Trouble with my Irons - Beginner Question

[David LoPan]

Pretty much started getting into it about a month ago. Self taught with some tips from an old roommate who is a scratch golfer.

Anyway, I hit my driver and woods (and hybrids) fine. My swing is pretty good and I'm consistently driving it 250 yds straight in front of me. This is one part of my game I'm confident with.

However I'm having trouble hitting my short irons (is this the correct phrase?) well. My 7-9iron as well as my wedge, I seem to be hitting these like line drives. I have problems getting both distance and loft. I'm also pulling these shots a lot.

But my 4-6 irons I hit fine. I'm not where I want to be distance wise but they go straight and are lofty.

Any basic help here?

[JJSCOTT2]

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty much started getting into it about a month ago. Self taught with some tips from an old roommate who is a scratch golfer.

Anyway, I hit my driver and woods (and hybrids) fine. My swing is pretty good and I'm consistently driving it 250 yds straight in front of me. This is one part of my game I'm confident with.

However I'm having trouble hitting my short irons (is this the correct phrase?) well. My 7-9iron as well as my wedge, I seem to be hitting these like line drives. I have problems getting both distance and loft. I'm also pulling these shots a lot.

But my 4-6 irons I hit fine. I'm not where I want to be distance wise but they go straight and are lofty.

Any basic help here?

[/ QUOTE ]

I used to have this kind of problem and to correct it and start making the right kind of contact with short irons and wedges I will pick a spot right in front of the ball and just focus on that spot and then my entire goal is to hit down on that target, as if I was trying to use the club to drive a nail into the ground there, additionally, focus on keeping my head down through the shot. The biggest problem it seems is that with the "scoring irons" you are in close range and people get all antsy in their pantsy to see where the shot is going and either pull up out of it --line drive-- or get their tempo all out of whack and pull it. This is not necessarily ideal because focusing on a spot is hard and if you lose your concentration at all [censored] goes to hell, but it's a good place to start because it will get you the feeling of how to make correct contact with a wedge, etc.

Take this all from an 18 though.....but I hit my short irons really well, so I must be doing something right [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[pokerbobo]

On shorter irons the ball should be back in your stance. Wedges should be played almost off your back foot, each club up move the ball just a tad closer to your front foot.

Ball in the middle of stance is generally a 6 or 7 iron.

You are probably pulling the ball because the clubhead is closed even prior to contact.

Sounds like you have the makings of a decent player though. If you can hit your longer clubs well, the shorter ones should be easy. Its rare to have trouble with shorter irons, and not longer ones.

[Phytopath]

If you have a really flat swing, you'll be better with longer clubs relative to the shorter clubs.

If you are serious/somewhat serious about golf go see a pro and do some video analysis, there could be alot of reasons and a really flat swing is just one of the ideas I have.