Why You Need This: Today you'll discover "3 Must Do's with Your Irons"

I want to talk about an often overlooked key to consistency... strong iron play.

Confident and consistent iron play can create lots of birdie opportunities and can get you out of trouble when you miss the fairway.

And having a good, consistent iron game is much easier with these 3 simple keys.

You'll discover the common problems that create inconsistent contact so you can avoid leaving the course frustrated.

Plus, learn how to generate extra swing speed without having to put any extra muscle into the shot.

Let's get started....

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 18:54

Video Transcription:

All right, so I’m really excited. I’ve got an awesome video for you today. We’re going to talk about how you can get out on the course, step over top of one of those iron shots and be completely confident that you’re going to hit the ball solid.

You’re not going to chunk, you’re not going to thin the ball, you’re not going to hit it way to the right, way to the left, you’re going to make that really crisp, clean contact.

We’re going to go over three of the most important things to do that, and it all starts with covering the ball. So let’s jump right into it, let’s talk about how you can cover that golf ball and really compress it.

Now let’s dive right into it. How do we cover the golf ball? First, let me talk about what the wrong way to do this is, which would be a flip or a scoop.

I think a lot of times people misinterpret, they think that you try to flip or scoop to get the ball up into the air.

If I’m flipping this golf ball, or my hands are flipping, a lot of times what I’ve found is this is an effort for power. We’re going to talk about how to be powerful without flipping that.

If I flip one here, you see how my hands are leaning back, and it makes it really difficult to hit the ball solid. So there, I tried to hit it solid, but I scooped it a little bit, I picked it clean off the ground, kind of thinned it.

I came up a good 20 yards short of the green, and it really just didn’t have that compression that I really want on there.

It feels more powerful, because I’m pushing my wrist at the golf ball, or I’m pushing my wrist which would be this way toward the target.

That feels like that should speed up the club head, but that’s actually not the right way to speed up the club head.

If we cover the golf ball, we can get that club head to accelerate under its own power to really whip through contact and make golf a lot easier.

The first move, let’s go over that again here. If I’m flipping, I’m taking my right palm, my right hand, and I’m pushing it toward the target.

If you look at the muscles on the inside of your forearm, those are flexing to get you to push your hand forward toward the target.

A lot of times also when that hand pushes forward, I run out of room here and my arms will start to chicken wing, or my left elbow will bend as I come into the follow through. That’s from that pushing-type motion.

Now again, like I said, that seems powerful. I’m using a lot more muscular force here, but I’m not creating the acceleration that I want in a club head.

Now if we cover the golf ball, and all that means is you can kind of think of the loft on this club face at address as being up into the sky.

What you’re going to feel like as you’re turning this loft down, and you’re going to cover that loft on top of the golf ball.

If I’m looking at this from address, I’m feeling like, this is the sensation I have in my mind, is that I’m covering, and I’m taking this golf club and covering it on top of the golf ball like that.

That’s the sensation, again, it’s not exactly what’s happening, but that’s the feeling.

You also feel like your right hand, your right palm, instead of flipping, it’s going to feel like the right palm of your hand covers on top of that golf ball also.

So I’m really getting my body, my hand, you’ll notice that my posture is on top of that golf ball. I’m not standing up out of the shot like this. Everything is covering on top of that.

It’s the club face covering it, it’s the right palm covering it, and it’s the fact that I’m still in my posture covering on top of the golf ball which is where that term covering the golf ball, compressing the golf ball, really almost like delofting the club, comes from.

How could that create a lot of speed? It doesn’t seem like that’s going to be very powerful. Seems like it should be more powerful to really flip that club on through there.

This actually happens because when you’re in this covering-type position, you’re actually still releasing the club, the club is on the way to releasing, but it’s the fact that you still have this forward shaft lean that allows you to whip that club on through.

If I can imagine here, let me take a club that has forward shaft lean on it, and let me pull the butt end of this grip up.

Watch what happens to the club head. It really accelerates on through there. A very small amount of force on the butt end of this club, can get that club to whip on through.

The only way I can do that though, is to have some lag and forward shaft lean as I’m starting down.

So here, as I’m starting my downswing, there’s a couple things I want you to feel. Number one, I want you to feel like you right wrist is bent back, really, really bent back.

Number two, and this is very important, I want you to feel like you’re swinging side, or out to the right.

