Don’t Hit Down On Your Irons
June 3, 2021
Most golfers are constantly pursuing that pure iron strike that they see the world’s best players do, followed by a lush divot after.
So how do we achieve this?
Well, most of you will be aware that to do this there needs to be a slightly downward hit on the golf ball and we hear so often golfers say, “I’m trying hit down on the golf ball”.
Now, while this may sound ok, we have found that this can actually be harmful to your golf swing. When golfers try to “hit down” on the golf ball it can cause even more ball striking problems and this really does go to show that how you visualize, think and the words that you use, have a huge impact on how you swing.
One of the first things we get our Me and My Golf students to do is to understand that, with an iron, the bottom of the golf swing is after the golf ball and this means there is a slight downward hit. We do not however tell them to “hit down”. From our experience this has only led to problems.
A great way to think about the angle of attack in to the golf ball with an iron is to imagine the club head is an airplane coming in to land on a runway. This will help promote a more neutral angle of attack, but hopefully still help you strike the ball first followed by the turf.
When golfers tend to think about “hitting down”, we usually see it lead to poor swing plane issues where they get too “steep” and the airplane (club) comes crashing in to the ground taking huge divots, making it very difficult to perform a consistent strike.
Simply combine this image in your mind with some of our ball striking drills and this will have a huge impact on helping to strike those irons pure!
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Comments
1
Hi Guys, I play off 14 and I have had a few issues with hitting my longer irons. I get good height and trajectory with my PW, 9 and 8 irons but I struggle to get my 7, 6 and 5 in the air. I tend to hi…
Hi Guys, I play off 14 and I have had a few issues with hitting my longer irons. I get good height and trajectory with my PW, 9 and 8 irons but I struggle to get my 7, 6 and 5 in the air. I tend to hit these irons quite low and therefore distance judgement can be quite difficult as they tend to run a long way. Any advice would be great.
Incidentally I hit my hybrids well but again with a low flight.