Being able to play long iron shots is crucial for women out on the golf course, especially when we need more distance and a long iron will help to achieve this.

Long iron shots can seem really difficult to play well, but if you follow these simple steps to achieve the correct set up position and then resulting correct swing, you will really see an improvement in your long iron play.

The length of a long iron is exactly that, it is long. If you look at how the long iron sits when compared to a short iron, you will see that for exactly the same end of handle position away from me, the club head is much further away from me with the longer iron and also that the club is sitting with the shaft much lower to the floor than the short iron is.

With the club head being further away from you, the swing arc for this club head will be much wider, or larger around you and you will have more time to accelerate and build speed up within the club head. As the club head will be moving much faster, stand with a wider stance, feet shoulder width apart, for a shot with a long iron. This will give you a solid base to swing from and you will be able to maintain your balance throughout the swing, from this position.

With the long iron shaft having a flatter starting position, the club head will swing slightly flatter, or lower around you than the club head would if you were using a short iron. The club head with the longer iron will therefore arc around you as you swing it, at a lower angle and this means that as you swing back towards the ball, the club head will be approaching the target line on an arcing approach rather than swinging along the target line which would happen with a short iron. Because of this arcing action towards the target line, you need to play the ball further down the target line towards your left foot, to give the club head time to rotate in and move along the target line with the club face aiming down the target line. Play the ball position one inch inside your left heel.

As you address the ball with the club, work on keeping your toes, knees, hips and shoulders parallel to the target line. As you place the club head next to the ball, keep your head slightly behind, or to the right of the ball, and keep your hands over the ball. This will prevent your shoulders, hips and/or knees from rotating left of the target at address which would promote an out to in swing path with the club head and make it difficult to hit straight shots at the target. Your weight will be slightly on your right foot due to this head and hand position and this will then promote you to make a slightly flatter swing with the long iron. A flatter swing will encourage you to make a shallower, more gentle, downswing and approach to the ball, allowing you to clip the ball cleanly off the surface.

This set up and swing will have you hitting better long iron shots in no time and will allow you to hit the green from positions much further away from the green than before.