pulling mid irons to left

In recent months, I seem to have lost a lot of control over my mid irons - most now seem to pull to the left. (and stay there)
Woods are not too bad with a fade and short irons fairly accurate.
Could it be my ball position? Any other ideas?

The ball postion could be too far forward in your stance. Check that first. Then I would try working on getting my hips through the zone a little faster. Your arms are outracing your body and you may be coming slightly over the top. Over the top isn't such a bad thing (many good players do it ie Colin Montgomrie), but if you don't use enough lower body one of your misses will be a pull.

Monty would shoot you if he heard you say he comes over the top! He's got a steep, long languid swing, but it ain't no OTT!!

I agree though. Mr Chadcash may be swinging over the top. The same swing path but different clubface angles will either pull it (closed) or slice it (open).

Only reason you may be accurate with shorter irons is that short irons don't impart much sidespin, so a fade is out of the question really (unless you almost hit your left knee cap on followthrough!). You may have inadvertantly started aiming to the right with your short irons. It still looks great in the air though because a pull has a nice strong penetrating flight, but it will poison other clubs.

N18

Thanks for the feedback.
Yes, I do believe I have a bit of the "over the top" - I do find this very difficult to fix!
Any ideas?

my guess is your swing plane is off. you may be pulling the club too inside the swing plane on the takeaway. A swing plane is a great training device to practice with. I actually watch the clubhead go up and then down the swing plane. If you don't want to buy one you can try this. If you have a carry bag with a built in stand, set it to the right of you so the tilt of the bag is parallel to the tilt of the club. Leave enough room to swing. Then, watch you clubhead go up the bag and then down the bag. This is approximate, but works pretty well to give you the feel of the correct plane.

As has already been stated a pull is caused by a downswing path that is outside-in. You need to now guard against trying too hard to swing inside-out else you'll push (this used to happen to me a lot, going from one extreme to the other trying to fix each one)

A great drill is to take two clubs and lay them parallel to the target line against each heel. So that you have a club pointing to the target line against your left heel (for righties) and one away from the target next to the right heel . Now when you put a ball down you will see there is a natural semi circle formed between the 2 clubheads through the ball. Swing back halfway to parallel trying to get your arms over the club alongside your right heel and get the wrists fully cocked so the club is poitning to the sky. Now TURN through the ball so that the clubhead is parallel with the forward facing club and fully extended. This is inside to inside, along that semi circular path. Try and learn what it should feel like through impact. Hit balls with this halfswing and only stop when you can bit say 20 or 30 with great contact and good ballflight. If you cant get this right with halfswings there is NO point in trying a full swing. Then when you feel really comfortable with these half swings, start taking the club further back with your shoulders and pump down to that same halfway position in the downswing, all the time keeping those clubs in place and again go inside to inside through impact. Again do this a lot without a ball to 'feel' what you body does to get the club back to halfway down in the right position (clearly you should be moving forward and keeping some c*ck in the wrists). From there you go through impact again on your tried and tested half swing drill

An extension of this drill is to do this with a headcover under your left armpit to stay connected on the backswing and not get armsy. Vijay does this endlessly

ALL great players and pros are in these positions from hip high downswing to hip high forward swing. They may go over or below the plane as they get to the top (Furyk, Fuzzy etc) but all will reroute back to this point halfway down

Hope this helps

Bobby - try this link for an over the top cure, it has transformed my downswing, I used to have a terrible over the top problem which has now been completely cured.

The secret is to make a full shoulder turn then keeping the shoulders turned at the top let the arms 'drop down' - this starts the club back to the ball in perfect plane 'on the inside' - if you turn your shoulders back even slightly before dropping the arms - that perfect plane is then ruined.

You can test this theory by facing a wall and swinging the club slowly so that it just misses the wall, any shoulder turn prior to the downswing results in the club hitting the wall i.e. coming over the top.

Give it a try - you'll like the results!

http://www.golftoday.co.uk/proshop/t.../lesson11.html

Wow....the series on the web page references is one of the best I have ever read. If there really is a secret to golf, it is in this series.

I don't have it down yet but...when practicing this swing out on the course today...I hit some of my best shots. I got tired and lost focus and some old habits creaped back in but... the backswing and downswing parts are amazing when put into play.

Just a thought - I have noticed this happens to me when I try to really smash a shot instead of taking one more club.

Indeed, for many amateurs, once we try to rip the shot we will come OTT.

you might possibly be taking the club back too much up the target line.Try and work club a little more to the inside of line and try that.David