Swinging With Irons

I Cant Seem To Get The Aspect Of Hitting Down On The Ball. I Hardly Ever Get The Ball Up In The Air And When I Do It Doesn't Go Very Far And Has A Sharp Hook On It. I Am A Beginner And Love The Game But Would Like To Keep Up With My Fellow Golfers.

I haven't seen you swing but my educated guess would be that you aren't tranferring your weight and turning through impact. You either "thin" it or "hook chunk" it ... both symptoms of a poor turn through impact.

I'm going to give you a drill to work with initially that doesn't involve a golf club:
> Go and get a plate and put it in your non-target hand (right hand if you're right handed) like a discus or frisbee. It should be under your hand, knuckles facing upwards and held in place by folding the end section of your fingers over the rim ... okay? Stretch your arm out horizontally as if you were going to throw the discus/frisbee.
> Now stand flat footed with your feet about shoulder width apart (get a friend or you wife or someone to check this if you need help).
> Turn to the right (if you're right handed) by turning your torso, head and hips ... your back should face the imaginary target, your head and torso should be facing directly away from it and your hips somewhere in between, roughly 45* (A GOLF BACKSWING replicated, except for the head bit - that is for demo purposes only)
> Now turn everything through together 180* to face the target with your face and torso ... an exact mirror image of the back swing. (NOW YOU HAVE REPLICATED THE HIT THROUGH IMPACT and SOME OF THE THRU SWING)

Do you feel how you turn everything back and then everything turns back through impact together to the finish? Together is the key - everything turns at different speeds but at the same rate of rotation. (If you need help on this, let me know and I'll explain the difference between "speed" and "speed of rotation".

That is what you have to do in a golf swing ...

When you master the drill, do the same thing starting from a golfing stance with flex in your knees and inclined torso. Now do the drill - turn back, turn through impact to the finish with less head movement. Once you master that, you will have started on a good foundation to building a solid gof swing.

__________________
Golf is easy ... once you know how.
Graham Arnott, teaching professional
Kelrosa Golf Studios
www.kelrosagolf.com
Class 'A' PGA Member
Full Member: World Golf Teachers Federation (GB&I)

Can you chip the ball? Practice your chipping to get use to hitting down on the ball. Then practice your pitching, and start to get longer and longer in your back swing. You should have no problems then. Start with your 7 iron.

Hi,

The first thing to understand is that your swing should bottom out somewhere near your left armpit, this is where the club will make contact with the ground.

Use a 7 iron to practice and place the ball just behind the point where the club will strike the ground, move your right foot so that your sternum is approx over the ball. Now take a steady swing and aim to make contact with the ground just in front of the ball while leaving a shallow divot. This will encourage you to hit down through the back of the ball pinching it between the clubface and turf, the ball will be compressed and spring away up the clubbface where the grooves will generate backspin that gets the ball into the air.

DO NOT try to get the ball airborne by trying to hit the clubface under the ball!!

Hope this helps
Brian

i dont know why, but "hitting down on the ball" leaves a very bad image in my mind that doesnt seem to work. and i can see how other beginners would also have a difficult time in imaging "hitting down on the ball"!
in my minds eye what i see and if done with a zero degree lofted club, is the face of the club coming down on the ball and striking the surface at 2oclock. accordingly this would drive the ball down in to the ground and the follow through, well i dont think there would be one, the club face would continiue to descend till it was stuck in the ground. surely this would be hitting down on the ball. so i tried it with a wedge, but since there is now an angle the only thang that strikes the ball is the leading edge of the blade which certainly hits down on the ball, drives it in to the ground and pinches in to the air. it works real nice on very short grass or solid dirt, but can be tough when trying to hit a ball that is lofted in the air by high thick grass. i think it is a little more discript to say, let the leading edge of the blade pass just under the ball as the swing is descending. i think what everone is trying not teach is the habit of trying to lift the ball with the leading edge of the blade when its ascending.
this is not to say that one would never strike or lift the ball on the ascent of the swing, there are times like in high thick grass and the ball perch up high like on a tee and it makes more sense to chip it in the air on the ascent or at the imediate bottom of the swing.

or maybe i am just wrong