Why You Need This: In this video, you'll learn how to hit straight iron shots with the "Flat Hand" drill.

First, I have some great news...

Top Speed Golf has a new expert instructor!!!

So please give a warm welcome to TSG's brand new Director of Instruction, Robin Rosado.

Robin's a great golfer.

He earned a scholarship to play at the University of South Carolina and went on to play some of the mini tours.

Oh, and he can really crush his drives.

We measured one of his drives at 345 yards!

But he's not only a great golfer; he's also one heck of an instructor.

He has put in a lot of hard work and a lot of hours with his students – over 1400 hours of lessons last year alone!

In this video, Robin will show you how to hit your irons on a frozen rope.

Enjoy the lesson and have fun on the course!

~ Clay Ballard

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Now to this video...

You'll learn a great clubface awareness drill called the "Flat Hand" drill, and it'll help you hit dead straight iron shots.

First, place your open right hand on the club so that it's parallel with your clubface.

This will help you keep your club on plane and will also ensure that your clubface doesn't stray off.

Practice slow swings and stop at checkpoints throughout the swing.

The checkpoints include...

• The takeaway as the club is parallel with the ground
• At the top of your swing to see if you're on plane
• In the downswing to make sure you shallow the club path (and NOT come in over-the-top)
• At impact. Your right open palm should "cover the ball" and be pointing toward the target, indicating that your clubface is square

 

Overall, use these steps to track your club path and clubface throughout your swing.

With better clubface awareness, you'll be able to hit consistent iron shots right at your target!

Watch the video now to find out how to hit straight iron shots...

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    Robin Rosado    

Video Duration: 4:53

Video Transcription:

Clay: Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard and we’re joined here with our brand-new Director of Instruction for Orlando, Robin Rosado. We’re very privileged to have Robin, he’s a really good player. Had a scholarship to play at the University of South Carolina, played there.

Played some of the mini tours, and we’re shooting some videos yesterday and he hit a drive 345, so he can really bomb it. Gives a ton of lessons too, last year you said he gave what, 1,400 lessons, something like that?

Robin: Yeah, I did 1,400 one-hour lessons last year, in 2016. It was quite a ride. But I enjoyed every bit of it, it was fun.

Clay: Yeah, that’s a lot. He’s got tons of experience, we’re really lucky to have him. Robin’s going to show us one of the best tips that he has for those of you who are looking to hit the ball straight, get nice and consistent, and start hitting more greens and more fairways your next round out.

Let’s go ahead and take it away Robin, let us know what’s the best tip they can take out there today and start improving their game right away.

Robin: Yeah, I’ve got a really great drill that we can that work on, it works a little bit mostly on club face awareness. I’ve got about four steps we can work on in this drill.

What we’re going to do is going to have this right hand, I’m going to place it on the…just take your left-hand normal grip, right hand’s going to be on the right side of the club, but the most important thing is you want it to be just square with the club face.

That’s the idea, really, about this drill is to really know what your hand…

Clay: It’s almost like your right hand is symbolizing the club face, you get a better feel of what’s going on with that.

Robin: Definitely, that’s really important. If you take your shot, then you’re not going to get really an idea, then this drill’s not going to mean much.

Clay: Yeah.

Robin: We’ll go over four steps in this here. I really want to get the first step is when you take it back until you get the chest running parallel, you can see my club face is square there.

What we see a lot of people do in the golf swing is that club face travels a little bit too far behind them. They’re always taught to bring it inside, bring it in and out So you see a lot of people…

Clay: You’re really fiddling with your hand when you’re doing that.

Robin: Yeah, they start doing this. Then you can feel, now you can see if I took the club face away, you can see where my club face is pointed. One, it’s wide open, two it’s traveling in behind me. In general, this isn’t really too comfortable on my wrist.

Clay: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

 

Robin: That’s the first check point there. We want to get that, again, take it back here, get the club face parallel, nice and square there.

Second point when we take it to the top, again, you kind of feel, again if I take that club face away, you can see that my club face would be, my hand is pretty square.

If it was going over here, shot, and then we’re wide open, pointed to the sky. Then the other way, I’m sorry, your shoulder pointed to the sky, or like you’re way too flat.

Clay: So you can tell if you’re on plane pretty easily at the top of the swing.

Robin: Really easily with this drill, yeah, definitely. So here. Now as you start your downswing, you get in here, now we’re getting a little bit to where we can get a little bit shallow.

Again, like we see a lot of people, is when they start getting a little too over the top or too choppy…

Clay: Steepen it up right away, yeah.

Robin: That club face is going to come this way. Now you can see that the shaft will almost kind of fall off your hand a little bit. It’s not really, I don’t want to say resting, but it’s not laying on the hand, and the hand is not guiding it.

If you come too steep or too shallow, you’re going to come right across, that club shaft’s going to come off that hand. You start your downswing here, again, nice and a little bit shallow there, the face is nice and square there, and now we’re going to come to impact.

Get a nice, good, straight-line release that we talk about in the Top Speed Golf System, you can see my hand is nice and kind of just square, club face is nice and square to the ball. You’re almost going to feel a little bit of that cover motion like we talk about.

Clay: That’s a question I get a lot of times. Let’s turn toward the camera there, and show them what you talk about by covering. A lot of people ask me that, they say I can’t really get the sensation of covering, how do I do that and then still get to the straight-line release?

Robin: Definitely. You can see if I don’t really…covering the ball you’re kind of here. You can see my hand is getting up here, in essence, literally trying to cover the golf ball.

Clay: Yeah, kind of like the Pet the Grass Drill that we have on the website.

Robin: Exactly, so this is it, and then you can see like we see a lot of people. They come into the face wide open, now you can see how much open that my hand’s going to be. If you go in there, you can really get a good feel of what the face is doing just by having that right hand on the side of that club.

Clay: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Robin: That’s it. Your checkpoint, the first one’s here. Shaft’s parallel to the ground. Second one’s at the top of your swing there. Third one’s on the way down, again that club face a little bit shallow here. Then impact, getting the feel of that covering the ball.

Clay: Yeah.

Robin: It’s a simple thing, all you have to do is put that hand on the right side of that grip, and then you’re golden.

 

Clay: I like that, because you can feel it right away. After you cover the ball, then we’re releasing it, the straight-line release out in front, and making sure that that goes nice and flat then.

Robin: Yeah, exactly.

Clay: That makes a lot of sense, yeah. Let’s try one out. See if you can hit one and get on the green.

Robin: Yeah, let’s see if we can get one on the green for you.

Clay: We’ve island green here, this is a little bit tough. Just verified the greens, and it’s really windy, we’ll see how good that club face drill works.

Robin: See if I can get out there.

Clay: There you go, right in the dead center of the green. Awesome shot. Thanks Robin, I appreciate you joining up with us.

Robin: Excited.

Clay: You’re going to see a lot more Robin, and a lot more instruction. Go out there, work on that club face awareness drill.

You’re going to hit them a lot straighter and get a lot more control of the ball, because now you’re going to have a better sense of how that club face is working through contact. We’ll see you guys soon.