Irons only great with a tee!?

avguy · June 19, 2012

On the area of irons off the turf, I have been struggling mightingly, even with the easier scoring 7-9. Certainly, my blades I use are not for the meek, but that is not what I will be asking for tips on. I have hit them fine on the course in those no's. in the past, and almost always well at the range. The trouble is gonna be I have limited range time now that we are pushing 110 every day here, and due to some elbow issues, I gotta take the swing totals down more to prevent injury aggravation.

So, last range day, I had to give up on normal iron shots off turf of my 6 & 8 right after I smoked my 25 deg. hybrid (4iron replace) several times. I was skulling them, hooking them, toe shots, etc....yuck! I then drag out a short tee, and whamo! Using the 80% range balls, my 8 iron has a towering path, and lands out there around the 130 mark. And, if felt so nice, that was with my Callaway Razrx MB. Just for fun, I did try a PW off the ground - that was no problem, good flight, out around 105 with crummy range balls.

So, what gives? It's like the days of youth when my dad would let me tee up fairway shots just to get a good connection. That is ok on short par 3s, but really bad for normal course play. I have little hope now between 180 and 120 yds = the range of my normal 5 to 9 irons.

Anyone else get great iron shots off a short tee and real bad off the turf? What did you try to get the results similar on the plus side?

hittindagreens · June 19, 2012

I'm no pro but it sounds like you're not hitting down.
On the range, place a tee or other small object 6 inches in front of your ball. After impact you should be hitting the tee as well. This helped me tremendously.

avguy · June 20, 2012

[quote name='hittindagreens' timestamp='1340116243' post='5127830']
I'm no pro but it sounds like you're not hitting down.
On the range, place a tee or other small object 6 inches in front of your ball. After impact you should be hitting the tee as well. This helped me tremendously.
[/quote]

Thanks for the advice, but I don't go by that swing thought using a Peak Performance Trahan method, but did figure it out better on the course yesterday. I was hitting my irons off the ground like I would a driver off the tee. I was staying back too long, aiming my shoulders too much up for an sweep swing.

It worked with the teed irons, also, but had me going after the balls on the ground too weak and shallow. I simply stayed more level in my setup, although this technique does call for pre-load weighted right in the setup. The tilt away for a shoulder angle works great on the driver, as it is my least lofted club, requiring an ascending blow.

But with irons, even to descending works best, even though I don't call it hitting down onto the ball as much as I used to. Weight does the transfer better to the front foot in my swing, like any other. I was just getting there too late with the irons to trap and carry the ball up.