Get The Perfect Iron Position Every Time – by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer
Get The Perfect Iron Position Every Time – by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer

In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will help you to understand how the golf club should be positioned in the setup position. Specifically relating to an iron, we will focus on the position of the grip pointing towards the left hip pocket and the fact that the golf club should actually sit slightly toe up in the address position. Utilizing this tip should encourage straighter and more accurate iron shots.

When a golfer hits a different shot with a different length lie angle of club it's really important Matt that club sits correctly behind the golf ball. Yeah, one of the things we often see with golfers is when they set up they want to try and set up in a consistent position we talk about consistency all the time consistent flight, consistent shots. So if I stand in the same place every time surely I'm going to be more consistent, but when we look at the different length of club sand wedges is really short 3, 4, 5 irons hybrids really quite long. Yeah how does that lie angle change to different clubs? Yeah definitely so as we know each club is going to be built differently the length of shafts different and also there's the plane of the shaft how the angle of the club actually sits at address. So number one how that is going to change throughout the set is as we go in it's going to be going from something where you've got a sand wedges we were looking straight down here. Now sand wedge is going to be a little bit more upright and as we're working towards a driver it's going to be getting flatter. So as we do that even if I have the club here now obviously somethings going to change down here otherwise if they were all the same I'd have the toe in the ground or the heel in the ground depending on the angle of the shaft. So the 1st thing is we actually put the club in behind the ball and what we're looking for now if we were to just sit it. The tendency of some people is to try and get both edges full to the ground so we'd see that the toe and the heel both meet the ground there and thats not how we'd want it to sit, but that would be natural for a lot of people to think isn't it. The grounds flat the clubs flat everything looks good at set up why is that wrong? Definitely because if we do that the way the actual club comes in it's going to affect the plane of the swing so what we want actually to do is sit the club in and let it just get the toe hang off the ground ever so slightly so it pushes down slightly, and as we come in the hands actually raised slightly into impact. So as you would meet the ground it would be actually flush to the ground. Now suggesting that the set up position and impact position in terms of where that club is a different. Yes we're going to also hold in a little bit of an allowance almost that it's likely to work so that when I do hit it it's perfectly lovely exactly. Yes so we want it to be level at impact yes, but more important set up definitely ready for that impact.

Yeah and one of the one of the things I experienced it this week in a lesson you can tell a lot from you you lead wrist as you go through it. One of the times when people are trying to get them quite flush what we've seen now is something where this lead wrist we actually have to get it bowed up in this direction is what I like to try and do sometimes with my lessons is get them to almost feel that the pushing down on the handle and you just feel that the heel goes into the ground and you now see a different curvature on the wrist. Which is allowing the actual wrist to work in the way we want just by setting them correctly addressed that lead wrist in that position which really weak to me. Yeah no power in this position so you're asking for that leverage sit down and exactly talk me through where the shaft you point is. I like to see that shaft pointed out about belt height. Yeah definitely you know from the face on camera here if we're looking at that. Now what would be looking for is something depending on what club we have and what shot we're trying to play but as a rule of thumb say 7 out here we've got the ball just in front of center if we had it too high you could see it pointing up in front of me. Like you say I'd like to see it pointing more back in towards my belt buckle and then also I'd have a little bit of shuffling so I'd have the club in the hand all working towards the target this way some of the beginners out there would generally we would see that we get this one where. Exactly the theory is we're getting the golf ball in the air so if I lean my shaft back now I can see that there's more loft that is on that club. So my 7 iron that let's say 35 degrees is now turned into something where it's a pitching wedge down here and I'm going to struggle with that one so making sure you know it's not flushed to the ground we're going to see that it just sits in that toe is slightly off the ground there.

Good grip and again if you want to just feel that you push the heel into the ground a little bit you'll feel that you get that that position there and then slightly hands stance forward and I'd say it's relative. Now if we looked at sort of positions on our clothing it's sitting into my left pocket there like it's a laser beam time out of that left pocket cannot hit you just by your left hip bone doesn't exactly have to low it would hit by your thigh. Yeah I would hit you will believe what exactly well behind belly forward soak your stomach let it pocket yeah well so every call Pretty much yeah I'd say there's instances where it's going to change but as a rule of thumb if we were just making a full swing that's where we'd have have those ones so we threw one other thing. If somebody watching this video golf is watching this video and they're struggling to get that position could it be that clubs aren't custom fit correctly. You are definitely obviously were all different shapes and sizes some taller some smaller length as well and one of the 1st things that you would have in a custom fit would be the length. So you might get the strike altered and that and down how the club actually sits it might be something where the club is to upright for you so we'd see that the total was raised up in the air quite a lot, and if your coming through the heel might meet the ground early, and then it would wrap the club over too much too much too much toe and then we might have the opposite end of the scale. Where we'd see something where the hill was too much off and then you come in, toe meets the ground 1st and it flips the blade open then we get the the high right one. So going through a fitting and what you should see if you were going through the fitting is something where if you had a little strike impact tape on the bottom you'd want it to be out of the center not toe heavy or heel heavy as you are going through it. So it makes sense therefore my saying is what we are trying to achieve is the club should be wound to the ground as extractable but it doesn't have to be flat to the ground it's set up we can see slightly toe up the shaft pointing inside a left hip it's quite a good check point for the right handed golfer, and if your clubs are custom fit correctly to you. So your club should strike the ball correctly encouraging you to hit straight a shot and having the right length custom fit a golf club is not going to hinder your game. So if you can get that sitting behind the ball correctly in a consistent action hopefully you'll strike it more consistency and improve your iron shots.

