What is wrong my iron swing?

[David87]

Hi WRX 

 

I really struggle with my irons. It used to be a strength in my game (relative to handicap) but it is now a super inconsistent element. 
 

I don’t feel I compress the ball sufficiently based on ball flight, and I tend to fade the ball too much. Unfortunately I also see a few pulls here and there. 
 

Can anyone highlight the biggest flaws? That would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance. 
 

I use a 7-iron in the video. The flight seems super high. 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by David87

[David87]

 

[Valtiel]

Broadly speaking the issue is that you're casting/flipping coming into the ball which is adding a lot of loft (this is where the lack of compression feeling is coming from) but WHY you're doing that is a bit complicated as it involves multiple factors. The problem is upper/lower body disconnect in transition causing the hands/arms to get left too far behind due to the hips going too early, all being exacerbated by some improper hip movements, your backswing position at the top, and your ball position at address. I'll try to explain with some fancy double gifs. Pardon some of the jankiness with image shifting, neither camera was perfectly stable and led to some inconsistencies frame to frame:



On the left i'm just tracking your hip position and on the right your head, hands, right hip, and backline (butt). Your initial takeaway is somewhat flat and inside. Not a problem in a vacuum, but its going to lead to later backswing position problems. You'll want to be getting the club more up and in front of you at this stage and less flat and around behind you. There is the beginning of some hip issues here as well in that your left hip is coming out towards the ball a bit too much and your right leg is heading towards being locked out (no flex). In terms of ball position, you're setup to hit a low punch shot here based on it being slightly back of center. If you're NOT intending to hit a shot like that then this is only going to exacerbate the disconnect/casting/flipping issue which i'll touch on later. 



Up to P3 we see the smaller problems before starting to increase. Your left hip swings out a lot and all the flex in your right leg is gone. This is a lot of "false rotation" that is both unstable and is going to start pulling you towards the ball (check the AMG Hip Turn video linked at the bottom for more on this). If you note the red dot representing your hand position at address we can see that in order for your hands to return to that position you're going to need to aggressively get your left leg back out of the way (more on this later).

The club has also continued getting too flat and deep which is going to be a problem at the top of the swing. The club should be working more up and over the right shoulder at this stage and not so much around behind you. 



Up to the top of the swing we get all the problems coming to a head. First, your hand position is VERY deep (far behind you) and you've arguably over-rotated and created too long of a backswing for a 7-iron. The problem with these two things is that the both require time in the downswing to undo. You need to get the club back out in front of you and on plane, which from this position requires a lot of compensation. For reference, here is a little collage of what would be considered more "conventional" 7-iron swing lengths/backswing positions:



So since being over-rotated and too flat/deep in the backswing requires time to undo and reconnect, this is where the next problem comes in:



In transition you really start to see where things start to compound. One, your hips start going early and aggressively. The time you needed to reconnect that backswing issue completely vanishes as a result and now you're forced to start throwing away your angles to catch the club up. We also see the problem that locking out your right leg causes as you aggressively regain that flexion in the knee that was locked out in the backswing. This causes a lot of "right side coming towards the ball" in transition that you really don't want. Note the red dot again which is where you're trying to get your hands back to and how much your legs are blocking that space. Everything from this point is compensations.



Into the downswing its more of the same, you hands have no room to return where they should and your right side is continuing to come towards the ball. You're also bumping laterally aggressively (not terrible in a vacuum) but at a stage where your hands are still very far behind you. That leads to this:



You're now way over plane and your hands/arms are stuck way behind your lower body. At P6 in the face on view (club parallel to the ground) your right elbow/forearm should be down in front of your right hip, but yours is well behind and above it. You're forced to flip/cast from here and on a different, steeper plane than what you had at address.

How you go about addressing all this isn't a quick fix. The first thing to do is to get your backswing both much steeper/more vertical and much shorter overall. If the hips go quick and early then that all but requires a short, compact backswing to match up with that (think Rahm or Horschel). The second thing to do in conjunction with that is reducing the type of hip turn you're attempting by keeping your left hip way more restricted while learning to use your right hip correctly (see AMG video below). Start there and see where that takes you!
 

 

Edited September 19, 2022 by Valtiel

[David87]

@Valtiel

 

Wow - this is AMAZING! Thank you very much. I really appreciate the hard work you have put in to your reply. 

 

I have noted down all the flaws you have highlighted in your reply - I will try to fix them one by one. I have a lot of work in front of me 🙂

 

Do I need to stand a bit more up upright? I am 190cm (6.23 feet) but it feels quite uncomfortable to stand more upright. 

 

[Valtiel]

27 minutes ago, David87 said:

@Valtiel

 

Wow - this is AMAZING! Thank you very much. I really appreciate the hard work you have put in to your reply. 

 

I have noted down all the flaws you have highlighted in your reply - I will try to fix them one by one. I have a lot of work in front of me 🙂

 

Do I need to stand a bit more up upright? I am 190cm (6.23 feet) but it feels quite uncomfortable to stand more upright. 

