Why You Need This: Today you'll discover, "The Difference | Driver Swing vs Iron Swing

Just about any time I give advice on how to make a movement in the driver swing...

...I'll inevitably get a question about whether or not the iron swing is different (or vice versa).

When it comes to the differences between the swing you make with your driver vs the swing you make with your iron...

...there are two main differences.

You can probably figure out that your ball position is different when you're hitting a ball off the ground vs hitting the ball off a tee (with a driver)...

...but there's one more subtle difference that (if you're not doing right) could be making it more difficult to be consistent.

Check out today's video and discover what this difference is, and start hitting the ball more consistently today!

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 10:31

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: Hey, it’s great to have you here. Let’s talk about one of the most confusing topics in golf.

You’re hitting this club that’s really long, this driver, people tell you to hit up on it. Then they tell you, hey, make the same swing and then hit down on these irons.

How do make the same swing and do something that’s so drastically different? Look at the difference in these ball positions that I would have when I’m playing a driver versus an iron.

Well, I’m going to go over a lot of the common myths and misconceptions to make it a whole heck of a lot easier where you can actually play a very, very similar swing whether you’re hitting a lob wedge off the ground, a sand wedge, whatever it is, whatever wedge you carry, all the way up to a driver.

So if you want to play your best, this is a great video to help you be incredibly consistent. Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right, so let’s jump right into it. Driver. The biggest difference when you’re hitting all your clubs off the ground. This is the same whether you’re hitting a sand wedge all the way up to a hybrid.

Everything that you hit off the ground, you’re going to be hitting down on it. So what that means is, I’m going to play the ball slightly farther back in my stance.

You’ll see that the ball is back in my stance. I’m also going to feel like I get a little bit more weight left and hit down on these shots.

Now, if you’re hitting a sand wedge, you’re hitting down about 5°. That means my club is traveling downward 5° at contact, when it’s actually hitting the golf ball.

With a driver, you want to be hitting up 2° to 3°. Now that sounds like a big difference, but there’s actually a really easy way to cheat that.

First off, it’s important to know just how little difference there is between a sand wedge and a hybrid, or a sand wedge and a 3 wood.

With a sand wedge, or your highest-lofted wedge, like I said, you’re hitting it down about 5°. One minute on a clock face is 6°, so you’re less than one minute down, not very much at all.

When you go all the way to a hybrid or a 3 wood, you’re hitting down about 2° to 2.5°. So every club in the bag is within 2° of how much you’re hitting it down, all the ones that you’re hitting off the ground. So it’s not drastically different.

If you’re trying to scoop your 3 wood, if you’re trying to lift your 3 wood up into the air, that is not the case. You want to be hitting down on it pretty dag-gone close to what you’d be hitting down a sand wedge.

So that’s important to know. That’s so important because all of my clubs that I play off the ground, whether it’s a sand wedge and I have a fairly narrow stance and the ball is going to be somewhat in the middle of my stance to slightly back, or a hybrid, they’re all pretty much the same.

If we’re just looking at this ball that would be set up for a sand wedge, you’re going to notice it’s basically in the middle of my stance, and it’s about, let’s say six or eight inches behind my lead foot.

Now if I go to a hybrid, I’m just making a little bit of a wider stance with my right foot. So now my stance is a little wider. It looks like it’s farther up in my stance, but it’s really not.

In relationship to my left foot, it’s staying right here the entire time. That’s the only difference between a 3 wood and your highest-lofted club.

So now that we got that out of the way, we pretty much play the same ball position. Six or eight inches behind the left foot, slightly in the middle of your stance, or looking like it’s in the middle of your stance if you’re wedges.

As you go to the 3 wood, your stance gets wider and it looks slightly more up even though it’s in the exact same position. You’re hitting down on all those. You should be taking a slight divot.

The only reason that you don’t take a big divot with the 3 wood is because there’s just not that much loft on it. Look at this sharp blade right here as I’m hitting down into this, that’s going to cut some turf.

If I did the same thing with a 3 wood, I hit down the same amount, it’s not going to cut that much turf because it has a much flatter face like this. Even if I’m hitting down, it’s not really going to make a divot.

So now that we’ve got the irons covered, or all the clubs off the ground covered I should say, let’s talk about the driver.

Now if I take the exact same swing and I’m hitting down on this iron shot here, it’s going to level out. So you imagine this kind of like a pendulum on a clock.

The low point would be slightly in front of my irons and it’s going to be working back up when it hits the driver.

Now most of that is going to be done with just the ball position. So if I’m playing this ball with the driver, I’m playing it almost up on my front toe which means that this club is grounding out here is actually slightly working back up as I’m hitting the driver.

Also with the driver, you’re going to feel like you’re a little bit more behind it. So there is a slight difference in the feeling of what you’re going to do.

I want to feel like my nose and my head are angled back at the back of the golf ball when I’m hitting a driver.

