Ways to Improve Golf Hitting Skills
Do you want to pure your irons like a tour pro? Are you tired of hitting it fat, thin, toned, heeled, or maybe even a shank? I’m here to help you today.
- Your address position.
- Hit the ball straighter, not further.
- Improve from 6ft and in.
- Hit more greens with your wedge.
- Focus on short-game distance over the direction.
- Improve your pace putting.
- Learn your physical capabilities.
- Fuel your body better.
- Your balance
- Master your pitching
- Improve your ability to read your shots
- Your fitness
So, today, we’re going to get you under the way of hitting your irons the best you ever have. I have three drills that we’re going to do today, all of which are going to help you find the centre of the clubface with your irons the best way possible. So, let’s talk about what happens when you hit a good iron shot.
What are we looking for, dynamically, at impact? So, when we hit a good iron shot, it should be ball-first contact, and the clubhead should be travelling down, still, as it contacts the golf ball. So, our divots are actually taking place after the ball, three to four inches after the ball, and not before the ball or at the golf ball.
So, if you want to hit your irons pure, we have to be able to ensure that we’re hitting the golf ball first, the club head’s still going down and catches the golf ball with the divot just past the ball, and going through the shot.
Now, just because I said the club head’s going down doesn’t mean your arms are going down, but the club head’s still travelling down. Also, at impact, we want some shaft lean, right? We want to have our hands in front of the golf ball, and that’s the Holy Grail of golf shots everybody talks about, is, “I’ve got to have more shaft lean, more and more shaft lean.” Well, today’s drills are going to help you achieve that, and it’s not going to be in the ways you might think, where you’re actually going to focus on shaft lean.
We’re going to do it by focusing on some other drills that are going to bring it in because you have to have shaft lean to hit the shots the way you want. So, the first drill here is with a towel.
So, what we’ll do is, take our towel, and we stuff it under our left arm, under our right arm, and this gives us our connection between our arms and our body. The tour player can connect their arms back to their body in the downswing, and that’s why they can hit such great shots, is that there’s no loss between their arms and their body.
I put the ball on a tee to help make this drill a little easier. And all we’re trying to do is make little half-swings to feel out how our body turns and twists. So, when we do this, it’s not a full swing. You can make fuller swings as you get better, but I would only recommend a half. The ball’s on a tee to keep it simple, and we’re going to take a couple of swings and hit a couple of shots to see what it feels like.
Now, for some of you, this move’s going to feel horrible. It’s going to feel awkward, and it’s going to feel like you’re doing it wrong and you can’t make contact. That is because we tend to lose that connection. So, what will happen for you, if this is a tough drill for you, is that your arms will start to float away from your body too soon, and we’ve got to have our arms, our elbows back into our ribcage as we hit this strike.
And so, when we’re up at the top of our backswing, this is a great drill for the players that have fast hips, arms get stuck behind, or you have slow hips and the hands get way out in front and you flip.
This drill will help you find that connection so you know what it should feel like on the downswing. So, we get set up, and again, we’re just making nice little half-swings. Basically, this is going to feel like a punt shot. But, if we do this, it should feel like you’re going to absolutely pure your irons, and it’s going to feel really, really crisp.
Now, the next drill’s a little bit more fun, in my book, because I don’t feel so restricted, but it’s still another great drill for those that have an unstable lower body. So, this drill, I call the ‘hand speed drill’. In this drill, we’re taking away your lower body and making you use your arms and your hands more.
And the reason for that is, I’ll see a lot of players lunge in the ball, or they’ll twist backwards on their right leg. And you have all the other garbage that your lower body can do that throws you off, get on your toes, fall back on your heels.
All right. We’re going to put our feet together. Again, the ball’s on the tee. Feet together and all we’re going to try and do here is make as big of an arm swing as we can without losing balance and quality of contact. So, I can make a pretty big swing because I’ve done it for so long.
You may only make a golf swing that’s a half-swing. We may only be able to take it back to here and hit shots that are solid because we’re not sure how to get the connection back and how to use our arms correctly. It’s a great drill to develop hand-eye coordination, and this is another great drill to help speed up the hands so we can get a little more distance in our bag.
So, once you’ve practised this drill, I want to see you making full-ish golf swings as fast as you can, in balance. The trick to this drill is that your feet have to touch and your knees have to touch.
If you’re more bowlegged, your knees won’t touch, but be aware of their movements. Are your knees flexing and extending, or are they staying calm and still, and letting your arms do the work? We’re trying not to use our feet a whole lot here. We’re trying to use our arms and our hands to develop that consistency at impact.
So, our next drill, I call this drill the baseball drill’. We get set up, we put a tee in front of our left foot and our right foot. The reason for the tees is because we don want to overstep our golf swing.
I see too many players do this drill, and they’ll step way out and get a huge, wide stance that they never have, and they can turn effectively, and it’s not a good golf swing. We want to make sure we rebuild our stance, so we put the tees in front of our big toes. And so, you’ll see what I mean, why I see more players step out.
So, what we’ll do is, we’ll get set up, left foot to the right foot. Now, to start the backswing, you have to swing the club back and step your left leg out. The trick here is, the hands have to hit the three-quarter mark at the same time your left foot hits the ground, so we’re here. I’ll see this, and the club doesn’t get enough, the foot’s on the ground. Well, now you’re too early. I’ll see this. Hands are already there before my foot gets there.
Now you’re late. I want hands at three-quarters, the left foot hits the ground. And if you’ve just got to do this a couple of times to get the feel, great, but you should be feeling like you’re changing your pressure with each step. Then, let’s make a real swing. So, we set up, left foot to right foot, stepped, and swing through. You should be able to feel your momentum moving to the target.
This is a great one if you find yourself stuck on your right foot too often and you never get to your left side. And again, the key to this drill is that, while you start your step, your left foot hits the ground at the same time as your hands hit the top of that three-quarter position in your backswing.
So, we’ve gone through three drills: the towel drill, underneath your arm, making half-swings, working on the connection; the hand speed drill, feet together, knees together, swinging the golf club as big as you can, in balance with good contact; and then we have the baseball drill where we’re stepping it out and making good swings towards our target. Do these three drills and you’ll start purging those irons.
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