeff Yurkiewicz, PGA, teaches at the Grayhawk Learning Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. For more info, visit grayhawkgolf.com.

Dot Your Impact

The number-one fundamental that all great ballstrikers know is critical for hitting better shots is centeredness of contact. How you contact the ball with the clubhead will affect spin, launch angle, distance, curve and also your perception of what happened in your golf swing. And as you might guess, hitting the center of the face is what you want.

I have a great drill that I like to use to improve my centeredness of contact. All you need for this drill is a Sharpie and two golf balls. First, draw a big dot on your golf ball so that when you impact the golf ball, you’ll be able to see where you hit it on the clubface. And here’s a little trick: If you’re trying this on a driving range, use a dry-erase marker. It works well, and the range ball won’t get damaged or marked up.

Hit a few balls with a big round dot behind the ball, and in a short while, you’ll quickly be able to see if you tend to hit the ball too much on the toe or on the heel. If you’re missing on the toe, put two balls on the ground about three inches from each other, with the golf ball that has the dot on it being the ball that’s farther from you. Typically, the cause of the toe shot is from bringing the club into impact with your hands and arms too close to your body. So, in this drill, you’ll address ball #1 (the ball closer to you) and then swing the club back and hit ball #2 (the ball farther from you). This will cause you to feel your hands and arms extending through impact and get you to feel the necessary move to find the sweet spot of the clubface.

Now, if you tend to hit the ball too much in the heel, put the two balls on the ground and do the opposite. Set up for the outside of the ball, but hit the inside of the ball. This will help you avoid hits by the hole.

The goal is to groove a better impact position so the ball and clubface make contact closer to the center of the clubface. As you do this drill, whether it’s fixing heel or toe hits, try not to fixate on results, but instead, pay attention to how the club feels. In no time, this simple and fun drill will have you improving your impact and hitting more solid golf shots.

Justin Klemballa, PGA, is the director of instruction at the Jim McLean Golf School at Sunridge Canyon in Scottsdale, Ariz. To get more information, visit sunridgegolf.com.

Maintain The Cup In Your Left Hand

Here’s a tip for low-handicappers who have a hard time controlling the distance of their short irons.

The problem usually lies with the path your club takes as it approaches the ball. Because better players tend to swing from more inside the target line, their clubface can easily shut on shorter shots. This approach may generate a lot of distance on longer shots (because the clubface is turning over), but it doesn’t produce much distance control. In fact, often it will lead to hooked shots. And that’s not an optimum shot shape for your control irons.

To remedy this, keep your left wrist cupped throughout the swing, especially just before impact and into the finish. (See the color photos at right.) When you try this, I want you to feel like you’re hitting a soft cut shot. Practice at first with just your left hand, then place your right hand on the grip and retain that feeling. Hold these shots off a little and watch the ball fly straighter and stop on a dime.

Top-25 Instructor Zach Allen, PGA, teaches at DeBell Golf Club in Burbank, Calif. For more info, visit zachallengolf.com.

The Core 4 of Great Iron Shots

Hitting better iron shots is key if you want to shoot lower scores. There’s no doubt about it. It’s really the great equalizer if you will: the link from the tee box to the green. If you hit great drives and are putting well, it’s not going to matter if you keep hitting substandard iron shots, missing greens or, worse, finding your approaches in the rough, bunker or water. So let’s look at a few positions in the golf swing you should pay attention to so you can start hitting better shots from the fairway, leaving yourself many more chances at par or birdie.

STEP 1: SET UP FOR SUCCESS

The setup is the easiest place to get things right. It’s also a pretty common place to get it wrong. Look at these four photos. The left-side photos indicate a setup position I often see from my higher-handicap students, with the arms scrunched together and a lot of tension. And the moment tension creeps into your swing, consider your swing dead! The weight’s on the left side and in a squatting position, with a fairly upright upper body. I’ll bet this position comes from people being told to flex their knees and keep their elbows close together.

The correct setup is to flex the knees (yes, my knees are flexing under those slacks) comfortably, and hinge the upper body toward the ball from the hip. Bend as much as you need to so your arms hang naturally, and don’t feel as though your elbows need to squeeze inward toward your chest. Neutralize your weight over both feet, and lastly, the left arm ought to be on the same line as the shaft, as seen in the face-on photos. And remember, there shouldn’t be any need to reach for the ball. Let the arms hang naturally. Doing this correctly should lower the right shoulder–that’s what you want.

One-Club Wonder!

A typical 6-iron has a loft of 30°, which places it between your pitching wedge (48°) and driver (approximately 9_¡). This mid-iron position makes it one of the game’s most versatile clubs. And versatility is what this article is all about.

