– Well hello, Adam Bazelgette, founder of Scratch Golf Academy, three time PGA teacher of the year here in Florida. And today's subject, how to hit your irons pure. (energetic electronic dance music) So, how to hit your irons pure. I'll give you some simple concepts, they really are simple that I think will help you, and also some drills towards the end of the video that are easy to do, help you get started and make some progress, I hope.

If you like this video, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. Scratchgolfacademy.com is my home website, have full courses there including personal coaching with me, let's get started. Now obviously if you're gonna hit your irons pure, you have to have a solid strike and that would include heel to toe.

But we're not gonna tackle that in this video. In this video, we're gonna have a look at the all important element of the downward hit, mastering the downward hit. Now listen, most people, I promise you, I teach golf lessons all, they have a poor concept, or at best let's say an incomplete concept, of what the downward hit entails.

So we're gonna get into that a little bit here, but there's two elements of it that I rarely see people overdo, at least in tandem with each other. So the first element is you gotta lean the shaft, or as I like to say it, tilt the sweet spot. Let's have a quick close-up look. This a nine-iron, and that black spot represents the sweet spot of the golf club.

Listen, when there's no tee under the ball and you've got loft on the club, you have to tilt the face a little bit, you have to tilt that sweet spot, to get consistently solid contact. Okay, the second element, once you've got the shaft leaning and the face tilting towards the ball, that is plenty of downward hit.

Listen, best players in the world only hit down four or five degrees on a seven-iron. Certainly as an average, that is less than the six degrees that would represent the single stroke of a second hand on a clock. So once you've got the shaft leaning, don't add to that by actually hitting down. That's the big mistake so many people make, that won't work.

So what you're actually trying to do is not only sweep, but the golf club should be slightly ascending, at least the handle of it should be as you hit. That mitigates the forward lean. Alright, let's get into the drills for both of these. Okay, these little face magnets are great. You probably don't have one at home.

You can get them online certainly. But these are great to should you the loft of the face, and really it's as simple as turning your hand so that there's less loft down there. Now listen, before you jump off this video, let me just tell you, I teach golf all day, people always come to me and they say, “Well, “I'm a feel player, so don't get too technical with me.

” That's fine, you've got to have feel to play golf, but as soon as I get to try to feel something, they're like, “No no, just give me a verbal formula, “kind of cheat it in there for me.” Don't do that to yourself. Listen, if you wanna have fun and get better at golf, don't act like you have no control over your own body.

I'm trying to empower you here. You can grab golf club and tilt it a little bit 'til you get the proper feel. You can do it, nobody can describe this to you precisely in words so that you can do it without practice. Now, once you've done that a few times, do it slowly. These are drills you can do if it's cold up there, and it's up north and you can't get out to a range, these are things you can do at the house.

Just take a golf club on a small scale, and as you flow through, turn the loft towards the carpet. Don't try to be too precise initially. If you're out at the driving range, I've got an eight-iron here, take a few little shots here, little scale, and just tilt the loft off it. I really wouldn't tilt that much loft off it if I was hitting the shot normally, but it's something I want to play around and get the feel.

That's the key, don't think too much, just play around 'til you get a good combination. Let me try another one. I really felt like the loft came off that club that time. Then do it on a bigger scale and so on. Play around with it, you'll have some success with it. Let's look at the other one. Okay, one of my favorite things in teaching, you bet.

This little yellow broom, I've cut it off to about the length of the three-wood, it's lightweight. Here's the point, if you had to sweep a cement floor or something and flick dust forward, you would need some lean of the bristles, you would need some shaft lean and some pressure against the ground. What you wouldn't need though is the entire broom smashing down towards the concrete floor.

You'd need that if you were gonna try to kill an animal, a rat or something like that. We're not, we're trying to sweep the floor. So people usually with a pretty small amount of thinking can figure out a way to make the broom brush but still get the bristles to lean forward. And you'll notice as that happens, the handle is actually rising a little through the golf ball.

That's what you see with great players. Again, there's enough forward lean that it will average out to a slight downward hit that the handle is rising. Why would the handle be rising? Well, certainly we are not trying to pull it away and chicken wing the thing. That is definitely not something we are trying to do.

We're trying to get a nice pop of the arms down there. But what causes it to rise, when you're bent forward, you're lead side is gonna rotate up as you go through, and of course, your lead arm is attached to that so it will ride up. In addition to that, your hips should be thrusting and tucking a little towards the target.

That adds a little bit of side bend to the spine like this, and that combination gives you that little bit of rise. You still got plenty of room for your arms to go out there. Grab a broom or something, if you don't have one or you don't have a short one, get a golf club, get on the carpet there or on the tee, just practice level and practice tucking your hips underneath you until you just feel that club tick the ground a little bit.

Again, these are things you have to master, nobody can tell you exactly how it feels. It isn't that difficult, and again, go small swings then big ones, you'll get the hang of it. Well I hope that helps you with how to hit your irons pure. You can do this, have fun with the drills. If you like this video, subscribe to the YouTube channel.