(club whacks ball) – Well hello, Adam Bazalgette here, founder of Scratch Golf Academy. Today's subject, how to
hit your irons farther. Who doesn't want to hit that? The pros hit it a long
way and they spin it. I'll give you couple of key, well two keys as to the things you need to do on one key is the thing you must not do. And at the very end of the video we should talk about balancing the books, getting those things in the right order so you get a combination that
gives you a lot more distance.
(upbeat music) (club whacks ball) (club whacks ball) (ball pops on club) Well very quickly, if
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Thank you. (club whacks ball) Well you guessed it, a big
part of hitting your irons long you gotta hit the ball
before you hit the ground. And by the way, you saw I
took a small divot there. You don't need to be
smashing into the ground but a small divot is a sign that the shaft is leaning forward and therefore applying
pressure against the ground. We'll get into that more in this video 'cause it's very important. So, if you're gonna take a little divot, which is a good idea, you've
gotta hit the ball first. Let me show you a couple
of pros and show you a big, big component in the ability to do that. Tiger Woods on the left,
Davis Love III on the right.
Back there at the Sea Island range now, we'll look at Tiger in a moment. Look at Davis Love, watch his head. It wobbles a hair but it's
pretty much in one spot. So what he's doing, it's what
I would call a centered axis. His spine is pretty much
right between his hips. Let's look at Tiger Woods there
at the top of the backswing, again hitting a driver or something he's gonna be tilted more behind the ball but he's pretty much
right there in the center with his pivot. Most players, I wouldn't say
that, many players, let's say, certainly get too much
over on this right side. They get their head too
far behind the ball. Unless you can really
recover on the way down, difficult to hit the ball first. Notice as well, there is a
pronounced shift of weight, even though his head doesn't move much, you can see the people behind him, his lower body shifts forward coming down.
So, as he's getting
ready to hit that ball, there's a lot of his body
in front of that golf ball. His head is about right on top of it. Most players do not hit
that much weight to the left coming down as Davis Love. So centered pivot going back,
weight shift coming down. There's all sorts of ways
to work on your pivot. Pivots themselves, mirrors, I like the one where the shadow
is directly in front of you. Frequently you're doing it without a ball. It's a great way, if the sun's behind you, to see what's going on with your pivot. Sun's creeping out here but it would be at the wrong angle anyway. This is something you
can always do outside. It's an alignment rod
leaned over the ball.
Now, from where I am,
there's plenty of room to swing underneath it. It's not in the way in the least. So, what I can do is I
can get set up there, I can sense where that is. (air whooshes) Try a backswing, I felt like
I really didn't move much. I'd easily be able to tell if I did that. And to some extent I can
tell if I'm bumping my hips passed it a little bit coming down. So let's try a shot here. One more rehearsal there. (air whooshes) (club whacks ball) Well, it felt like a pretty good look, seemed like it stayed in
the same position to me.
Get some feedback. Point is, learn to stay
on top of the ball, centered pivot going back and get a little bit of weight
going left as you hit it. (club whacks ball) Well another thing that you have to do if you're gonna get more
distance on your irons, you have to de loft the
club somewhat at impact. This isn't some gimmick, this isn't a way to cheat loft onto it, this is how the club's
designed to work and, as I say, if you do it this way, you're not only adding loft,
you won't hit it as solidly. Let me show you close up how this works and how the club's designed and then we'll get out and work on it. So we're gonna notice the sweet spot, which is up about here, and how the leading
edge of the club looks. And we've used a table here because it's just a little
clearer and easier to see. If you tilt the club back at
all, lack of forward lean, you'll be hitting the ball
way too low on the face.
You've got to tilt the
sweet spot toward the ball, and one of the things that
does, look how the leading edge of the club is actually off
the surface of the table, that's because the club designer is anticipating forward lean that levels the club out a
little bit there at impact. And when you lean the club forward, you're hitting nearer
the equator of the ball. That applies more pressure
and gives you more speed. You start making contact down here you get too much loft and spin. So de lofting the club at impact, again, this isn't going to be an
exhaustive look at that but let's give you a couple of ideas.
