Why do I hit my Irons So much better than Driver??

[johnroyal519]

I am struggling big time with the driver and have been for years.

 

I used to crush the driver and struggle with the irons. I had a horrible in to out swing (up to 10 deg) which would produce a great draw flight with the the driver and roll forever. Occasional snap hook but nothing I couldn't handle.

 

I was also in to out with irons which would kill me. Hit many shanks. Hit big hooks with irons - would have to aim on the right side of the green every time.

If the wind was going left I was dead. Couldn't hit a green with a PW.

 

Last winter I took a few lessons and really got the path neutral. In 2018 I hit beautiful irons. Straight and can work it either way. But then I started struggling with the Driver.

 

Lost most of the drives to the right.

 

I hit a PW 140 6 iron 185 4 iron 210 ish.

 

Driver SS is 107 ish but I'm struggling to get 260 out of it. Not hitting the middle and hitting weak slices

 

 

 

Does anyone here Draw the Driver and Cut the irons???? Such a hard thing for my body to do.

[Cwebb]

I'd do a lot of practice with foot powder spray on the driver face, so you can try different things and know on each strike exactly where your impact is.

 

If you can't dial it in, might be time to get creative with different driver specs....lengths, weight, etc

[Jagpilotohio]

Chop it down an inch and put 8 grams of lead tape on the heel.

 

I promise it will be easier to hit the middle and turn it over.

[BB28403]

Read the Tyler Farrel guys stuff.

He talks about himself being a great driver of the ball but bad with wedges.

He boils it down to the fact that you are either good at Driver and woods or you are good at Irons and Wedges. It has to do with which swing suits which part of your game, low point control...etc.

His website is golfsmartacademy

And his book is called Find your Tour Swing

Google all that if I am a little off.

[elthrill]

Very similar story but for different reasons. I was a great driver. It was the only thing in golf i did well. I had a long swing with a s*** ton of hand release and early extended but cld time it like a mofo and cld really hit it a long ways for a hack golfer. 285 on a warm day.

 

Problem is all that manipulation was death for irons and most especially wedges. So i cldnt score and id waste great drives all day long. Totally scrapped my swing and learned it right about 3 yrs ago. Now im a very solid iron player and a pretty darn good wedge player. The driver went backwards and has taken me the longest to get back. Ive had to change the way i swung the driver and it has been hard. Very hard.

 

What helped me:

 

Shorten driver to 44"

Stand closer to the ball. This helped me get more upright in my posture and swimg path which certainly helped me find center of face contact more often

For now. Dont worry about trying to hit up on driver. Focus on center of clubface contact with a nice in tempo smooth swing.

Be meticulous about backswing and getting in a good position at top and halfway back. Dont suck the club inside in takeaway. Its so easy to do with driver.

And remember. With driver you really need to work on being patient from top. Its so easy to yank the club from top. Gradual speed from top. Think smooth acceleration.

Work on it 15 minutes a day. Smooth garage swings hitting wiffle balls help. Driver feels different. Have to put time in. If u dont u overswing the club on the course. Its a club that really requires patience in transition and thats very hard. Just have to work at it.

[MPStrat]

My guess is that in your old swing, you were able to neutralize your excessively rightward swing direction by hitting up on the ball with driver. If you’re swinging more neutral now you may only need a setup adjustment with driver.

[Krt22]

Does anyone here Draw the Driver and Cut the irons???? Such a hard thing for my body to do.

 

I doubt it as that would require to very different swings. Hitting up shifts swing direction left, hitting down shifts it right. Much easier to draw irons and fade the driver than vice versa. So when your path was extreme to the right, driver was OK your irons were likely very unplayable with hooks/blocks/shanks, hence the lessons to fix the path. Now that you have neutralized your path, you need to figure out what is causing inconsistent contact, not completely change the way you swing

[bladehunter]

even though my driving is getting better and better.. Its not half as good as my average iron game ... never has been . ill share the answer if i ever find it ..lol if i drove it as good as i hit my irons id rarely if not never shoot over par.. Ive proven this in my spurts of accurate driving ... the game is really easy to me when i hit it 280-300 plus up the middle....when i hit it 260 in the trees its really hard..

[glk]

Lots of possible variables. A big one is where the body centers are by impact. With an iron to hit down both the upper and lower centers move toward the target from where they started at setup. With driver the lower moves about the same distance as for irons but the upper body moves backward away from the target cause you are looking to hit more level to slightly up.

 

This doesn't start happening until the delivery position or just before shaft parallel in downswing. So you add more tilt in a driver swing than with an iron. Folks who swing the same will struggle on one end of the spectrum depending on which pattern they have. Pro's whether conscience or trained make this adjustment.

 

Can also be dependent of how one's generates their power source - upper body dominate works well with irons and vice versa. The legs and ground are needed to be used much more for the driver than irons - that pushing back with the lead leg is what drives the tilt. Whereas with irons you don't need to drive as hard - why you see guys "jump" with driver but not with their irons.

 

Tyler does talk about this a bit in his book but has a handful of video (most on his pay site) talking about this.

https://golfsmartaca...er-pros-vs-ams/

 

A good one but on the pay site is this one but can take a 7 day free trial to see the analysis.

 

And here is his presentation, that is on the youtube site, from a few years back at the world golf fitness seminar Can watch the first 5-8 minutes then skip to the 30 minute mark to see two folks, one iron bias, one driver bias, and how he worked with them to make changes.

