Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover how to "Hit Solid & Compressed Irons | What Everyone Gets Wrong"

If you struggle to hit your irons solid...

...you're probably doing the one thing that almost EVERYONE gets wrong.

Now, I know you've heard me talk about how you need to have forward shaft lean at impact...

...and that's definitely ideal for solid, consistent contact.

But, it seems that the thought of forward shaft lean is creating a big misconception about how to hit the golf ball.

In today's video, discover exactly how you're supposed to come into contact with the golf ball...

...and what move you need to make with your body to make it possible to hit it correctly!

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 8:02

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: All right, I hit that one nice and solid. Really felt like I compressed it. But here’s the part that most players, almost every single player gets wrong.

You’ll notice that when I took this divot, this is kind of a mid to longer iron, I didn’t chop down into the golf ball.

A lot of times when we’re trying to get that forward shaft lean, we’re getting the hands in front of the club head, players mistake that for I’m going to hit down into the golf ball a lot.

Actually, when you do that, you lose a bit of that compression and you don’t hit the ball quite as solid. Now you’ll see this little nail, or this giant, it’s not very little, this giant nail I have into this golf ball.

This is what I want you to visualize when you’re hitting this shot. So let me walk you through how to hammer this nail and how that’s going to help you to hit the most crisp, solid iron shots of your life.

Let’s go and get started.

All right, so what I want to do here, is I’m going to take a tee, and I’m going to tee this ball up just so you can see it a little bit better. I’m going to tee this iron up.

So I’m going to hover this golf ball a little bit off the ground. Instead of this nail being dead level, I’m going to tilt it down just slightly. That’s going to represent how much I’m hitting down into the golf ball.

Now you’ll notice when I do this, it’s not very much. I’m only tilting – if this is level – I’m tilting that down by just a few degrees. Now this is where everybody goes wrong.

They think about when they have that forward shaft lean, and my hands are in front of the golf ball, that I’m hitting way down into the ball.

I’m kind of pinching it against the ground, I’m going to have this big divot. I’m really going to chop down into it.

That’s not what’s going on. In reality what I’m doing, is I’m hitting very slightly down through the golf ball and my hands are actually going from low to high so that I can brush pretty even with the ground and still take loft off.

So let me walk you through exactly what that means, what you need to do to make that happen. So first, let’s talk about how much this should be angled down.

Pros are hitting down between 3° with their long irons, and 6° with their short irons. That’s not very much. You think about a clock face here.

If this is 12:00, you look at 12:01 on the clock, just one minute past 12, or I should probably go this way, I’m looking in reverse here. One minute on a clock face, that’s 6° difference.

So the difference between what pros are hitting down with their long irons and all the way down to their wedges where they’re taking these big divots, is only 3°, it’s half of one minute that they’re hitting down into this golf ball. It’s not much.

So the only reason that your wedges take a big cut of the turf is because of that loft. When it hits the ball it shoots the club down into the ground, and it starts to actually kick up a little bit extra turf just because of that sharp leading edge.

So it’s not that we’re trying to leave these hands forward and hit down into it, we’re trying to leave these hands forward to take off loft and to come in fairly level.

Let me go over exactly what that means, and then we’re going to talk about what the body needs to do to get there. Here’s a little tool I’m going to put on my club face just to show you where the loft is pointing.

Now if I want to get the most compression on this golf ball, what I’d love to do is hit down matching that nail, and I’d love to take off as much loft as possible off this club to match the compression.

So if I could get this club matching that nail, I’m going to have the most compression possible. Now that’s never going to happen in a real swing, but that’s what I want to feel like.

Here’s another secret that players never get right when they’re doing this. Your hands can actually never get in front of your belt buckle.

So if I’m thinking about, OK, I’m going to go here and I’m going to push my hands in front of my body, that’s never going to work.

As soon as you start opening up with speed, your hands are never going to be able to race in front of your body enough to do that.

What I have to do, is I have to keep my hands at my belt buckle and I have to turn my belt buckle forward enough to where my hands can still lean in front.

Now that looks like my hands are way up here in front, but in reality, they’re not. I’m going to keep my club here at the same relationship to my body. I’m going to turn my body back square, and that’s where my hands are.

This is forward shaft lean. This isn’t forward shaft lean. I have to have my hands back here and the way the shaft lean is I rotate my body into the shot.

So now if I’m doing this correctly, I’m visualizing hitting down on this nail slightly, and I’m visualizing the loft of my club also matching that nail.

That comes from taking my belt buckle from here to there at contact. That’s where I need to be.

So set up to the golf ball, rotate your belt buckle in front, rotate your hips in front, let this right heel come slightly off the ground, and that’s going to preset your hands in a position where you’re really going to compress the golf ball.

This is where that should be if you’re trying to feel that. So I want to take my right hand, I’m going to angle it back a little bit. So my knuckles toward my elbow.

I’m going to take my left hand, I’m going to bow it a little bit, and I’m going to put both of those hands kind of in front of my right pant pocket, my right hip.

Now as I rotate into contact, that’s where you’re really going to compress it. So you’re feeling like you’re going to hit down slightly on this golf ball, this very slight amount, and I’m feeling like my body rotates open, my hands are in front of my right hip, and that’s kind of the secret to making this happen.

I’m trying to match the loft on this club with the face of this club just as though I’m going to hit flush with that nail head, and I’m going to drive that nail head slightly down in forward.

If I’m doing this, I’m adding loft, I’m glancing across that nail head. I’m not delivering the compression into the golf ball. It’s a glancing blow versus a solid smack.

So now let’s take that same feeling, and let’s hit a golf ball. So here, I’m going to feel like all the momentum of my body is transferring into this ball and I’m really compressing it.

Now in a second, I’m going to tell you the last piece of this. I’ve shared a lot of secrets here, but there’s one more missing piece to really making this super intuitive and very easy to do.

Oh, man. I hit that one really good. Now, there’s one more piece to this that kind of fools people a little bit. Now I mentioned earlier how the hands aren’t, or the club isn’t hitting down into the ground a lot.

I also mentioned how the hands are way in front. Well, if my hands are in front and I release this club, wouldn’t it just bury down in the ground?

How could I possibly get my hands this far in front and still have the club moving pretty level with the ground?

That’s something that I call Impact Glide, and getting the knuckles low. So what’s really happening here, is if you watch the best players in the world, when their hands are in front of their right leg, if I look at the butt end of this club, and I kind of mark that level.

When the club gets to impact, the butt end of the club is almost three to six inches higher as it goes to impact. So what’s happening in the butt end, if I just watch this right here, it’s going from low to high.

That’s actually what allows this club to glide through the turf. It’s one of the reasons, this turning up of the butt end of the club, that pros keep their club so level coming all the way through the golf ball.

Now, I go over this in the Top Speed Golf System, in The Lag section. When I walk you through this, it’s going to be hopefully an eye-opener for you, and it’s actually a much easier way to hit the golf ball.

So if you’ve been struggling to compress the golf ball, and you’ve been struggling to get that forward shaft lean and release it without digging into the turf, that’s just one of the secrets that I’m going reveal to you in The Lag section of the Top Speed Golf System.

All you need to do is go ahead and click the Instruction tab, go to the Top Speed Golf System, and then to The Lag section.

You start working through those videos step-by-step, man, it makes it a whole lot easier. I can’t wait to see you in The Lag section.