How to Stop Topping Your Iron Shots
Introduction
One of the most common causes of wasted strokes during a round of golf – for beginners and even some more advanced players – is the topped iron shot. Imagine you have just hit a beautiful drive that found the fairway on a par four hole and now all you have left is a semi-long iron into the green. Getting the ball to the green will allow you to have a shot at birdie, but it is absolutely essential to hit the green on this second shot to at least have a reasonable chance at a par. Unfortunately, the thought of a potential birdie or at least a reasonable shot at par, combined with the negative thoughts of wasting another beautiful drive come together all-too-frequently to make the second shot on a hole like the one described here one of the most difficult golf shots for beginners. Couple that with poor swing technique with the golf irons and you have the making of one of the most common scenarios for wasted strokes that plague almost any golfer: the topped iron shot. In this tutorial, we’ll take a look at how you can reduce or even eliminate these types of wasted strokes from your next round of golf with just a few simple golf swing tips.
Why You Top the Golf Ball
Let’s take a look at the reasons why it is so common (read: easy) for many golfers to top the golf ball, especially with their irons. As I preach all over this website it is ALWAYS how the club face contacts the golf ball th
at determines EVERYTHING. So how does this apply to your iron shots? Let’s take a look at an image to help visualize exactly how you want your iron’s face to contact the ball. As you can see from the picture to the left, when the leading or lower edge of an iron contacts the golf ball below the center line (called the equator) the result is flight or loft. The opposite is also true: When the leading edge of the club face contacts the ball at or above this center line the result is a topped golf shot.
Contact Below Equator = Flight.
Contact Above Equator = Topped Iron Shot, Frustration, Wasted Stroke.
The reasons the club face may contact the ball too high are generally because the golfer lifted his or her head too early to see where their shot was headed. When you lift your head it is almost a guarantee that your leading shoulder is also lifted, resulting in a different (slightly higher) club position at impact. Another common reason for having the club raised too high above the ground at impact is fear of contacting the ground or the ‘I am afraid I might hurt my hands’ shot. So now that you know WHY you top your iron shots, let’s analyze how to stop topping your iron shots.
One of the common ‘sayings’ or words of wisdom given to beginning iron players is that you need to ‘hit down on the ball’ and I really hate that piece of advice because it gives the impression that the golf ball should be driven into the ground. As you can see from the close-up picture above and as you will learn from the video below that demonstrates a simple golf drill to stop topping the ball, this is not exactly true. The image above does depict a dotted line to illustrate the path of the club face and – as you can see – it is at a slightly downward sloping angle, but the angle is almost imperceptible and trying to intentionally achieve this downward contact is almost impossible and can lead to hitting into the ground. The key to remember is that contact between the leading club edge and the golf ball that occurs anywhere below the center line of the ball prevents topping.
Head Down – Ball Up
Head Up – Ball Down
How to Stop Topping Iron Shots Video
Analysis
The main idea to keep in mind from the video is that your legs or weight needs to be shifted more towards your front the further towards the front of your stance the ball lies. While the drill presented above is an excellent one and the idea very sound, my advice is to ALWAYS play the ball in the same position in your stance, but stand farther away from the golf ball with the longer irons (3,4, 5 and 6) and closer with the shorter irons (7, 8, 9). By doing this, it is much easier to make consistent contact (or bottom out with your club as the instructor in the video puts it) in the same position and the same way with every club.
Conclusion
So just to summarize:
1) Contact the golf ball below the center line (or equator) with the leading (lower) edge of your iron
2) Keep your head down throughout the golf shot
3) Don’t be afraid of contacting the ground with your club – it’s necessary for a good golf shot
4) Practice the drill presented in the video, but try altering the drill slightly it so that you keep the ball in the SAME position in your stance, but stand farther away from the ball with the longer irons and closer to the ball with the shorter clubs.
Learning how to stop topping your iron shots is not difficult, but like everything else in golf there is a mental aspect to improving this area of your game, as well as several swing adjustments that you will need to make and a practice regimen that would be good to run through several times prior to playing your next round.
