In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Tour coach, Liam James to offer some insight into fixing your iron play faults.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club and
00:03this video looking at the biggest iron play faults and how to fix them. Now we've teamed
00:08up with Ping and tour coach Liam James to offer you some really simple and effective
00:12advice in three key areas. So if you're missing your approach shots, short of the green or
00:18you're struggling with pushes or pulls, there really should be something in this video that
00:21will help you out. Right, let's head out now to the golf course here at the London Club
00:25and get started. Okay Liam, so the first fault that we're going to look at here is missing
00:36short. I think for a lot of people watching this, their most consistent miss when hitting
00:39into the green is going to be coming up short. It's no surprise that's where most golf courses
00:44tend to have the most trouble, tends to be short of the green. So how do you make sure that
00:48you're striking the ball that bit more consistently so that you're hitting the yardage as you want
00:52to hit? Yeah, so as you refer to obviously most of the common faults when a player's hitting
00:57short, we tend to see all that come from the contact. So if we can do everything possible
01:02in order to enable ourselves some ball first contact and a bit of a more solid hit, the
01:07golf ball as a result of that is going to go its full distance. Yeah, so you're looking
01:10to hit the ball before the ground. And how do you get the right angle of attack into the
01:16ball to make sure that you do that? So we've got a basic drill here. So quite a common fault
01:20that we start to see with a lot of players is, as obviously they take their golf club
01:24up to the top, we start to see a lot of head movement away from the target. Now, as a result
01:29of that, the weight shifted quite a long way away from the target now. So if it's not moving
01:35back, we're going to start to see some contacts before this stick, we're going to hit the ground
01:40early or if anything, we're going to thin the golf ball as well. Both of those contacts,
01:44we're not going to get the full yardage. So a little drill here and a nice basic drill is
01:48I'm just going to place this alignment stick here. That's just inside my right heel. Now,
01:54as I do some practice swings, my only focus really here now is just to make sure we stay
01:58nice and still all the way up to the top of the backswing. So I'm going to go up to the
02:02top, stay nice and still. And now when I swing down and through, we can start to see the divot
02:07is plenty after this stick. That's going to ensure my contact.
02:10Yes, a lot of golfers might think, well, I've been told that when I move to the top of the
02:13backswing, my weight goes onto my right side. Is that not the case?
02:16More so with the woods. We start to see a little bit more movement away from the target,
02:20only a hair really with the woods. But again, really consistent iron players and really solid
02:25iron players. We don't see a lot of head movement, so there's not much movement away from the
02:29target at all. So we want to try and stabilise that as much as we can.
02:33OK, go on then. Let's hit a couple of shots.
02:35OK, right. So again, two or three practice swings here. I'm just going to have a nice practice
02:40swing up to the top. No real head movement away from the target. And then full weight transfer
02:45into my left side, making sure that I'm taking a divot. Let's give it a go.
02:52Lovely. And I guess, Liam, no one's really in danger of actually striking that alignment
03:01stick, but it's a really clear visual guide for you just to know.
03:04Absolutely. It just gives you a little bit of an awareness, really. It's a bit of a cue
03:08on the floor just to make sure that we're staying nice and still on the way back and we're getting
03:12the weight shifting on the way through. Yeah. So if you're coming up short with your iron
03:16shots, make sure your angle of attack is correct into the ball. You should be able to get the
03:20strikes that little bit purer and get your distances more consistent.
03:23OK, Liam, so I've got another ball striking drill, similar sort of thing, but a slightly
03:27different way of approaching it. Yeah, same concept. It's another drill that's really
03:31going to help and ensure some weight transfer and weight shift towards the target. So I'm just
03:36going to take my normal address position here, just one to two inches behind the golf ball.