 

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[johnroyal519]

good info guys thanks

 

Im working on a few setup tweaks and I feel a bit better about my driver swing

[BB28403]

I am struggling big time with the driver and have been for years.

 

I used to crush the driver and struggle with the irons. I had a horrible in to out swing (up to 10 deg) which would produce a great draw flight with the the driver and roll forever. Occasional snap hook but nothing I couldn't handle.

 

I was also in to out with irons which would kill me. Hit many shanks. Hit big hooks with irons - would have to aim on the right side of the green every time.

If the wind was going left I was dead. Couldn't hit a green with a PW.

 

Last winter I took a few lessons and really got the path neutral. In 2018 I hit beautiful irons. Straight and can work it either way. But then I started struggling with the Driver.

 

Lost most of the drives to the right.

 

I hit a PW 140 6 iron 185 4 iron 210 ish.

 

Driver SS is 107 ish but I'm struggling to get 260 out of it. Not hitting the middle and hitting weak slices

 

 

 

Does anyone here Draw the Driver and Cut the irons???? Such a hard thing for my body to do.

 

Funny you should say you are 10 degrees this way or that. The latest guest on this podcast I listen to. He says he has intimate knowledge that T Woods had a 10 degree difference when he first got on a Trackman.

 

So if one of the greatest ever , had what the world now calls “a problem”, is it really a problem? Food for thought

[Rohlio]

I am struggling big time with the driver and have been for years.

 

I used to crush the driver and struggle with the irons. I had a horrible in to out swing (up to 10 deg) which would produce a great draw flight with the the driver and roll forever. Occasional snap hook but nothing I couldn't handle.

 

I was also in to out with irons which would kill me. Hit many shanks. Hit big hooks with irons - would have to aim on the right side of the green every time.

If the wind was going left I was dead. Couldn't hit a green with a PW.

 

Last winter I took a few lessons and really got the path neutral. In 2018 I hit beautiful irons. Straight and can work it either way. But then I started struggling with the Driver.

 

Lost most of the drives to the right.

 

I hit a PW 140 6 iron 185 4 iron 210 ish.

 

Driver SS is 107 ish but I'm struggling to get 260 out of it. Not hitting the middle and hitting weak slices

 

 

 

Does anyone here Draw the Driver and Cut the irons???? Such a hard thing for my body to do.

 

Funny you should say you are 10 degrees this way or that. The latest guest on this podcast I listen to. He says he has intimate knowledge that T Woods had a 10 degree difference when he first got on a Trackman.

 

So if one of the greatest ever , had what the world now calls “a problem”, is it really a problem? Food for thought

 

It was a big enough problem it caused him to leave HH.

[Krt22]

10 degrees in to out isn't playable, even for Tiger.

[np78]

having the same problem.

 

I hit the irons flush almost any time yet can't hit the Driver worth a damn

 

Following

[andrue]

Very similar story to mine. Although initially I wasn't 'smashing' my driver, it was my most reliable club. I found the fairway going on for 75% of the time - I kid you not. The only downside was that the ball rarely went further than 160 yards from where I was standing. Then I bought a set of Big Bertha OS and for a month was in seventh heaven.

 

Then for no obvious reason I became unable to launch the hybrids (5,4 and 3) so I took several lessons with a new pro at my club. He did wonders for my irons. He effectively gave me an extra two club's distance across the bag. My SW went from 60 yards to 90 yards. My 8i went from 115 yards to 130 yards. Good stuff.

 

But he was never able to fix my hybrids and he destroyed my driver. There was a time last summer when I honestly didn't know how to swing the damn thing. Thankfully the course director fixed that for me and shortly afterwards I got the hybrids working again. I'm now making good progress with the driver in curing myself of a push fade (see the thread on not keeping the face open).

 

Next week I'm on a residential golf course so am hopeful that by the end of the month I will have a very nice swing again. Maybe even all the way across the bag :)

 

As for why..I think it's because the swing is different. The method is the same but not the execution in the same way that driving a right hand vehicle is different to driving a left-hand vehicle. The different AoA for the club types means there has to be differences.

[ruffellprefley]

this speaks to me. while I’m not great with my irons i’m at least a lot more consistent. swinging a driver makes me feel silly and I hit every square inch of the face. if I could at least hit it in the wrong place every time I feel like I could start to diagnose my problem!

 

I’m to the point where i’ll get some lessons but finding an instructor that I gel with has been like finding the center of my driver face.

[Birdie Mac]

Following. Funny how so many people have gone from driving the ball well and struggling with irons to the opposite. That's been my experience as well. My irons are so much better now, but I sometimes struggle to find the earth with my driver.

[Phil_I_am 84]

> @"Birdie Mac" said:

> Following. Funny how so many people have gone from driving the ball well and struggling with irons to the opposite. That's been my experience as well. My irons are so much better now, but I sometimes struggle to find the earth with my driver.

 

My issue as well. Hitting a weak fade last year with irons and hitting driver better than I ever had. Took a lesson in September and since have been struggling with driver and hitting irons crisper than I ever have.

[gsrjc]

I’ve always been a better iron player because I have a relatively steep swing. I’ve tried to make it less steep but I don’t think I spend enough time at it. So I just deal with it for my driver. I play a straight or cut shot and I’m happy with that.

[aggiegolfer21]

Hitting driver different from irons isn't out of the ordinary. I wish one company would come out with a nine degree fairway wood. I think I struggle with hitting the driver because it's hit off a high tee. This changes the angle of attack which then messes with the path and release which messes with the face angle. For me it's a totally different shot than with my irons.