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Left Handed Golf Tips to Improve Your Swing
It’s a fact – most people are right-handed. This is extremely evident by the overwhelming majority of golfing related items like golf clubs, golf training aids, instructional golf training books, videos and DVDs, as well as golf course designs even that are all aimed directly at the right-handed golfer. But what if you love to golf and are not right-handed? There’s still some hope! Besides looking to players like Phil Mickelson for inspiration, here are just a few left-handed golf tips to help lefties everywhere improve their swing and shoot lower scores.
Tip #1 – Don’t Try to Golf Right-Handed
It’s really unbelievable, but a lot of left-handed men and women actually try to play using standard right-handed golf equipment. Perhaps they think golf is only for ‘righties’. Nothing could be further from the truth and the fact of the matter is that when a left-handed person tries to go against what is natural to them it only makes developing a proper golf swing more difficult and the game of golf less fun.
If a golfer is left-handed, but tries to force themselves to play right-handed what generally happens is that their dominant hand (their left-hand) becomes their leading or ‘pulling’ hand throughout the swing, which is contrary to what should be happening. A golfer’s dominant hand should be their ‘pushing’ hand for power and follow-through. However, when a person’s dominant hand becomes their leading hand throughout the golf swing this disrupts the even tempo of the golf swing and can lead to errant shots. Many lefties trying to golf right-handed also slice the ball for this reason. So if you are left-handed, play golf that way!
Tip #2 – Emulate Left-Handed Golfers
Everyone has a favorite golfer and odds are your favorite golfer plays right-handed since over three-quarters of all people who play golf play right-handed (notice I didn’t say they ARE right-handed I said they PLAY right-handed, obviously there are quite a few golfers who violate tip number one). Try to identify how your favorite ‘lefty’ positions their stance and clears their hips. Observe their swing and the club position throughout the backswing and the downswing, including the follow through. See if they are doing anything that may help you the next time you practice your swing.
Tip #3 – Use Left-Handed Golf Equipment
As we saw above a large portion of the golf market is aimed at right-handed golfers, but this doesn’t mean that people who are left-handed should sacrifice. Yes, there may not be quite as many left-handed golf club sets as there are right-handed club sets, but using proper clubs for your height, stance, and body is very important. Use a good set of left-handed golf clubs or even have a set custom fitted to your body and golf swing. Having custom-fitted golf clubs is probably one of the best tips I can give here to the left-handed golfer.
So you can see that all is not lost if you love to play golf and are left-handed. Just remember these 3 simple left-handed golf tips: Don’t try to golf right-handed, find a south-paw and try to emulate their golf swing, and have your golf clubs custom fitted by someone who understands the challenges left handed golfers face. Now go get those ‘righties’.
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Top 10 Golf Shots of All Time
Introduction
This is definitely more of a fun post than anything really educational, but sometimes it is nice to deviate from the normal lesson-like format in which I try to bring you the best golf swing tips that I know and use through educational postings and training products and present something purely for entertainment value. While there are certainly some more ‘famous’ golf shots in history, the videos below are the best golf shots of all time – according to me! So feel free to disagree and post comments about which shots you think are the best you have ever seen in all of golf. Please note that this post is NOT ESPN’s Top 10 Golf Shots of all time. Sit back and enjoy the videos below!
Tiger Woods Chip Shot at the 2005 Master’s
Simplify Your Golf Swing and Lower Your Scores!
Tom Watson at the 17th Hole of the 1982 U.S. Open
Phil Mickelson 2nd Shot, 13th Hole 2010 Masters
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Vijay Singh at the 16th Hole, 2009 Masters (Unbelievable!)
Leif Olen 2009 Canadian Open
Miguel Jimenez 2010 British Open (Off-the-Wall)
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Michele Wie at the 11th, 2009 Canadian Women’s Open
Fuzzy Zoeller 16th hole, Allianz Championship
John Senden, 2nd hole, 2009 Deutsche Bank Championship (250-yd Double Eagle)
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Robert Allenby, 13th Hole, 2010 WGC CA Championship at Doral
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Conclusion
So there you have it! My personal choices for the top 10 golf shots of all time. One of my favorite things about the golf shots presented in these videos is the unexpectedness and player reactions to the shots after they realized what actually happened. That’s what helped me select these ten golf shots as the best of all time. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this video compilation of the best golf shots I have ever seen and, hopefully, with a little practice and a little luck you’ll be able to create your very own memorable golf moments just like the ones above.
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