03:40OK, so that's going to obviously make the ball a little bit further forward in my stance
03:45now as it normally would be. Same concept up to the top. We're going to make sure that
03:49we're staying nice and stable with our head. But because that golf ball is now two inches
03:53further forward than it would originally be, we've got to make sure that we're shifting
03:57over to it to ensure that contact. And if you don't, you're catching it sort of three inches
04:00fat and very, very clear. Exactly right. And it will just really highlight how stable your
04:05head needs to stay on the way back and how much you need to shift on the way through. Yeah. And if you can get
04:09that part right, if you can get that angle of attack into the ball right, you should start striking
04:13your iron that little bit better. OK, so next up, we're going to look at the push. Liam, where does
04:18it come from? Where does the push come from in the golf swing? So as a rule, obviously, if we start to
04:23see the golf ball, a push defining as the ball starting out to the right and staying to the right,
04:28we start to see the golf club is too open at some point during the golf swing. Now, the most common
04:34fault that we start to see that leads to that is the wrist position at the top of the backswing. So we
04:39start to see quite a cupped left wrist position, which obviously as a result of which causes the
04:45club face to be too open at the top of the backswing. Right. OK. And you don't, I guess you don't want
04:49people to be thinking too much about the angle of their wrist at the top because you've still got to
04:55play golf. Of course. How do you sort the problem out without getting too technical? So a little drill that
05:00you can just do on the driving range, and I think it's important as well, you know, you can do a few
05:03different practice swings and we can do this tee drill in a second. And it's important to just do
05:09two or three of these in a practice swing and then go ahead and hit a shot, as you say, without getting
05:13over technical or too much thinking. Now, the simple drill is if you just place your left hand on the
05:18golf club, as you normally would, and you just slide a tee peg here, just down the glove. OK, so that's
05:25just inside my global hand now. And all we're going to try and fulfil now as we swing to the top in my
05:30rehearsal is that when I get to the top of that backswing, if my left wrist position is in the
05:35right place, which is a flat left wrist, this tee peg just runs perfectly flat down my forearm. Now,
05:41if I start to get too much this way, that's now just applying a bit of pressure so I can feel that
05:46I'm in the wrong position with my left wrist. Right. And it's really nice. I guess it gives you a little
05:50something to think about. Exactly. You realise that you've done it at the top. Just a little trigger and a
05:54little feel for you when you're having your practice swings to make sure you're doing it right.
05:57Right. Fine. So you wouldn't actually hit a ball doing that, would you?
05:59No. I would just do two or three practice swings without no ball, just getting a feel for what it
06:04is I want to do. And then I'd go ahead and hit a shot with that new feel. OK. Take the tee out,
06:09then. OK. Just hit one for us. Just show everyone on camera, hopefully, what a good top and back
06:14swing position looks like. So if I just run you up to the top, I'm just going to have two or three
06:18rehearsals. I'm just going to have a little look at that at the top. So that's my flat left wrist. And I'm just going to go
06:23ahead and hit one with my flat left wrist. Perfect. And it didn't push it. I can confirm that was not a
06:32push. OK. So I guess it's probably not related, but for those players who've got the opposite problem,
06:39so their bad shot into the greens tends to be a pull, what's the best drill to help them out on that?
06:44Again, so the rule will be what's the clubface doing? So we're starting to see, generally what we
06:49start to see with the pull is the clubface is closing too quickly through impact. OK, so obviously
06:55that's making the golf ball start to the left of target and stay to the left of target. So a very
07:00simple drill again, and just refer that back to a practice swing. If I hold the golf club just down
07:05at the bottom here now, so I've got all of this golf club running at my left side, all I'm going to feel
07:11now as I just mimic impact is that as I swing through the golf ball, I want this shaft to stay firmly
07:17away from me. So if I'm doing that, that's showing me that I'm not flicking my wrist or impact.
07:22Yeah. And as a result of which, that's going to stabilise the club head for me.
07:26So if you're releasing the club, if you have that tendency to release the club a little bit too early,
07:32show us, you'll feel the club. Absolutely. So you'll just feel as you come into the golf ball here,
07:38if I release the golf club too early, you can see that that's making contact with me. If I just delay
07:44that release for a little bit longer, I've got plenty of room between me and the golf club and
07:48as a result of which that club face is staying square. Yeah. And it's, I guess the whole point
07:52here is that's really simple and a really effective way of giving you a feel for what to do.
07:57Absolutely. And it's always good to have a reference away from the golf ball, two or three practice
08:01swings, just getting a feel for it and then go ahead and hit a shot without too much thought.
08:06So there you have it. No matter whether you're coming up short of the green, you're pushing your
08:10approach shots or you're pulling them. Hopefully Liam's tips here will help you
08:13get your ball striking back on track and help you hit the ball closer to the flag.