Almost feel like when you’re swinging this club, if I’m facing the camera here, I’m swinging the club this way, about 45° out to the right.

As I open my body, that’s going to allow that club to square up. All right, so that’s the first two pieces. Wrist back, swinging out to the right.

Then number three, I’ll still want to be releasing this golf club, but I want to release it in front of this golf ball.

So if I put a golf ball kind of down my target line here, say four or five feet in front, I’m imagining that I’m going from this covered position to releasing that golf ball, and now I’ve gotten rid of all these wrist angles up here.

That allows me to get this compression on the golf ball at contact, and still release to get the speed.

Now let’s put those pieces together. On the first couple reps, I want you to do five or six of these while you’re practicing, focus only on the right wrist.

The right wrist is staying back, and I’m going to feel like I keep my body rotating all the way through to a good, full finish to accelerate all the way around.

So here I’m really going to feel like my right wrist is back, that club is covering on top of it, and I’m going to accelerate to a good, full finish position. Let’s see if we can hit a nice one here.

There we go, that one’s right at the flag. Just probably 10 feet right of the flag, hit that one nice and solid.

So there, again, the right wrist is back, I’m still getting speed because I’m naturally going to release out in front.

The second 5 or 10 reps I want you to do here, we’re going to focus in on that inside-out motion that we mentioned.

If we start to come over the top and feel like we have this big lag angle, I’m going to start chopping down into it.

To be nice and shallow, and thin, and kick that ball cleanly off the ground, I need to have the sensation that I’m swinging this way out to the right.

It’s only when my body opens up and you can see as my hips start to open, that’s going to square that up to where I’m swinging toward the target.

A lot of players keep their hips square and they hit at it with their hands and arms, with their wrist. That’s not what we want to do.

We want to have the momentum of the body, which we’re going to talk about in a little bit, carry it through there.

So the sensation is that I’m swinging out to the right, and since my body’s opening up, that actually squares me up going toward the target.

This second five or so reps, to get a little more comfortable with it, right wrist back, you’re swinging to the right, and you’re going to let your opening body square everything up.

Let’s go ahead and try that out. There we go, another good one. Just barely left of the flag on that one, actually hit that one too good, it’s going to be a little long. Just about 10 or 15 feet past the flag.

Now from there, let’s go to the last piece here, this releasing out in front which is the last key to covering the golf ball.

If I’m covering this golf ball, again, the misconception a lot of players have is they’re going to get this wrist angle here, I’m going to be down, and then I’m just going to hold all that off.

If I do that, I’ll lose tons of speed. I need to release this golf club toward that golf ball out in front. I’m going to have these same ideas, these same sensations.

Wrist back, swinging out to the right, but when I go ahead and swing through, I’m going to go ahead and let that all release. Everything’s going out in front of this golf ball.

I’m going to let all that energy from the club release toward the target, and that’s also what keeps it really square as you’re coming through.

That nice square face gliding through the golf ball, going out toward the target. That’s going to make things a lot easier.

If I feel like I’m holding off on it, it’s going to open, I’m going to block it to the right, a lot of bad stuff’s going to happen. So I have to go ahead and let that club head go as I’m making this swing.

Let’s give that one a whirl. There you go, another one nice on the green, just a little right of the flag. So those are really going to help you to, what’s called cover, or compress the golf ball, those three areas there.

That’s just the first piece, I’ve got another few great tips that are going to help you to build on this, and get your game even more consistent. So that’s the covering of the golf ball, that’s really going to help to get those wrist angles really good.

Now let’s talk about how we can get a lot of that feeling like you’re pushing again, that flipping, that scooping like the arms are doing all the work.

How do we get away from that and get the momentum coming from the body?

There’s actually a pretty common mistake, that brings us to our second key which is if we’re going to be a really good iron player, we have to let the body build the momentum, and the arms just add a little speed to it. So to get that momentum from the body, the body has to continue to rotate through the shot.

Now earlier in this video, I mentioned that if we want to cover this golf ball, it's the forward shaft lean from the club which is actually going to be releasing past the golf ball, that’s completely fine, that’s what we want.

It’s this right wrist at impact being kind of angled back, feeling like your palm is covering the golf ball, and then that’s releasing after impact.

Then third, I mentioned that your upper body, or your posture, you have to be kind of down where you’re upper body’s feeling like it’s on top of this golf ball which is going to help you to feel that sensation of covering that.

