Why You Need This: How would you like to have a "go to" way to have "Irons Made Simple?"

This video is different than anything you have done before.

Right from your living room, you can follow this progression and build a great iron swing.

Let's get started ......

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 16:17

Video Transcription:

I have a great video for you today. In this video, I’m going to simplify your iron swing. I’m going to make it a surefire way where you can work on the body motions.

What I’ve found is once we get the body motions, meaning the legs, the hips, the shoulders working correctly, it’s very easy to add the club and then hit a golf ball and to really get a very repeatable swing.

So this is a little bit different video. I’m going to break it down step by step for you. You follow along with these progressions, if you’re in your living room, go ahead and grab a club, work right along these with me.

We’re going to build that great repeatable body motion in the golf swing. We’re going to add the hands and arms to this, we’re going to add the club to this, and man, it’s going to get automatic when you go out there and you start hitting those iron shots.

All right, let’s lose the club to start out. Again, you’re not going to get better if you just watch this video, I want you to work right along this with me.

We’re going to do this where I’ll do a certain number of reps, I’ll to about 5 to 10 reps on each one of these drills. Stand up right now, work right through them, you’re going to be a lot better with your golf game.

The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to build the basis of what the golf swing is, which is rotation.

I want to put my arms across my chest here, have my fingertips on my shoulders, and then I’m going to rotate until my left shoulder turns at least 90°.

So if I can imagine a pretend golf ball in front of me, I want to get my left shoulder past that, and I want to get my right shoulder past that coming through.

Now you’ll notice when I’m doing this, I have to get my feet to rotate on around. So my left foot is lifting a little bit in the backswing, my right foot is lifting a little bit in the downswing.

Also as I’m doing this, I’m staying nice and stable, and centered. Again, stand up right now. Work through these with me, and you’re going to get the benefit of this, it’s going to be long-lasting in your golf game.

I’m staying nice and centered. What I don’t want to do is sway this way and sway that way. I’m feeling like my head is staying very stable. My eyes are staying very level with the ground.

They’re not moving around a lot as I’m coming back and through, and that’s allowing me to keep my proprioception and really be consistent in the golf swing.

Now once I’ve done a good 5 or 10 of those, now all we’re doing is instead of being level with the ground when we’re swinging, in the golf swing we’re tilted forward and staying in our posture.

Do the same thing there. Hands across the shoulders, let your hips drop back until I feel like I would be able to see the golf ball. My back is nice and straight as I’m doing this.

Hands across the shoulders there, and now as I come to the backswing, again, I’m staying centered with my head and my shoulders, my eyes aren’t moving around a ton.

I’m not letting my body sway this way in the backswing, or sway that way in the backswing. I’m feeling like if I had a rod sticking up through the middle of my spine, that would be nice and centered.

I’m just rotating around that and I’m letting my shoulders rotate to that 90° going back, 90° coming through. Again, I have to let my feet move and pivot as I’m coming through here.

I have to let my left leg, my left knee kind of come up in the backswing, I have to let my right knee pivot forward in the downswing to allow this rotation to happen.

So many times I see players that get locked with their legs and they’re trying to just do this and now they have no range of motion, and they tell me oh, man, I just too tight to do this, I can’t get the full turn like you’re talking about. Well that starts from the ground.

If I use my legs, now I can get that turn coming back, I can get that turn coming through. If I don’t use my legs, now I’m just all shoulders and I’m very tight and locked up.

So go ahead and get in a good number of these. Again, we’re tilted forward staying in our posture. Same thing if I had that spine sticking straight up and down, a rod sticking under my spine.

If you’re looking from down the line view, you’re going to notice my spine is tilted forward and I’m staying in that posture back and through.

I’m not coming up out of my posture and doing a lot of this stuff. That’s going to add a lot of inconsistency to your golf game. I’m staying consistent as I go back, consistent as I go through.

Now it’s time to add the hands and arms to this. So a great way to feel like you’re opening your body and really getting this great rotation, is what I call Lawnmower Drill.

So again, imagine I’m swinging level with the ground, rotating my body, in the golf swing we’re tilted forward, that’s what we just did.

I want you to put your hands in front of me, staying in this posture, and then as I stay in my posture tilted forward, I’m going to grab that lawnmower and I’m going to feel like I’m starting a lawnmower with my right hand. I’m going to pull that back up as far as I can go.

Again, my spine is staying in its angle as I do this, my chest is opening up as far as I can get it to open, and then once I get my hand all the way past my chest, then I’m going to let my arm open up to the sky as I’m doing that.

So if you fell like you really open up to the sky, you’re going to let your shoulder come back as far as you can, that’s going to help you to open up in the backswing, that gets a lot more power.

Let’s go ahead and do that again. Pull up to my chest, let my chest open up, and then from there, I’m going to let my arm come back down, clap with my left hand.

Then from there, I’m going to take that lawnmower with my left hand, open up my chest, come all the way through to the finish. That’s really going to help you to open up coming on through.

