Golf Drill Tip: Irons flying too low - Not enough club head speed (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Drill Tip: Irons flying too low - Not enough club head speed (Video) - by Pete Styles

There maybe times on the golf course where you pick a certain club expecting a result that you want to see but then it never actually comes out for you and that could be because you have taken the wrong club for the wrong shot or even the wrong club for your swing speed. There are going to be times when you simply can't get away with hitting a club that maybe your playing partner’s or maybe the guy who is on the TV is hitting. This is one of the reasons why very few people now hit a 1, 2, 3, or even a 4 iron, and it’s because the club has become less lofted over time and the ball becomes a lower spin ball, we actually need more loft to get the ball in the air.

So you go ahead and take your longest iron, and hit it very gently, you will kind of get the idea what I mean here, so I take my 4 iron out of my bag, now there is no 1, 2, 3 iron in there anymore, so I take my 4 iron and hit it gently. It never really gets itself above head height, if I take my 4 iron and hit it harder, it starts to rise up and climb into the air and carry, but it requires a certain amount of club head speed to work with shaft, to work the ball, and to generate enough back spin where this ball carries high and flies into the air. If I take a more lofted club, it would fly higher and probably further even with the same swing speed. So if your swing speed is slow, you actually need to play with more loft. If your swing speed is high, you can get away with lower lofty clubs. So if you are taking a 5 iron but it goes the same distance as your 7 iron, then you found your optimum trajectory, you find that a 5 iron is below the optimum trajectory, a 7 iron is above the optimum trajectory, so a 6 is probably going to be your longest club, unless you can generate more club head speed. So when you go to your bigger clubs we are going to need to see them to be swung faster through the golf ball.

Now if that doesn’t feel appropriate for you because when you swing faster, you start to lose your club head control and you start to lose your balance, when you could look at golf clubs that is going to help you hit the ball bit further, would generally look at lighter shafts, its going to be a graphite shaft or maybe a hybrid type of iron, so if there is not enough club head speed to get the long irons up in the air when they are flying too low, lighter shaft a hybrid iron is going to fly the ball a bit higher and a bit further but club head speed is going to cause the ball to fly too low if it is not fast enough.

 2013-03-25

There maybe times on the golf course where you pick a certain club expecting a result that you want to see but then it never actually comes out for you and that could be because you have taken the wrong club for the wrong shot or even the wrong club for your swing speed. There are going to be times when you simply can't get away with hitting a club that maybe your playing partner’s or maybe the guy who is on the TV is hitting. This is one of the reasons why very few people now hit a 1, 2, 3, or even a 4 iron, and it’s because the club has become less lofted over time and the ball becomes a lower spin ball, we actually need more loft to get the ball in the air.

So you go ahead and take your longest iron, and hit it very gently, you will kind of get the idea what I mean here, so I take my 4 iron out of my bag, now there is no 1, 2, 3 iron in there anymore, so I take my 4 iron and hit it gently. It never really gets itself above head height, if I take my 4 iron and hit it harder, it starts to rise up and climb into the air and carry, but it requires a certain amount of club head speed to work with shaft, to work the ball, and to generate enough back spin where this ball carries high and flies into the air. If I take a more lofted club, it would fly higher and probably further even with the same swing speed. So if your swing speed is slow, you actually need to play with more loft. If your swing speed is high, you can get away with lower lofty clubs. So if you are taking a 5 iron but it goes the same distance as your 7 iron, then you found your optimum trajectory, you find that a 5 iron is below the optimum trajectory, a 7 iron is above the optimum trajectory, so a 6 is probably going to be your longest club, unless you can generate more club head speed. So when you go to your bigger clubs we are going to need to see them to be swung faster through the golf ball.

Now if that doesn’t feel appropriate for you because when you swing faster, you start to lose your club head control and you start to lose your balance, when you could look at golf clubs that is going to help you hit the ball bit further, would generally look at lighter shafts, its going to be a graphite shaft or maybe a hybrid type of iron, so if there is not enough club head speed to get the long irons up in the air when they are flying too low, lighter shaft a hybrid iron is going to fly the ball a bit higher and a bit further but club head speed is going to cause the ball to fly too low if it is not fast enough.