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