On the following pages, I explore six different ways you can use the six-iron. Some are slightly unorthodox, while others you may be familiar with, but in the end, I hope you realize that this one club can be your new go-to stick when you find yourself in numerous tough predicaments.

Punch It Out!

As you can see here, I’ve got a really bad break. I pulled my drive just a bit and ended up in the left rough with the limb of a California oak between me and the green. To advance my ball toward the 18th green here at Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, I’ve got to keep it low and curve it from right to left. While that might sound daunting, it’s not too difficult to pull off if you set up correctly.

Now, while I’m using a 6-iron for every shot in this story, it’s important to remember that depending on how high your obstacle is, you can use any club from a 3-iron to a 9-iron to punch out. I’ve determined here that a 6 is the perfect club for the job, but practice this shot so you know exactly how high the ball flies. (This is also a great shot to play when faced with a headwind.)

To pull it off, play the ball back in your stance, so it’s a couple of inches off your right foot and choke down a couple inches on your grip. Choking down a couple inches on your grip and pressing your hands toward the target so there’s some forward shaft lean delofts the club and helps keep the trajectory low. Swing smoothly with an abbreviated backswing and followthrough. To add a little hook spin to your shot, move your hands to a little stronger grip position and allow your arms to release or roll over on the forwardswing. This also helps advance the ball even farther as hook spin produces an end-over-end roll.

Play 9 Holes With Your 6-iron

As per the rules of golf, we’re allowed to play with a maximum of 14 clubs, so why would I advocate playing nine holes with just your 6-iron? Well, for one thing, the 6-iron is a very versatile club. You can use it around the green, out of fairway and greenside bunkers and on many par-3s. Have to punch out from under a tree? The 6-iron is often the best stick for the job. But it isn’t just its versatility that lends itself to a quick nine holes. It’s a mid-iron club that can be hit with pretty decent distance, too. In fact, if you hit your 6-iron 160-170 yards, I bet you can reach many par-4s and 5s in regulation with it. From there, all you need are two putts for par.

The most important lesson from playing with just a 6-iron is how creative you’ll be when you don’t have a typical shot to play. Consider that Seve Ballesteros grew up playing golf with just a 3-iron. Being so limited in his club selection improved the Spaniard’s creativity and likely made him one of the game’s most inventive players. Limit yourself to just one club and you’ll be amazed at what it does for your imagination, too!

Fade It, Draw It, Hit It Straight

Course management is one of the game’s least talked about skills–but one of its most important. How a player manages his or her game can make the difference between shooting a personal best and having an average day.

Check out the above photo taken on the 18th hole of Ojai Valley Inn & Spa where I teach. The pin is cut below the chimney of the white building. There are two bunkers guarding the green, and as you can see, there’s more room to the right of the flag than to the left.

Based on where my ball ends up in the fairway, I want to hit it straight, draw it or fade it. From the left side of the fairway, I’ll draw it. This takes the left bunker out of play. When I’m in the center of the fairway, I’ll hit it straight (or with a slight draw), and if I’m on the right side and slightly blocked by that large tree, I’ll hit a little fade to take the branches out of play. Of course, standing on the tee and knowing the pin position helps me determine exactly where I want to hit my drive so I have the best chance of hitting it close on my second shot.

To curve the ball, aim the clubface at the target, and adjust your body lines to the left (for a fade) and right (for a draw). From there, swing along your body lines, like you’re swinging to the left or to the right, while keeping the clubface aimed at the target. Curving a shot isn’t any more difficult than that. To increase the curvature, adjust your body lines more.

Escape The Fairway Bunker

To hit a 6-iron out of a fairway bunker, you first need to be in a sandtrap that doesn’t have too severe a lip. You also need a pretty clean lie.

While the 6-iron does go pretty high, it’s certainly not as lofted as a sand wedge, and because you’ll be pretty far away from the green, you’ll need to catch it clean to get the most distance. Again, setup is key here, so implement the following components to ensure a good escape: Play the ball slightly back in your stance and place about 60% of your weight on your left side. Open your stance slightly to create a little more of a descending blow and keep your lower body quiet throughout the swing, but especially on your backswing. To ensure you don’t lose too much distance, hit the ball first, then take a divot and continue swinging into a full finish.

Expect to lose about 5% to 10% with a fairway-bunker shot, so if you normally hit your 6-iron 160 yards, select it when you’re 150 yards out. Also if you make really crisp contact, you’ll see the results on the green. Your ball should stop on a dime.

Get Up and Down

Here’s an unorthodox play from a greenside bunker. Typically, you’d want to use a sand wedge or pitching wedge from a bordering sandtrap, but in this case, with the pin far away, I want the ball to release and run out toward the hole. By using my 6-iron, I ensure that the ball lands without much spin and rolls the rest of the way to the cup. (Warning, this shot should be practiced a bit before trying it on the course!)

