In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Tour coach, Liam James to offer some insight into fixing your iron play faults.
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00:00 - Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly
00:02 and welcome to the London Club.
00:03 In this video, looking at the biggest iron play faults
00:06 and how to fix them.
00:08 Now we've teamed up with PING and tour coach Liam James
00:11 to offer you some really simple and effective advice
00:13 in three key areas.
00:14 So, if you're missing your approach shots,
00:17 short of the green,
00:17 or you're struggling with pushes or pulls,
00:19 there really should be something in this video
00:21 that will help you out.
00:23 Right, let's head out now to the golf course
00:24 here at the London Club and get started.
00:26 (upbeat music)
00:30 (upbeat music)
00:32 Okay Liam, so the first fault
00:34 that we're gonna look at here is missing short.
00:36 I think for a lot of people watching this,
00:38 their most consistent miss when hitting into the green
00:40 is gonna be coming up short.
00:41 It's no surprise, that's where most golf courses
00:44 tend to have the most trouble,
00:45 tends to be short of the green.
00:47 So how do you make sure that you're striking the ball
00:49 that bit more consistently
00:50 so that you're hitting the yardages you want to hit?
00:53 - Yeah, so as you referred to,
00:54 obviously most of the common faults
00:56 when a player's hitting short,
00:58 we tend to see all that come from the contact.
01:00 So if we can do everything possible
01:02 in order to enable ourselves some ball first contact
01:05 and a bit of a more solid hit,
01:07 the golf ball as a result of that
01:08 is gonna go its full distance.
01:09 - Yeah, so you're looking to hit the ball
01:11 before the ground,
01:12 and how do you get the right angle of attack
01:16 into the ball to make sure that you do that?
01:18 - So we've got a basic drill here.
01:19 So quite a common fault that we start to see
01:21 with a lot of players is,
01:22 as obviously they take their golf club to the top,
01:25 we start to see a lot of head movement
01:26 away from the target.
01:27 Now, as a result of that,
01:30 the weight shifted quite a long way away from the target now
01:34 so if it's not moving back,
01:36 we're gonna start to see some contacts before this stick,
01:39 we're gonna hit the ground early,
01:40 or if anything, we're gonna thin the golf ball as well.
01:42 Both of those contacts,
01:44 we're not gonna get the full yardage.
01:46 So a little drill here,
01:47 a nice basic drill is,
01:48 I'm just gonna place this alignment stick here.
01:51 That's just inside my right heel.
01:53 Now, as I do some practice swings,
01:55 my only focus really here now
01:57 is just to make sure we stay nice and still
01:59 all the way up to the top of the backswing.
02:01 So I'm gonna go up to the top,
02:02 stay nice and still,
02:03 and now when I swing down and through,
02:05 we can start to see the divot is plenty after this stick.
02:09 That's gonna ensure my contact.
02:10 - Yeah, so a lot of golfers might think,
02:11 well, I've been told that when I move
02:13 to the top of the backswing,
02:14 my weight goes onto my right side.
02:15 Is that not the case?
02:17 - More so with the woods.
02:18 We start to see a little bit more movement
02:19 away from the target,
02:20 only a hair really with the woods,
02:22 but again, really consistent iron players
02:24 and really solid iron players.
02:26 We don't see a lot of head movement,
02:28 so there's not much movement away from the target at all.
02:30 So we wanna try and stabilize that as much as we can.
02:33 - Okay, got it.
02:34 Let's hit a couple of shots and-
02:35 - Okay, right.
02:36 So again, two or three practice swings here.
02:38 I'm just gonna have a nice practice swing up to the top.
02:40 No real head movement away from the target
02:43 and then full weight transfer into my left side,
02:46 making sure that I'm taking a divot.
02:48 Let's give it a go.
02:55 Lovely.
02:57 And I guess Liam, no one's really in danger
02:58 of actually striking that alignment stick,
03:01 but it's a really clear visual guide for you
03:03 just to know-
03:04 - Absolutely.
03:05 It just gives you a little bit of an awareness really.
03:07 It's a bit of a cue on the floor
03:09 just to make sure that we're staying nice
03:11 and still on the way back
03:12 and we're getting the weight shifting on the way through.
03:14 - Yeah, so if you're coming up short with your iron shots,
03:16 make sure your angle of attack is correct into the ball.
03:19 You should be able to get the strikes
03:20 that little bit purer
03:21 and get your distances more consistent.
03:23 Okay, Liam, so we've got another ball striking drill,
03:25 similar sort of thing,
03:27 but a slightly different way of approaching it.
03:28 - Yeah, same concept.
03:29 It's another drill that's really gonna help
03:31 and ensure some weight transfer
03:33 and some weight shift towards the target.
03:35 So I'm just gonna take my normal address position here,
03:38 just one to two inches behind the golf ball.
03:40 Okay, so that's gonna obviously make the ball
03:43 a little bit further forward in my stance now
03:45 as it normally would be.
03:46 Same concept up to the top.
03:48 We're gonna make sure
03:49 that we're staying nice and stable with our head.
03:51 But because that golf ball's now two inches further forward
03:54 than it would originally be,
03:55 we've gotta make sure that we're shifting over to it
03:57 to ensure that contact. - And if you don't,
03:59 you're catching it sort of three inches fat
04:00 and it'll be very, very clear. - Exactly right.
04:02 And it will just really highlight
04:04 how stable your head needs to stay on the way back
04:06 and how much you need to shift on the way through.
