Golf Tip Query

Hi,

My irons have been going very bad for the last couple of months . I hit the ball straight enough I find it difficult to hit anything lower than a 7 iron and any 6/5 irons I do manage to hit well dont travel much farther than my 7 iron so I end up hitting a lot of 7 woods . At the driving range yesterday I got the following tip from an old golfer who plays off a low handicap

He said to move the ball back in my stance & move my hands forward so my left hand is roughly in line with my left knee . This seems to work well enough but I wonder could this tip lead to further problems or is it the way to go ? It does feel like my hands are now very far ahead of the ball at setup

To start with, you must have your hands ahead of the ball when hitting irons. Before I got to your second paragraph my advice was going o be to make sure your hands are ahead of the ball. Although having your hands in line with your left knee does sound a bit too far, but it is all relative to where you have your ball in your stance. Ideally, your ball should move back in your stance as your clubs get shorter. Your 3 iron should be about where you decribed where your 6 iron is playing from. By the time you get down to your SW/LW, the ball should be somewhere in the back half of your stance. Try what is comfortable for you, but make sure your hands are ahead of the ball when hitting your irons.

Keep us updated on your success!

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Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall

Just so you can see a visual representation of the "lead" (pronounced leed) of the club. Place the bottom of an iron on a flat surface. Now the lie, loft and lead are to the correct orientation. The loft is the angle of the clubface as it point toward the ball. The lie is the angle the club shaft is angled toward the body. The reason you must tilt forward about 30* is to make a total 90* between the lie and the body tilt. The lead is the angle of the clubshaft from the hosel to the top of the shaft as it is angled forward toward the left hand.

Start you Pw/9i in the middle of the stance, the top of the shaft should be on the inside of the left thigh. Use this as a constant through the 3 wood, the driver has virtually no lead and should be played directly down the left arm. The stance narrows slightly from the 8i down and increases slight with the 5i up.

The other thing that must be down is to rotate the left arm from the shoulder socket to match the lead of the club. These measurements will help you hit every club correctly.

Hope this helps you,

GolfBald

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