Before you attempt this shot, make sure the bunker has very little–if any–lip. Too high a wall and you might hit it into the bank and end up with another shot from the kitty litter. Also make sure you have a good lie on soft sand. Hardpan, wet sand or “fried eggs” will make this already advanced shot more challenging. Open your clubface and stance, place about 60% of your weight on your forward foot and hit a couple inches behind the ball–that’s a must!

Note in the photos how open my face is in my followthrough and how much sand I’ve taken. You absolutely must remember to do both these things if you’re going to be a successful greenside bunker player–no matter what club you use!

Chip It Close!

When you’re near the edge of the green, you have a good lie, and there’s plenty of room for the ball to roll, the 6-iron is the club you want to chip with. It’ll keep the ball low so that it’s in the air for 20% of the time and rolling 80% of the rest. As you already likely know, it’s much, much easier to control a ball that’s on the ground than one that’s in the air.

To ensure that you make the proper contact, place the ball in the back of your stance, and your hands forward. This delofts your 6-iron even more, ensuring that the ball stays low. By placing weight on your forward foot, you also help to make a downward strike into the back of the ball. That descending blow pops the ball up and onto the green and gets it rolling right away. A narrow stance encourages less lower-body movement and thus better contact.

Once you have all those setup keys, all you have to do is swing the club back and forth by rocking your shoulders and keeping your wrists firm. Don’t hinge your wrists! Don’t lift up or feel the need to help the ball into the air by flipping your wrists. Simply rock back and forth while keeping your left wrist firm and let the club do the work.

Jeff Johnson, PGA, teaches at Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Ojai, Calif. For more information, visit ojairesort.com.

Iron Play Simplified

LET”S MAKE THINGS EASIER, shall we? In today’s age of golf instruction, there’s more information than ever. Seems there are countless right ways, and countless wrong ways, to swing the golf club. In this case, I want to reduce the iron game to its simplest, most easy-to-understand level. The goal here is to get you making smooth, controlled swings that enhance your natural abilities. With these tips, you’ll be on your way to making better swings and shooting lower scores, all without having to dig too much into the mechanical side of things.

LONG IRON PLAY:
Setup vs. Impact

First, setup and impact positions are very different. Often, I see some of my higher-handicap students make half-practice swings, where they start at the setup, make a backswing, and slowly bring the club back down to the setup again. What a mistake!

Think of the setup as a starting point. The body should be flexed, the arms relaxed, the ball positioned just before the lowest point on your swing arc. Once you master a solid setup like mine, here’s what you need to know about both:

At impact, there are three parts of the body that look much as they did at setup–your head, your shoulders and your left arm. Everything else changes due to the rotational movement through the swing. If you try to hit from a setup position, the hands will collapse through the shot because you stop rotating. Instead, if your body keeps rotating, you can better mimic a good impact position where the hips are open, the shoulders are square, the shaft is leaning toward the target and the hands are over your left leg. Remember, whatever you do, don’t try to hit from a setup position. That never works!

A good impact position with an iron is the result of a downward blow into the back of the golf ball. With the hands ahead of the ball, just as they should be at address, you’ll have a better compression of the ball against the face. This means longer, higher shots with more spin on the greens.

If you don’t rotate, and you simply try to get back to your setup position and hit from there, here’s what will happen. The hands will more than likely collapse through the shot. Keep reading this article to see what would happen next. It’s not pretty, that’s for sure.

WATCH YOUR TAKE AWAY

TOO INSIDE

If there’s one problem that plagues better players more than higher-handicappers, it’s swinging too much from inside to outside the target line. To make things easier, consider this: It’s okay to make a downswing from inside the target line, but if you exaggerate it too much, you run the risk of getting the club stuck too far behind you. This can lead to not only some big pushes to the right, but also a few dreaded shanked shots. In the photos above, you can see that if I swing too much to the inside, my shaft is off-plane at the top of my swing and too far across the line. I might hit the occasional decent shot from here, but only if I manipulate my hands through the swing and flip them over in time to square up the clubhead. That’s really difficult to do repeatedly.

JUST RIGHT!

To fix the problem of swinging too far to the inside, you don’t necessarily have to take the club straight back. The key is to take the club back in a way that you get to the top of your swing on the right plane. If you look at the lower set of photos, you can see that the butt of the grip is pointing in front of me at the top, as opposed to behind me, as seen in the upper photos. This position is a better on-plane position, making it easier to swing through on the proper plane. So experiment with a backswing that allows you to get into a good position at the top of your swing. And by the way, through the shot, there’s no need to force the body to swing “to the outside” of the target line. The right path for every club is to swing from slightly inside the target line, to on the target line at impact, then back inside the target line.