Now what most players do, what they get wrong, is that when they’re hitting this iron shot, they tend to let their hips come forward, their upper body comes up and back, and now all of a sudden if I was to have this covered motion to really have the forward shaft lean, I couldn’t reach the golf ball.

If I was covered, I’d be here, but if I stand up out of my posture, all of a sudden, I can’t reach the golf ball. So what do I do to solve this problem?

I start to flip and scoop like we talked about we don’t want to do earlier, and that creates all of that bad contact.

If we want to get the momentum from the body, there’s two things that have to happen here. We have to get it in a position to where I can be down and covered, and stay in my posture, but then still have everything moving on through.

That’s where the big key comes in. A lot of players that try to cover the golf ball, what they’ll do is they’ll stay down in their posture, but then they just stay down in it forever.

It ends up being all arms, it doesn’t work, and it feels terrible.

What we actually want to have happen here, is as I start my downswing, if you imagine my belt buckle, if there’s a laser shooting out of that, as I start my downswing, I want that to be going down toward the golf ball.

My hips are kind of down toward the golf ball, my chest is down toward the golf ball, but then as I finish my swing, now all that comes up.

My belt buckle’s facing up toward the target, my chest is nice and high. If I had a laser shooting out of my shirt buttons, it would be nice and high here, and I’m coming all the way along around.

My chin’s even nice and high. That allows me to complete this swing, and that’s when I actually have extension.

So early extension, as a lot of people call it, or what would be the opposite of covering the golf ball, is when my upper body extends early.

It extends in the downswing as I’m coming into the golf ball. The proper extension or later extension, would be I’m coming down covering the golf ball, and then I extend up as I come through to the follow through.

The cool thing about this, it ties in with exactly what we talked about when we took this butt end of the club and we let it whip through the ball.

If I get a bunch of this lag, and now I’m down in my posture, as I extend up, I’m taking this grip and I’m pulling it up, that allows the club to whip on through with a ton of momentum.

Now I could use the momentum of my body. Now I can use my hips and the big muscles of my body to carry that club through there.

So let’s try this out. Do another 5 or 10 reps for me, as you start your downswing, feel like everything until your left arm is about halfway in the downswing, feel like everything is getting closer to the ground.

My belt buckle’s down, my chest is down, everything’s down, I fee like I’m really going to be close to this ball, covering on top of it.

Then as you finish, we’re going to pause in that position a few times, so go back to your setup. Pause and feel that position, and then as I finish, I’m letting everything whip on through.

Now my belt buckle’s up, my chest is up, my chin is up, and I’m coming to that good, full finish position. Five or ten of those, just pausing in each piece. Pause here, and then pause in the good full finish.

You’re going to start to build that muscle memory, and what you’re going to feel, the sensation I get, is almost like my body is doing a lot of the momentum, and the club is just swinging along.

My club and arms are just swinging with the momentum for our body. Lot we talked about earlier, those hands swinging out to the right, as my body momentum opens up, that squares the face.

That gets this club really working with us, rather than against us. So let’s try that out again. Watch as I first start my downswing, my chest feels like it’s getting closer to the ground, then I’m coming to that good, full finish.

Let’s give it a whirl, see if I can cover this one and really let that club release out in front of this golf ball. All right, nice and solid, definitely covered it. You’ll see I stayed in my posture.

So we’ve covered piece number one, we’ve got to cover the ball. We’ve got to really compress it. Piece number two, we’ve got to create momentum from the body by using those hips and really coming through to that good, full finish.

Piece number three, we have to make sure that we’re shallow and we don’t chop down into this golf ball.

If we start a downswing and our butt end of the club, imagine there’s a laser pointing out of this, it’s pointing inside the golf ball, now all of a sudden I’m going to chop down into this, or again, if I feel myself starting to come down really steeply, what’s the natural thing,

I bet you’re a really good athlete and you do this without even having to think about it.

You start down a little steep and then to shallow that out you let the hips come forward, you let the body back out, and then all of a sudden you flip a little bit to keep yourself from slamming this club down into the ground.

What we have to do now is to shallow that club out, so if I was making a swing here, and I paused again, kind of in the first half of my downswing, I want the butt end of that club to be pointing either if we’re looking from down the line, either at the golf ball or a little outside the golf ball.