2018-12-17

In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will help you to understand how the golf club should be positioned in the setup position. Specifically relating to an iron, we will focus on the position of the grip pointing towards the left hip pocket and the fact that the golf club should actually sit slightly toe up in the address position. Utilizing this tip should encourage straighter and more accurate iron shots.

When a golfer hits a different shot with a different length lie angle of club it's really important Matt that club sits correctly behind the golf ball. Yeah, one of the things we often see with golfers is when they set up they want to try and set up in a consistent position we talk about consistency all the time consistent flight, consistent shots. So if I stand in the same place every time surely I'm going to be more consistent, but when we look at the different length of club sand wedges is really short 3, 4, 5 irons hybrids really quite long. Yeah how does that lie angle change to different clubs? Yeah definitely so as we know each club is going to be built differently the length of shafts different and also there's the plane of the shaft how the angle of the club actually sits at address. So number one how that is going to change throughout the set is as we go in it's going to be going from something where you've got a sand wedges we were looking straight down here. Now sand wedge is going to be a little bit more upright and as we're working towards a driver it's going to be getting flatter. So as we do that even if I have the club here now obviously somethings going to change down here otherwise if they were all the same I'd have the toe in the ground or the heel in the ground depending on the angle of the shaft. So the 1st thing is we actually put the club in behind the ball and what we're looking for now if we were to just sit it. The tendency of some people is to try and get both edges full to the ground so we'd see that the toe and the heel both meet the ground there and thats not how we'd want it to sit, but that would be natural for a lot of people to think isn't it. The grounds flat the clubs flat everything looks good at set up why is that wrong? Definitely because if we do that the way the actual club comes in it's going to affect the plane of the swing so what we want actually to do is sit the club in and let it just get the toe hang off the ground ever so slightly so it pushes down slightly, and as we come in the hands actually raised slightly into impact. So as you would meet the ground it would be actually flush to the ground. Now suggesting that the set up position and impact position in terms of where that club is a different. Yes we're going to also hold in a little bit of an allowance almost that it's likely to work so that when I do hit it it's perfectly lovely exactly. Yes so we want it to be level at impact yes, but more important set up definitely ready for that impact.

Yeah and one of the one of the things I experienced it this week in a lesson you can tell a lot from you you lead wrist as you go through it. One of the times when people are trying to get them quite flush what we've seen now is something where this lead wrist we actually have to get it bowed up in this direction is what I like to try and do sometimes with my lessons is get them to almost feel that the pushing down on the handle and you just feel that the heel goes into the ground and you now see a different curvature on the wrist. Which is allowing the actual wrist to work in the way we want just by setting them correctly addressed that lead wrist in that position which really weak to me. Yeah no power in this position so you're asking for that leverage sit down and exactly talk me through where the shaft you point is. I like to see that shaft pointed out about belt height. Yeah definitely you know from the face on camera here if we're looking at that. Now what would be looking for is something depending on what club we have and what shot we're trying to play but as a rule of thumb say 7 out here we've got the ball just in front of center if we had it too high you could see it pointing up in front of me. Like you say I'd like to see it pointing more back in towards my belt buckle and then also I'd have a little bit of shuffling so I'd have the club in the hand all working towards the target this way some of the beginners out there would generally we would see that we get this one where. Exactly the theory is we're getting the golf ball in the air so if I lean my shaft back now I can see that there's more loft that is on that club. So my 7 iron that let's say 35 degrees is now turned into something where it's a pitching wedge down here and I'm going to struggle with that one so making sure you know it's not flushed to the ground we're going to see that it just sits in that toe is slightly off the ground there.

Good grip and again if you want to just feel that you push the heel into the ground a little bit you'll feel that you get that that position there and then slightly hands stance forward and I'd say it's relative. Now if we looked at sort of positions on our clothing it's sitting into my left pocket there like it's a laser beam time out of that left pocket cannot hit you just by your left hip bone doesn't exactly have to low it would hit by your thigh. Yeah I would hit you will believe what exactly well behind belly forward soak your stomach let it pocket yeah well so every call Pretty much yeah I'd say there's instances where it's going to change but as a rule of thumb if we were just making a full swing that's where we'd have have those ones so we threw one other thing. If somebody watching this video golf is watching this video and they're struggling to get that position could it be that clubs aren't custom fit correctly. You are definitely obviously were all different shapes and sizes some taller some smaller length as well and one of the 1st things that you would have in a custom fit would be the length. So you might get the strike altered and that and down how the club actually sits it might be something where the club is to upright for you so we'd see that the total was raised up in the air quite a lot, and if your coming through the heel might meet the ground early, and then it would wrap the club over too much too much too much toe and then we might have the opposite end of the scale. Where we'd see something where the hill was too much off and then you come in, toe meets the ground 1st and it flips the blade open then we get the the high right one. So going through a fitting and what you should see if you were going through the fitting is something where if you had a little strike impact tape on the bottom you'd want it to be out of the center not toe heavy or heel heavy as you are going through it. So it makes sense therefore my saying is what we are trying to achieve is the club should be wound to the ground as extractable but it doesn't have to be flat to the ground it's set up we can see slightly toe up the shaft pointing inside a left hip it's quite a good check point for the right handed golfer, and if your clubs are custom fit correctly to you. So your club should strike the ball correctly encouraging you to hit straight a shot and having the right length custom fit a golf club is not going to hinder your game. So if you can get that sitting behind the ball correctly in a consistent action hopefully you'll strike it more consistency and improve your iron shots.