Again, two key checkpoints there. Number one, I want to keep my posture tilted forward. I don’t want to be standing up and standing down, I’m rotating back and I’m rotating through.

Number two, I don’t want my head to be shifting around all over the place. I’m going to let that lawnmower open up, I’m going to come down to contact.

I’m going to let that lawnmower open up coming through here, but I’m not moving this way, and moving that way. My head is staying nice and stable as I’m doing that coming back and through. Get in a good 5 or 10 reps of that before we move on to the next piece.

Now that we’ve gotten used to the rotation, let’s go ahead and get our arms out to the side, and let’s imagine our arms are rotating on a plane of glass.

Again, if I’m coming level with the ground, you can imagine this plane of glass level with the surface of the ground here.

Now as I tilt forward in my golf swing, now all of a sudden this plane of glass is going to be tilted down.

Imagine your imaginary golf ball you’re going to be hitting here, and I want this plane of glass to be going through that golf ball, up through my shoulders, and I’m just going to practice rotating back and through.

Again, I’m not getting a huge amount of slide to the back, slide this way, I’m not going to be leaning this way and leaning back. My spine is staying nice and centered.

As I make my backswing though, I do want to get a little bit of a weight shift. As you come to the top of the backswing and you rotate those hands back, feel like a weight goes to the inside of your right foot.

As you come down, feel like a weight gets centered over your left foot as you’re doing this. So again, I’m going right foot, and left foot. Right foot, and left foot.

Again, let those legs lift up a little bit as I’m doing this, let those arms rotate as far as you can go, your full range of motion there as I’m coming back and through.

I’m really ingraining what I’m doing with my body here, so I can be consistent throughout the golf swing.

Now let’s add what the hands and arms are going to be doing. In the backswing, my hands and arms are going to be opening up.

If I put my hands in front, imagine I’m turning a doorknob to the right, where my hands are going this way.

So coming into the downswing, my hands are going to be turning to the left. Again, I’m going to set up here, as I go to the backswing, my right hand is going to open up.

As I come to the downswing, my hands are going to close down what would be forward shaft lean, and then they’re going to rotate on through to the left.

I’m getting a little bit of this action, right wrist back, left wrist bowed as I’m coming down, so there that’s that forward shaft lean, and then I’m coming on through to the finish.

Again, rotate open when going back with the hands and arms, square up that club face, come all the way on through to the finish there.

Let’s go ahead and go from the beginning. Rotate open, square the club face up, and then rotate on through to the finish.

Get those in, now we’re ready to add the club to the mix. So the first drill we’re going to do here, is simply do the same thing with the club.

As I come in the backswing, my club is going to open up. I’m going to square the face as I come down, get forward shaft lean. Then I’m going to let the face release or turn on over as I come on through.

Let’s go ahead and get in our posture again. Same body motions we’re doing here. Same arm motions we were doing before. Really rotate back to the top.

As I come down, let that club come down that plane of glass again, and let the face start to square up. So I’m letting my left wrist kind of bow, imagine I’m turning this golf club this way, so I’m turning that face down.

My right hand’s coming on top, squaring up the face, and then I’m releasing that club as I come on through. Again, I’m just staying in my posture, I’m not coming to a complete finish here.

All the way to the back, square the face up, be nice impact position with my hands in front, and then I’m coming on through staying in posture. Let’s do a good four or five of those.

Full turn back, square the face up, stay in your posture. One more time now. Square the face up, let my hips open on up as I’m doing this. Stay in my posture as I’m coming on through.

Feel like my weight goes to my right foot, squares up. Impact, weight’s on my left foot as I’m coming on around. Now let’s finish the swing. Let’s take out the pauses in this, and hold our finish for a good three seconds.

Good turn coming back, square up the face, and now I’m going to hold this finish staring at the target for three seconds. My belt buckle is facing the target.

My shirt buttons are actually facing to the left of the target if I can get them to go that far. My right toe is completely on the ground, or my right foot is completely off the ground, just my toe is touching, and I feel like I’m completely balanced as I’m holding my finish.

I want to pause for three seconds, that way I make sure I’m staying in my balance. If I’m moving around, I’m kind of swaying and falling around, I’m going to have a hard time holding that finish.

Let your weight shift right, shift to the left, and then we’re going to hold that finish for three seconds, that way we ensure that we’re in control in our golf swing.

As long as we make that good turn going back and through, this is going to be easy to do and still get some power.

Now as you hold that finish, you don’t have to hold your arms like this. You can let your arms relax, but again, my toe is rotated all the way around.

That allows my hips to rotate, allows my shoulders to rotate, my chest and my head is nice and high, facing the target, and I’m going to hold it after every single shot.

Now let’s add ground contact to this, which can be very tricky for a lot of players.

All right, so let’s grab some, this is the Dr. Scholl’s Odor X foot spray powder. The cool thing about this is I can draw a line on this, this is just regular old foot spray powder you can get on Amazon for a couple bucks a piece.

I’ll go ahead and show you the can there, in case you guys are interested. So it’s Dr. Scholl’s Odor X foot spray. This one makes a pretty good line on the ground or on your club face.