MIDDLE IRON PLAY
Master The Backswing

How you take the club back affects how well you’ll be able to swing the club down and through on the forwardswing. I see a lot of my students swing their middle irons as though they’re short irons. They lift them up and swing with a narrow and steep backswing. And while your middle irons are designed to be swung steeper than your long irons, you should still swing them with a long, fluid motion–not a quick, steep motion better suited for a short iron or wedge shot. The key is to descend into the ball, but not as steep as you do with a short iron.

Second, as you take the club back, don’t hinge your wrists too early in the takeaway. This will make you too steep at the top and make hitting your middle irons more difficult. Finally, take a look at the last two photos in the sequence above. The second to last is the top of my backswing, and the last photo is the first move on my downswing. Can you see the difference? A good downswing is initiated by a slight bump of the hips toward the target, and not from swinging the arms down. Try this bump the next time you practice. And don’t forget to swing your middle irons a little flatter than you do your short irons.


When you release too early and stop turning, you run the risk of injuring your wrists.

Early release + no turn:
Chicken Wing

What happens when you release your hands too soon and stop turning through the shot? In most cases, this is how and where the dreaded “chicken wing” comes into play. Not only can this position hurt you physically, but it also makes hitting solid shots nearly impossible. If you don’t turn and you release too soon, the only direction the arms and hands can go is straight up. That means a lot of topped and bladed shots when you finish here.

STRIKE IT!

One of the best new training aids I’ve seen in a long time is the Tour Striker. It’s made to help golfers strike the ball with a descending blow (preventing a chicken wing), and does wonders at producing instant feedback if you don’t. After all, hitting down on the golf ball, and making a divot on the target side of the ball (not behind it) is key to straighter, longer hits. The Tour Striker helps me do just that. tourstriker.com.

SHORT IRONS/WEDGES:
Manage Your Finish

I like to think about where I want to be when I finish every shot. When it comes to short pitch shots from less than 50 yards, I like to finish with my body turned toward the target and my clubface facing the sky. This helps me better gauge distances, spin and trajectory. All I have to do is swing a little faster to change my distances. The key? Rotate, rotate, rotate. The body needs to turn all the way through the shot!

YES
You can’t see it, but this shot landed mere inches from the hole. The clubface is facing the target and so is my belt buckle.

NO
Hitting shots with your hands and not your body will lead to all sorts of problems around the green.

If I had a nickel for every student I’ve seen in this position after a pitch, I’d be a very rich man. Because the body stops, the hands flip over, the clubface closes and the ball goes who knows where. Just because it’s a short shot, that doesn’t mean the body shouldn’t rotate. Think of short shots as mini full swings, not long putts!

At the top of my relatively small backswing (I’m hitting about a 30-yard pitch shot here), you can see that my upper body has rotated away and the toe of the clubface is pointing up. This is a good position to be in. All that’s left to do is rotate the body toward the target. Also, notice the hinge in my wrists. There’s some hinge, but not very much. Why? Because I’m not hitting this shot with my hands. I’m using my body.

At impact, this is exactly what you want. The shaft is leaning toward the target, the body has rotated, and my head is directly above impact. This is what I like to call a controlled impact position. If I can get here with all my pitch shots, I can better control my results.

Through impact, the wrists have not folded over. In fact, they’re still ahead of my hands. Why? Because my body did all the work! Getting into this position is proof that I’ve rotated through the shot. Also, check out the clubface. It’s facing the sky and aimed right at the target. Copy these three positions and you’ll start hitting better pitch and chip shots right away.

QUICK & EASY IRON DRILLS

GLOVE UNDER THE LEFT ARM

Want to stop the chicken wing and make a better downswing rotation? Stick a glove under your left armpit and swing. If you can hold the glove through your swing, you’re doing a better job at rotating both your body and your arms. If not, and the glove falls, you’re stopping your body rotation and your arms are separating through the shot. That’s a no-no!

PUMP DRILL

To monitor how well your transition into the downswing is going, try the Pump Drill. Simply take the club back and down, but stop when the hands reach waist high. Check and see if you still have a good wrist cock and the clubface is parallel with the back of your gloved hand. Your right knee should already be bowing in toward your left leg at this point, too.

START FROM IMPACT

If you really want to make contact from your setup position, set up with an impact position! This is a great way to train the body to remember what it’s like to feel the proper impact position. Start with a simple setup, then simulate impact, then make a full swing. Odds are you’ll swing more freely and get a better feel for a good impact position in no time.

Bobby Hinds, PGA, is a GT Senior Instruction Editor who teaches golf at Woodley Lakes in Van Nuys, Calif. For more info, visit bobbyhinds.com.