So that now, again as I extend on through, that club’s coming nicely down the plane line, and I can whip on through there, get that club to release in front, without having to shallow it out.

If I start down steep again, if I try to cover it, bam, I’m slamming down into the ground. So what you’re naturally going to do if you start down steep, you’re going to stand up and you’re going to flip.

So all of these things tie into each other. Remember in the first part of this video I talked about how you want to have the sensation that you’re swinging out to the right.

This is really going to pair up with what I’m going to talk about here. I want to feel like that club is shallowed out there, and that feels like I’m swinging out to the right.

So if I pause myself halfway down, and I didn’t open my body at all, my body was square, I want to feel like I’m in a position where I could swing this way, or that that club would be really shallow here, I’m coming away from the inside.

The only thing that squares that up is now, as my body rotates on through, that brings that club coming through and allows it to whip on through.

If you imagine if I get this club way to the inside and I open up my body, look how that really whips the club on through.

So I’m just opening my body, and the momentum of the club wants it to whip through from shallow position. What I don’t want to do here, if I was steep and I opened up my body, watch what’s going to happen.

That club’s going to want to really get stuck under, really chop down, it’s almost going to want to hit me. I’m working against the momentum of the club.

If I’m shallow, I can open up and work with the momentum of the club. So here, I want you to make a couple practice swings, pause halfway down, and really feel like to you, before you’re opening your hips, you’re setting up to swing to this golf bag over here.

I’m just going to swing way to the right like that. If I was to hit a golf ball doing that, without opening my body, it would look something like this. Way over there, I think I probably hit that one in the water, almost 30° - 45° right.

That’s because I didn’t let the momentum of my body open everything up. I’m going to make that same swing now, but I’m going to go ahead and open up my hips, and that’s going to swing everything toward the target.

That’s a real big key there. Look at all the Tour players, look at their body at contact. You’re not going to see anybody in this position on the PGA Tour.

You’ll see a lot of guys that opening the hips and contact, really finishing that swing coming back to the left.

So the third key here is you’re going to feel like halfway down, the butt end of your club is pointing way out to the right and you’re going to feel like that club is nice and shallow.

Then you let your body open up to square back up the face. Let’s give that a whirl. There we go, I might have hit that one the best of any of them.

All right, so let’s recap on these really good keys. Number one, we want to cover the ball. That happens from my right wrist, my club face, and my body all being on top of the golf ball.

The big key there, is that I can’t hold this angle forever. I have to release that club after contact. I don’t want to be flipping into here, I want to be feeling like that club’s swinging to the right and my right hand is covering on top of that golf ball.

Number two, we have to use the momentum of the body. If I stop my momentum, and I keep everything feeling like it’s down toward the ground, I never come up out of that, I’m going to have to use all hands and arms.

You’re naturally not going to do that, what you’re going to do is early extend and start to flip doing that. We don’t want to do that.

We have to make sure that we get that nice squat, everything is staying covered over top of the golf ball, but then as we come to the finish, we’re really letting the belt buckle, the chest, the chin, everything come up. Again, that’s going to whip this club on through, let the club do the work for you.

Then number three, we can’t be steep. If I start down and feel like my club shaft is step like this, as I open up that’s going to get me in a terrible position.

I need to feel like I’m shallowing out, swinging way out to the right, and then let my opening body carry the club toward the target.

If we do those three pieces, we’re going to put them all together, we’re going to hit those nice, crisp, clean golf shots, and you’re going to feel really, really confident when you’re sitting over top of your iron shots.

All right, so we don’t want to stop here. One thing that people really struggle with when they’re doing this, is The Move, and shallowing out that golf club like we just talked about.

That feeling of swinging out to the right and squaring up the club face. Now that can hold you back if you don’t really get that down.

What I want you to do now, if you want to ingrain that, make it second nature, go ahead and go to the Top Speed Golf System, click on The Move, and then work through those drills one by one.

Do all the drills that are included in there. Once you get in those reps, it’s going to become completely natural. You’re going to have that sensation of the club shallowing out.

The body momentum just whipping the club on through there, you’re going to hit it farther, you’re going to compress it better, you’re going to have that nice little draw on there, but that only happens when we do the drills.

If we take all the great drills from just this video, we do these, and then we stop here, it’s not going to be ingrained. We have to take the time to ingrain those by working through The System, working through The Move.

Best of luck, I’ll see you in The Move.