You can use it for a lot of different drills. But here I’m just going to spray a line flat on the ground here, and this is going to give me a good reference for where I’m hitting the turf at.

So I put it on there kind of thick so hopefully you guys can see this on the camera today, and that’s going to give me a reference of am I hitting in front of this line, or am I hitting behind this line.

Now when I’m doing this, to start out, I’m going to put a tee in the ground, right on that line. I’m going to let it stick up about a half inch, and then I’m going to put one tee in front of that about six inches.

Again, I’m going to let it stick up a half inch. If we’re a little bit more advanced, maybe we’ll stick it up a quarter inch off the ground, but this is perfect for you here.

As I go back and through, again, same key checkpoints. Finish my backswing, square up the face, rotate all the way on through, the only thing is I want to clip both of those tees.

So I get a great feel for, on that one, I just made an easy practice swing. I didn’t clip both those tees, it’s not going to be very realistic. I want to go ahead and clip both of those, just like I’d be hitting a golf ball here.

As I go back and through, again, no pauses, but I clipped both of those. I know I hit the one that was on the line, and I hit the one in front of the line.

So I’ll spare you setting these tees up in the ground, if you’re doing this from your living room, you have a little bit of a mat there, you can go ahead and just pay attention to where your club brushes the mat.

If you’re on a driving range, this is perfect for you. Again, go to the top, good full finish, hold your finish for three seconds even if you’re in your living room, hold your finish for three seconds so that you know that you’re in balance.

Let’s do that again. Good full turn, as I’m coming down as I’m squaring up that club face with some forward shaft lean, so again, I’m turning my hands down to square that club face up, and then I’m holding my finish again for three seconds.

You’ll see how that divot is happening in front of that line, so now I know that I’m in a good full finish position, that’s allowing me to shift my weight forward, hit in front of the golf ball.

Again, 5 to 10 of those, if you don’t feel like you’re comfortable, keep on hitting until you get comfortable with it. When we go out to the golf course now, let’s grab a couple golf balls, and what I’m going to do is set those up on this line, just in front of that line.

I’m going to work on these same things with my golf swing, and what we’re going to notice is it makes it way easier to get that divot in front.

As I eliminate, because I worked on my body positions, as I eliminate a lot of the swaying back and swaying through, my ground contact gets a lot more consistent. As I stay more centered, it’s much easier to hit that golf ball.

As I make sure that I finish my swing, and stay balanced on my left leg, that helps me get that divot down and through this golf ball.

As I let my hands square up, so we talked about bowing that wrist, cupping this right wrist, that’s going to help me to get that forward shaft lean, and really compress this golf ball. So again here, all these same key checkpoints.

Getting my posture hinging forward, making a good full turn back and through, and then I’m just going to hit this divot in front of this line and hold my finish.

There we go, right toward the left-center of the green. Again, I’m going to hold my finish until the golf ball lands as I’m coming through here.

If you can’t hold the finish until the ball lands, that’s telling me that I’m probably moving too much in the swing. Go back to those drills where we stay centered, and rotate back and through.

We’ll see the divot was in front of that line, that’s very good. I’ll go to the next one, again on this one, I really want to pay attention to my finish.

I want to stay completely in balance as I come to the end of the swing. Again, to the left-center of the green. Hit that one very nice. Again, I can stay level with my head, level with my shoulders, level with my hips, everything’s facing the target, and I can finish the swing.

Again my divot was in front, that’s telling me that I finished my swing nicely, but I shifted my weight to the left very nicely, and I didn’t have a lot of extra movement in the golf swing.

One last one here. I want to make sure that I finish my backswing on this one, coming all the way back, coming all the way through, right toward the center of the green.

Again, I can relax my arms, but I want to stay facing the target until my ball lands. Follow those drills, you’re going to get way more consistent, the golf swing’s going to be a lot simpler.

In this video, we talked about a lot of great keys on making a good full turn going back and through, we even talked about how to square up that club face a little bit earlier.

This is what we call the Power Turn, that’s that big turn going back and through in the golf swing. The Move, which is squaring that club face out early, shallowing that club out, those are all covered in the Top Speed Golf System.

What I want you to do after you work on these drills in this video, this is a great starting point, let’s really ingrain that and make it completely natural. Let’s go into the Power Turn section.

Start on level 1, start going through those videos, doing those reps, it’s going to feel a little bit more comfortable after level 1.

When you get through level 2 and level 3, it’s going to feel completely natural to where you just make a big turn every time, you don’t even have to think about it at all.

Then go to The Move section, start working through the first video, the second video, the third video.

That’s really going to make it a lot more natural, to where you automatically square up that club face, you shallow it out, get it in the slot, and again, you don’t have to think about it because you built up the muscle memory.

I know there’s not such a thing as muscle memory, but you built up the motor pattern to where you just swing and it all happens.

But we can only get there if we can consistently chip away and do these reps. Don’t stop here with this video today, go to the Power Turn, go to The Move, knock out those drills, you guys are going to play some fantastic golf.