(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. (upbeat music) (ball whooshing in air) Well very briefly, if you are new to the channel.
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time that's on the way. (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. Please hit the thumbs up button again, it gives us some momentum
here at the channel. Appreciate you being part
of Scratch Golf Academy or at least watching these videos. Hope you have good success
with you on long irons. (upbeat music).