 

No problem! You're a *little* bent over, but nothing crazy. You and I are the same height and I play progressively over-length clubs (+0.5" in the longest iron increasing linearly to +1.25" in the wedges) for this reason. I have longer arms so I don't need too much extra length at the top, but it feels so much better having that extra length in the shorter clubs. Your head does come up out of the box a little bit in your backswing which is a sign you're bent over further than your body may be comfortable with, so if you are playing standard length clubs then slightly longer should be considered. Otherwise its the pelvic stuff in that AMG video that should be focused on as improper rotation there can also change your posture. 

If you need somewhere to start I would highly recommend getting your backswing shortened and more vertical first to see how that fits into your current motion. Rehearsing this is front of a mirror to check both length and shaft plane is highly recommended as well so you can see and feel what you need to do to change both. 

[David87]

20 minutes ago, Valtiel said:

No problem! You're a *little* bent over, but nothing crazy. You and I are the same height and I play progressively over-length clubs (+0.5" in the longest iron increasing linearly to +1.25" in the wedges) for this reason. I have longer arms so I don't need too much extra length at the top, but it feels so much better having that extra length in the shorter clubs. Your head does come up out of the box a little bit in your backswing which is a sign you're bent over further than your body may be comfortable with, so if you are playing standard length clubs then slightly longer should be considered. Otherwise its the pelvic stuff in that AMG video that should be focused on as improper rotation there can also change your posture. 

If you need somewhere to start I would highly recommend getting your backswing shortened and more vertical first to see how that fits into your current motion. Rehearsing this is front of a mirror to check both length and shaft plane is highly recommended as well so you can see and feel what you need to do to change both. 

 

Perfect! The first thing I did 2 hours ago when I woke up (I am from Denmark) was to grab a wedge and rehearse a more vertical backswing. I will see if I can hit the range after work this week and work on all your points. 

 

Again - appreciate the work you have put into your reply. 

[Valtiel]

5 hours ago, David87 said:

 

Perfect! The first thing I did 2 hours ago when I woke up (I am from Denmark) was to grab a wedge and rehearse a more vertical backswing. I will see if I can hit the range after work this week and work on all your points. 

 

Again - appreciate the work you have put into your reply. 

Sounds good, post some follow up videos if you can!

Here is a little supplemental that stood out to me when watching the LIV highlights today. Laurie Canter, tall bloke, same height as us, and a beautiful example of the fundamentals I talked about above and that are covered in that AMG video I linked:



Tracking all the same stuff here plus a red line in front of his right knee showing where it does (and most importantly doesn't) go. Takeaway is pretty textbook, club straight back and up with the clubhead right over the hands (blurred but its there). Also note the left hip and how it only just slightly peaks out. That is almost as far as it will come out throughout the swing. Notice the right hip drop back as well without noticeable loss of flexion in the knee. Losing some flexion is ok, we just don't want to lock it out. 



Up to the top and this is crucial point #1. Rotation has NOT continued via the left hip swinging out, but the right hip dropping back with a little bit of flexion loss in the knee, very slight. Hands have worked straight up in line over the right shoulder and he's crouched down in a tiny bit of a "sit" move to push the hips back. 



This is the magic here that is so hard to learn. That left hip works straight back while the right hip/knee does not come forward at ALL. The right hip is basically the fulcrum and the left hip is what moves. This movement pulls the entire body slightly away from the ball (notice the head position). This is how you create space for the hands to return to address position as we see the right knee has only fractionally crossed the line established at address. 



Down to impact we see the pulling back of the head/body from the left side driving back increase as the right knee turns in and the left side works back across the red line behind. If the target is 12o'clock then his body is driving towards 10 o'clock here, the opposite of what happens when your right side kicks out towards the ball. Thus his hands pass right through that dot. 

It will take months of diligent practice to start reproducing these fundamentals, but the first step is understanding them. 👍

Edited September 19, 2022 by Valtiel

[David87]

@Valtiel Very helpful to have something to compare my swing against. I have been looking on Adam Scott videos today after your first reply - but this makes it more clear 👍

 

Quick one, what do you mean with the sentence below:

"If the target is 12o'clock then his driving towards 10 o'clock here, the opposite of what happens when you drive out towards the ball."

[Valtiel]

20 minutes ago, David87 said:

@Valtiel Very helpful to have something to compare my swing against. I have been looking on Adam Scott videos today after your first reply - but this makes it more clear 👍

 

Quick one, what do you mean with the sentence below:

"If the target is 12o'clock then his driving towards 10 o'clock here, the opposite of what happens when you drive out towards the ball."

Ah sorry, typos. I edited the post, I meant his body is driving on that direction. The act of driving the left side back like we see in the third gif pulls the body backwards which balances out the centrifugal force created by swinging a heavy stick at something in front of us (which pulls is towards the ball). When you don't balance that force, or worse even lean INTO it by having any part of your lower body working towards the ball, you get all kinds of problems managing club path and strike. This backwards force created by the body is why you see guys like Wolff and Scheffler have their feet sliding/jumping away from the ball, they just create more of that force than others: