How can I hit my iron shots lower? (Video) - by Pete Styles
How can I hit my iron shots lower? (Video) - by Pete Styles

There may be a time and a place on the golf course where you’d like to deliberately manipulate your ball flight and bring it lower. Now the times you might consider doing this would be maybe it’s a windy day, so you’re going straight into a headwind. And you think, well the harder you hit the shot, the higher you hit a shot, the less distance it will go, because the wind will just batter it down, so quite often we want to hit the ball low. Another reason might be you’re trying to hit it out between the trees, you know you’ve driven the ball in the trees, you want to hit a low running one, under the branches, so we can play the iron shot lower because of that. And here’s the simplest technique you could use to play that ball low. Here I’ve got myself a six sign. Normally I play my six sign with the ball just slightly ahead of centre, couple of inches ahead of center towards my left side. But actually this time I’m going to deloft the club, and move the ball back in my stance. So I’m moving the ball into the back third of my stance as long as I keep the handle pointing at my left hip, you can now see the club face as much less loft. That would be normal six sign loft, and that would be delofted.

So having the club delofted and having the ball back in my stance I can already see that club face looks like it’s going to hit the ball lower. Now the next consideration here is don’t go leaning back and scooping, leaning back and scooping the ball up into the air is the wrong thing to do here, that’s trying to hit the ball higher again. I don’t want that, I’m going to hit it low. So I’m playing the ball back in my stance, playing my hands well ahead. And I’ll really commit to a good consistent and aggressive angle of attack and follow through. So don’t be timid and bounce out of this, but stay down with it and drill it low. When the ball flight comes out there and it feels like it’s come out more like a four or even a three iron, it’s come out very low and shooting forwards. Now if that was a windy day, that ball is much less affected by the wind. If there’s tree is in the way, it’s come out most of its flight underneath those branches. Takes little bit of practice to be able to hit the ball straight from there. Takes a bit of practice because it can feel a bit weird having the ball so far back with the hands so far ahead. But next time you’re on the driving range, go ahead and practice having the ball back in your stance to hit lower iron shots. 2015-03-31

There may be a time and a place on the golf course where you’d like to deliberately manipulate your ball flight and bring it lower. Now the times you might consider doing this would be maybe it’s a windy day, so you’re going straight into a headwind. And you think, well the harder you hit the shot, the higher you hit a shot, the less distance it will go, because the wind will just batter it down, so quite often we want to hit the ball low. Another reason might be you’re trying to hit it out between the trees, you know you’ve driven the ball in the trees, you want to hit a low running one, under the branches, so we can play the iron shot lower because of that. And here’s the simplest technique you could use to play that ball low. Here I’ve got myself a six sign. Normally I play my six sign with the ball just slightly ahead of centre, couple of inches ahead of center towards my left side. But actually this time I’m going to deloft the club, and move the ball back in my stance. So I’m moving the ball into the back third of my stance as long as I keep the handle pointing at my left hip, you can now see the club face as much less loft. That would be normal six sign loft, and that would be delofted.

So having the club delofted and having the ball back in my stance I can already see that club face looks like it’s going to hit the ball lower. Now the next consideration here is don’t go leaning back and scooping, leaning back and scooping the ball up into the air is the wrong thing to do here, that’s trying to hit the ball higher again. I don’t want that, I’m going to hit it low. So I’m playing the ball back in my stance, playing my hands well ahead. And I’ll really commit to a good consistent and aggressive angle of attack and follow through. So don’t be timid and bounce out of this, but stay down with it and drill it low. When the ball flight comes out there and it feels like it’s come out more like a four or even a three iron, it’s come out very low and shooting forwards. Now if that was a windy day, that ball is much less affected by the wind. If there’s tree is in the way, it’s come out most of its flight underneath those branches. Takes little bit of practice to be able to hit the ball straight from there. Takes a bit of practice because it can feel a bit weird having the ball so far back with the hands so far ahead. But next time you’re on the driving range, go ahead and practice having the ball back in your stance to hit lower iron shots.