04:08 - Yeah, and if you can get that part right,
04:10 if you can get that angle of attack into the ball right,
04:12 you should start striking your iron
04:13 that little bit better.
04:14 Okay, so next up, we're gonna look at the push.
04:17 Liam, where does it come from?
04:18 Where does the push come from in the golf swing?
04:21 - So as a rule, obviously,
04:22 if we start to see the golf ball,
04:24 a push defining as the ball starting out to the right
04:27 and staying to the right,
04:28 we start to see the golf club is too open
04:31 at some point during the golf swing.
04:32 Now, the most common fault that we start to see
04:35 that leads to that is the wrist position
04:37 at the top of the backswing.
04:38 So we start to see quite a cupped left wrist position,
04:42 which obviously as a result of which
04:44 causes the club face to be too open
04:46 at the top of the backswing.
04:47 - Right, okay.
04:48 And I guess you don't want people
04:50 to be thinking too much about
04:52 the angle of their wrist at the top,
04:54 because you've still got to play golf.
04:55 - Of course.
04:56 - How do you sort the problem out
04:57 without getting too technical?
04:58 - So a little drill that you can just do
05:00 on the driving range,
05:01 and I think it's important as well,
05:02 you can do a few different practice swings,
05:05 and we can do this tee drill in a second.
05:08 And it's important to just do two or three of these
05:10 in a practice swing,
05:10 and then go ahead and hit a shot as you say,
05:13 without getting over technical or too much thinking.
05:15 Now, the simple drill is if you just place your left hand
05:18 on the golf club as you normally would,
05:21 and you just slide a tee peg here,
05:23 just down the glove, okay?
05:25 So that's just inside my global hand now.
05:27 And all we're going to try and fulfill now
05:29 as we swing to the top in my rehearsal,
05:31 is that when I get to the top of that backswing,
05:34 if my left wrist position is in the right place,
05:36 which is a flat left wrist,
05:37 this tee peg just runs perfectly flat down my forearm.
05:41 Now, if I start to get too much this way,
05:43 that's now just applying a bit of pressure,
05:45 so I can feel that I'm in the wrong position
05:47 with my left hand.
05:48 And it's a really nice,
05:49 I guess it gives you a little something to think about.
05:51 - Exactly. - You realize
05:52 that you've done it at the top.
05:53 - Just a little trigger and a little feel for you
05:55 when you're having your practice swings
05:56 to make sure you're doing it right.
05:57 - Right, fine.
05:58 So you wouldn't actually hit a ball doing that, would you?
05:59 - No, I would just do two or three practice swings
06:01 without no ball,
06:03 just getting a feel for what it is I want to do,
06:05 and then I'd go ahead and hit a shot with that new feel.
06:07 - Okay.
06:09 Take the tee out then, Liam.
06:10 Just hit one for us.
06:11 Just show everyone on camera, hopefully,
06:13 what a good top and backswing position looks like.
06:15 - If I just run you up to the top,
06:17 I'm just going to have two or three rehearsals.
06:19 I'm just going to have a little look at that at the top.
06:20 So that's my flat left wrist.
06:22 And I'm just going to go ahead
06:23 and hit one with my flat left wrist.
06:25 - Perfect.
06:30 And it didn't push it.
06:31 I can confirm that was not a push.
06:33 And okay, so I guess it's probably not related,
06:36 but for those players who've got the opposite problem,
06:39 so they tend to,
06:40 their bad shot into the greens tends to be a pull.
06:42 What's the best drill to help them out on that?
06:44 - Again, so the rule will be,
06:46 what's the club face doing?
06:47 So we're starting to see,
06:49 generally what we start to see with a pull is,
06:51 the club face is closing too quickly through impact.
06:54 Okay, so obviously that's making the golf ball
06:56 start to the left of target
06:58 and stay to the left of target.
06:59 So a very simple drill again,
07:01 and just refer that back to a practice swing.
07:04 If I hold the golf club just down at the bottom here now,
07:06 so I've got all of this golf club running at my left side,
07:10 all I'm going to feel now as I just mimic impact
07:13 is that as I swing through the golf ball,
07:15 I want this shaft to stay firmly away from me.
07:18 So if I'm doing that,
07:19 that's showing me that I'm not flicking my wrist
07:22 through impact, okay?
07:23 And as a result of which,
07:24 that's going to stabilize the club head for me.
07:27 - So if you're releasing the club,
07:28 if you have that tendency
07:30 to release the club a little bit too early,
07:32 show us, you'll feel the club swinging through.
07:34 - Absolutely, so you'll just feel,
07:36 as you come into the golf ball here,
07:38 if I release the golf club too early,
07:40 you can see that that's making contact with me.
07:43 If I just delay that release for a little bit longer,
07:46 I've got plenty of room between me and the golf club,
07:48 and as a result of which, that club face is staying square.
07:51 - Yeah, and I guess the whole point here is
07:53 that's really simple and a really effective way
07:55 of giving you a feel for what to do.
07:57 - Absolutely, and it's always good to have a reference
07:59 away from the golf ball, two or three practice swings,
08:02 just getting a feel for it,
08:03 and then go ahead and hit a shot without too much thought.
08:07 - So there you have it.
08:07 No matter whether you're coming up short of the green,
08:09 you're pushing your approach shots,
08:10 or you're pulling them.
08:11 Hopefully Liam's tips here will help you
08:13 get your ball striking back on track
08:15 and help you hit the ball closer to the flag.
08:17 (silence)
08:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]