Here's a simple face magnet,
this is an eight iron. You can see about how much
loft it has at impact. Now people always say, oh
I can't do that, the pros, that's not true. Take the golf club, if you
don't have a face magnet that's fine, and just tilt loft forward. If you can do that, you
can learn to do this. Might take you a little while
but you can learn to do this. So, what I'm feeling, I'll leave
that on there for a second, is as I come through, I release the club but I just tilt the loft forward slightly and as you see that tilts
the face up onto ball.
Hang out with it a little
bit, you can do it, at least you can improve it. Hit some little shots and
I'm gonna finish down here, face tilted forward. Naturally, my wrist is gonna feel a little bit more like that. (club whacks ball) Right down there, nice low shot. Might've caught it air heavy
but I really like the way that felt in terms of loft
there through the ball.
(club whacks ball) Just nipped the turf a little bit there. A final thing, your swing plane. Listen, when you've got
the handle leaning forward, and you've got your
weight toward the front, those are things that are adding steepness or adding downward hit to your shot. You do not want to add any more by having a steep swing plane. I'm telling you, you come down like this, if you've gotten the
other two elements right, you're gonna be way too much
smashing down at the ground so you've gotta take some
out with your swing plane. Let's have a look at how
the great players do it with their swing. We'll get out and we'll
see if we can add this in and balance everything up. There's Justin Rose both
down the line and face on. I have a free, three
part video series for you down in the description
box, solid strike formula. Really gets into the nuts and
bolts of making solid contact. Help yourself to that. So as we look at Justin here, certainly, let's look from in front here.
Certainly he's go his weight to the left, certainly the handle's forward, but it you watch the club here, let's dot the handle about there. Let's go forward a bit, maybe there, forward a few more frames,
that club, couple more. That club there as he's hitting the ball is actually arcing away
from the turf slightly, or at least the handle is. The only reason he's
registering a downward hit is the forward lean of the shaft. The handle's going up a little bit and that is much easier to do if you swing it on a good plane. If you get that swing coming
down from more behind you, or flatter if you like, it will be much more of
a brushing kind of a hit and it will promote that little rise of the handle of the club.
You wanna be in that sort of a plane to help you get the right
combination here for good impact. Okay, here we go. So you've got, this is the
way I describe to students. This is the front of your body, this is the side of your body. Most of the downswing, that
club should be over here at the side of your body. People see that ball and
they get so excited to hit it the club goes straight in front of them. To me, that's the number one reason people have this persistent
problem of being too steep. But what you wanna do,
use maybe a low tee. I'm gonna sneak forward,
you could do this, use a little bit of a spongy lie there.
Make it as easy as possible. Again, we're trying to cultivate less downward hit with this move, a little easier if the ball's sitting up. Make some little swings, and again, willy nilly of good contact,
let the club swing down and stay over here to
the side of your body. If you miss hit a few you
probably, you very well might, don't worry about it, keep swinging, you'll kind of figure it out
as you go along subconsciously. So, little swings, side of the body and eventually that club
starts to come through. And when it comes from here, it will almost always be traveling a little more up with the
handle through the ball. This way makes it smash down. So here we go. Little swing, not trying to
whiff it inside or anything. (club whacks ball) There we go. I was able to clip a little of that turf, probably a little more than I wanted but I felt like I could do it
with more of a brushing action in my swing.
You've gotta balance the books. Most players, I watch people all day long giving golf lessons, they're
not steep enough from here, they're weight's to far back,
the handle's too far back, they're not creating enough downward hit and de lofting of the club here. And they're far too steep from this angle. That is a bad combination. Other way round, you'll be
hitting your irons further. I hope those keys are helpful for ya, those drills for how to
hit your irons farther and if you'll do these things
and practice these things I'm confident you'll have success. Please hit the thumbs up
button if you liked the video, again, helps us build momentum. I'd love to hear from ya in addition down in the comment box. Thank you (upbeat techno music).