Iron Practice

Golf Monthly Top 25 coach Clive Tucker offers some iron practice advice to help you make the most of your time on the range.

Iron practice

Most of us are usually working on something in our golf swings. Whether that’s maintaining our posture, feeling the correct weight shift or keeping your hands connected to your body movement, there is always something you are trying to do better.

By far the best way to get a feel for swing changes is to make soft swings with short clubs.

If you are trying to groove a certain swing feel while swinging flat out with a 5-iron for instance, that club becomes very heavy during the swing.

It’s all over in a flash and so it’s very hard to get a feel for what you are trying to do. So take a wedge and make a very soft swing trying to develop a feel for the new move.

Build the pace of the swing as you get more confident and soon you’ll have grooved the change you are looking for.

Ball-striking drill

This drill is a great way of forcing yourself to find the right angle of attack with your irons for sweeter strikes.

Place a tee peg in the ground ahead of the ball as shown. Instead of locking your aim in on the ball, I want you to concentrate on striking the tee out of the ground.

Get it right and you should hit the ball with a downward strike, creating a divot that starts after the ball and forces the tee out of the ground. Notice how well the ball flies.

This is a great drill for anyone suffering with fat or thin contacts.

Over-achiever drill

Again, this is a great drill that will help your weight shift and create a cleaner, sweeter contact with the ball. Place the ball forward in your stance as I have done here.

Adopt your normal address position and swing to the top. From here, I want you to try and make a good strike. This will force you to drive your weight onto your left side in the downswing.

Your upper body will ‘cover’ the ball – something that every great ball-striker has in common. Spend 10 minutes on this drill and you’ll really sharpen your iron striking.

Take Clive’s test

Pick five different targets on the range and hit different iron shots to each one. Miss the green, start again!

Try to hit one punch, one fade and then one draw consecutively. If the ball flight is wrong, start again!

Run through your usual routine before hitting each ball.