Iron Strike - Lesson by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer
Iron Strike - Lesson by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer

In this video PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will help you strike your irons better with a simple ball ahead drill which will encourage you to move your body weight towards the target and help you take a divot.

Work on placing the golf ball in your address position a long way further forwards than you would normally, somewhere around your front foot. By striking the ball from this position you will be encouraged to move your body weight towards your foot side and avoid leaning back too much. Shifting your body weight like this will create a cleaner contact and good divot strike.

I think whenever golfers watch on T.V. they have got to appreciate the quality of ball striking that these professionals have. If you ever a go to an event you go to an event you stand on the practice ground like I do you see just listen to the pureness of the strike these golfers are getting. A totally different sound isn't it really crisp clean crunch contact. I think we also see this tour players taking a lot of divots pretty decent sized divots. Yeah it's definitely we associate taking a divot with a good shot but a lot of amateur golfers associate taken a divot as a bad shot. I see as a wrong yes so instead of a practice ground and as there's divots on the floor. Now we could look at these divots and think “Well was that a good or about shot?” it all depends on whether the divot came the right side of the wrong side of the ball. We like to see it happen after the golf ball so when you see Mcilroy out is out there since a long piece of turf that flies 20 yards. That divot came to after he struck the ball so that the club still had full speed hit the ball hit the divot the ball flies off good golfers maybe get it wrong they go the opposite way. Yes that's not going to give us an understanding of the good and the bad so that the shot and the good strike and also a drill to help you get better strikes on your irons. Yeah Pete it's just as you've explained that is likely to say what golfers will see sort of a thin shot like this where we're catching the equator of the golf or with the leading edge of the club and it's one of those that stings the fingers a little bit on a cold English day.

Here was very very thin he could have sort of almost feel the vibration come up the shaft and that might be shot you're familiar with so that was too high. Yeah but then we get the one where the club is actually impacting the ground before the golf course we were taking a big divot where it went something like that and it's not impressive to watch yeah not my best shot. A lot of us would associate the divot with that type of shot with that but now much going to hopefully take a defeat and the ball is going to be a good shot so we're listening for this we're watching for this one to fly high. Great strike Now whether that picked up on the microphones that Matt and I both wearing and I don't know but you could really get a sense that there was a good clean cut there is a divots not as deep as the fat shot but there is definitely turf here turf flew after the ball. So your focus there Matt trying to look good I think like you were touched on earlier the concept of actually ball and turf a lot of amateurs that you know we get in for lessons have the concept of we're trying to hit the golf ball in the air therefore we need to help it up. We see the body getting back behind the golf well that would be wrong what we need to do is get the ball in turf so we need to get our weight going towards target, and a fantastic drill for this if I could just borrow your club if we were to put this now down in line with the golf ball I put my lead heel next to it we can see that that wouldn't be my normal in position for an iron shot I've got 7 iron out here I'd like to see the ball generally just in front of center in this drill what we're going to do is take the set up now where the ball just inside the lead heel and what we're looking for is something where we've got to get forward and contact the ball and to always encouraging you to move more so I've got to go on find it I'm not going to hang back if I've got to get in front and get the contact. So I take my set up position the club where I'd normally have my ball just in front of center then I'm looking to try and get in front with my weight.

I'm glad that critically strike another good strike another divot you are just a nice shallow one if we put the ball back where it was originally we can see the difficulty of the light that was done with areal sense of moving across getting the weight into this lead foot as opposed to bringing it back behind the golf ball trying to stupid or plan trying to get in from across to my lead shot how many do that with on the driving range of the drill I think you know getting the feeling to get a good feeling of it's 10 to 15 shots giving it a go getting used to this new movement training you getting towards that lead foot and then go back another couple is it normal to go back and do the drill again. I'd suggest doing it with something like a 7 or 8 I am you know if you get into your longer and it's going to be difficult. With a pitching wedge you might get away with a few where it looks like you've got a good shot but it's not been the ideal all and to scenario so it's not about 7 or 9 balls against that left in the front foot in step you drive the body weight forward lifting for a good strike. Yeah definitely you'll hear it and also the feel of it as well obviously my fingertips are still ringing a little bit from that thin shot but the feel of it feels solid contact feels really nice and you hear that crisp clean strike if you've got a good one a way to get 10 of those on the drill then bring it back to normal position with even foot go back and do the drill again, and I think that's quite a good warming up exercise you know the start of each day get your body weight moving by shifting up body weight forward yet it's easy just to get a bit static and let the arms and the hands do it and talk to me again about bad lie. If the ball is in a bad lie going to do this more or less. Definitely especially if you get into the rough where you've got something that's going to really grab the club if we can get a little bit more transfer into the lead side it's going to help us get down into that golf ball and then to the turf afterwards as opposed to leaning back again and the club getting snagged up in all the long stuff in a bad lie you've got to feel that you are getting more into that lead side when you have got a bad lie. I like this technique works great from the fairway from the semi and even in the rough moving forwards taking it a bit in all those situations and hopefully following that advice will help to get better in strikes on the fairway in the space and then there are no longer straight iron shots ultimately better golf. Yeah definitely.

2018-11-09

In this video PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will help you strike your irons better with a simple ball ahead drill which will encourage you to move your body weight towards the target and help you take a divot.

Work on placing the golf ball in your address position a long way further forwards than you would normally, somewhere around your front foot. By striking the ball from this position you will be encouraged to move your body weight towards your foot side and avoid leaning back too much. Shifting your body weight like this will create a cleaner contact and good divot strike.

I think whenever golfers watch on T.V. they have got to appreciate the quality of ball striking that these professionals have. If you ever a go to an event you go to an event you stand on the practice ground like I do you see just listen to the pureness of the strike these golfers are getting. A totally different sound isn't it really crisp clean crunch contact. I think we also see this tour players taking a lot of divots pretty decent sized divots. Yeah it's definitely we associate taking a divot with a good shot but a lot of amateur golfers associate taken a divot as a bad shot. I see as a wrong yes so instead of a practice ground and as there's divots on the floor. Now we could look at these divots and think “Well was that a good or about shot?” it all depends on whether the divot came the right side of the wrong side of the ball. We like to see it happen after the golf ball so when you see Mcilroy out is out there since a long piece of turf that flies 20 yards. That divot came to after he struck the ball so that the club still had full speed hit the ball hit the divot the ball flies off good golfers maybe get it wrong they go the opposite way. Yes that's not going to give us an understanding of the good and the bad so that the shot and the good strike and also a drill to help you get better strikes on your irons. Yeah Pete it's just as you've explained that is likely to say what golfers will see sort of a thin shot like this where we're catching the equator of the golf or with the leading edge of the club and it's one of those that stings the fingers a little bit on a cold English day.

Here was very very thin he could have sort of almost feel the vibration come up the shaft and that might be shot you're familiar with so that was too high. Yeah but then we get the one where the club is actually impacting the ground before the golf course we were taking a big divot where it went something like that and it's not impressive to watch yeah not my best shot. A lot of us would associate the divot with that type of shot with that but now much going to hopefully take a defeat and the ball is going to be a good shot so we're listening for this we're watching for this one to fly high. Great strike Now whether that picked up on the microphones that Matt and I both wearing and I don't know but you could really get a sense that there was a good clean cut there is a divots not as deep as the fat shot but there is definitely turf here turf flew after the ball. So your focus there Matt trying to look good I think like you were touched on earlier the concept of actually ball and turf a lot of amateurs that you know we get in for lessons have the concept of we're trying to hit the golf ball in the air therefore we need to help it up. We see the body getting back behind the golf well that would be wrong what we need to do is get the ball in turf so we need to get our weight going towards target, and a fantastic drill for this if I could just borrow your club if we were to put this now down in line with the golf ball I put my lead heel next to it we can see that that wouldn't be my normal in position for an iron shot I've got 7 iron out here I'd like to see the ball generally just in front of center in this drill what we're going to do is take the set up now where the ball just inside the lead heel and what we're looking for is something where we've got to get forward and contact the ball and to always encouraging you to move more so I've got to go on find it I'm not going to hang back if I've got to get in front and get the contact. So I take my set up position the club where I'd normally have my ball just in front of center then I'm looking to try and get in front with my weight.

I'm glad that critically strike another good strike another divot you are just a nice shallow one if we put the ball back where it was originally we can see the difficulty of the light that was done with areal sense of moving across getting the weight into this lead foot as opposed to bringing it back behind the golf ball trying to stupid or plan trying to get in from across to my lead shot how many do that with on the driving range of the drill I think you know getting the feeling to get a good feeling of it's 10 to 15 shots giving it a go getting used to this new movement training you getting towards that lead foot and then go back another couple is it normal to go back and do the drill again. I'd suggest doing it with something like a 7 or 8 I am you know if you get into your longer and it's going to be difficult. With a pitching wedge you might get away with a few where it looks like you've got a good shot but it's not been the ideal all and to scenario so it's not about 7 or 9 balls against that left in the front foot in step you drive the body weight forward lifting for a good strike. Yeah definitely you'll hear it and also the feel of it as well obviously my fingertips are still ringing a little bit from that thin shot but the feel of it feels solid contact feels really nice and you hear that crisp clean strike if you've got a good one a way to get 10 of those on the drill then bring it back to normal position with even foot go back and do the drill again, and I think that's quite a good warming up exercise you know the start of each day get your body weight moving by shifting up body weight forward yet it's easy just to get a bit static and let the arms and the hands do it and talk to me again about bad lie. If the ball is in a bad lie going to do this more or less. Definitely especially if you get into the rough where you've got something that's going to really grab the club if we can get a little bit more transfer into the lead side it's going to help us get down into that golf ball and then to the turf afterwards as opposed to leaning back again and the club getting snagged up in all the long stuff in a bad lie you've got to feel that you are getting more into that lead side when you have got a bad lie. I like this technique works great from the fairway from the semi and even in the rough moving forwards taking it a bit in all those situations and hopefully following that advice will help to get better in strikes on the fairway in the space and then there are no longer straight iron shots ultimately better golf. Yeah definitely.