So here, let me go ahead and crank a driver out there. I may have it set up on a middle iron on my FlightScope, I’ll have to see, but you’ll see the angle of attack will be much more positive on this one.

There we go. That ball launched super high, went a pretty dag-gone long way. Range balls are always going to go a little bit shorter, so it may not be all that impressive. No divot at all, club working up into the golf ball. Ball on the front toe.

Now let’s take an iron and do essentially the same thing that we just talked about. More in the middle of my stance, hitting slightly down on it, making a bit of a divot.

There we go. So to me, that felt like a very similar swing. The only main difference there was the ball position because it had loft it cut a big divot versus no divot at all.

Then the only other difference that I think is really important to understand when we’re talking about this driver versus iron debate is what does my weight shift do?

With a driver, I want to feel like I shift my weight to the right very early just like I would with an iron. I’m almost setting up with my weight starting there. Like I said, I’m looking at the back of the golf ball.

But as I shift my weight into the downswing, I want to feel like it shifts more to the inside of my left foot. That way I’m staying tilted slightly away and I can promote that more upward launch, that big, high ball flight that goes a mile.

Now when I’m hitting an iron, there is a slight difference here of I want to feel like the same as the driver. I start with my weight slightly on my right side. I want to feel like I get that good weight shift early to the right.

But with an iron, I’m going to feel like I shift a little bit more to the center or the outside of my lead foot. That allows me to be, if I’m looking from what I call the Compression Line with an iron, or especially a wedge, my left shoulder to my left ankle is going to be pretty much straight up and down.

That, again, promotes that nice, forward shaft lean. It promotes the hands being in front and hitting down on it.

With a driver, I’m feeling like where my weight is to the inside, I’m hanging back – not really hanging back – I’m shifting to the left, but it’s to the inside of my left foot. My head is staying back a little bit more, and there I can release that club.

The final point with this and one that I think is really, really misunderstood, is shaft lean. So if I’m hitting this golf ball off the ground, let’s go ahead and grab a driver here and tee it up.

Why don’t we have any forward shaft lean with a driver, and why do we have so much with an iron? Well, with an iron, we have to control the distance to this club. Here’s what’s really interesting.

What PGA Tour players have figured out, is that the more loft the club gets on it, I can hit more consistently if I actually have this shaft leaning forward quite a bit.

PGA Tour players are leaning this shaft forward about 14° to 16° with the 60° wedge. So they’re taking the 60° wedge and they’re bringing it all the way down to mid-40s loft at impact.

Now since that ball position is back, you can imagine as I start to release through the shot, my club is almost going to be straight up and down when it reaches where a driver would be.

So again, let’s imagine this golf ball that’s farther back -- let’s actually move it here where the driver position would be.

Let’s say that I’m hitting a driver, there’s my forward shaft lean, but then look when I reach this golf ball I don’t have very much forward shaft lean. So my body position really isn’t that much different, I’m behind it on both spots.

The only difference would be a slight more left shift with the shorter irons compared to a driver. I say the rest of it is about the same. The rest of it’s just ball position.

So again, here would be the forward shaft lean with irons, because the ball position is different, I have released a little bit of that once I get to the driver.

Now the way to do that, is a specific way that you square the hands up, and a specific way that you shallow out this club.

Now if you do that correctly, everything that I talked about in this video gets a lot easier. So a lot of times when I see players that say you know, I’m really struggling. I hit my irons good, and I don’t hit my driver good, it’s not where their ball position was.

It’s not how far their standing away from the golf ball like we talked about in this video. It’s just the simple fact that they don’t have that club working in the right manner. They don’t have this face squaring up in the right manner to make this easy.

Once you get that down, you’re going to feel like it’s easy to transition between irons and driver, you’re going to feel like everything’s pretty easy in golf because you’re going to be compressing the golf ball for the first time.

Man, I can’t wait to share with you some of the secrets to make that happen. Now if you want to get that in your game, here’s what I’d recommend doing.

Go to the Top Speed Golf System. Click on The Move section, and in that I’m going to break down exactly how to shallow out this club and get coming from the inside, and exactly how to square that face up so that you can get that shaft leaning forward and really compress the heck out of it.

Actually, what I’m going to teach you to do, is I’m going to teach you to have what I call “pro problems.” I’m going to teach you to over compress the golf ball. I’m going to teach you to really have that penetrating shot that bores through the wind, that feels great on the face, so that golf becomes really easy.

The only way to get that, though, we can’t do it with just one quick tip, one drill, we have to ingrain it. It takes a few drills, it takes a few days to do that, but once you do, it’s a phenomenal result.

You’re really going to be glad that you did that. I get tons and tons of success stories for players that have worked through The Move and have absolutely loved it. We get them almost on a daily basis.

So, go to The Move section, work through those drills. It’s going to pay dividends for the rest of your golf career.

I can’t wait to see you in The Move, and I can’t wait to hear your success story and those to the rest of the members that have talked about how much they’ve loved it. I’ll see you there.