Getting More from Your Irons

Today I've got a quick link to an iron lesson at Golf Digest about Xander Schauffele and his looooong irons. I mean long as in "he hits a loooooong way." There's a neat drill there you might want to try.



The article attributes much of Xander's length to (1) precise contact and (2) hitting the ball with less loft. What is different here is that you aren't given the same old advice to make sure your hands are ahead of the ball at impact. The recommended drill is what I want you to get from this article.

This is a drill for iron play, not drivers. The ball is on the turf, not a tee... but you do use a tee.

Put the tee in the ground about six inches ahead of your golf ball and just barely inside your target line, sticking up high as if you were going to hit a drive off of it. Then, simply enough, try to create a divot toward that tee when you hit your shot, a divot that is as long as you can get it. You aren't trying to hit the tee, just create a long shallow divot. The tee is to help you "aim" your divot.

The idea is simple. If you strike down too steeply on the ball, you'll get a short deep divot. If you create a long shallow divot, you'll still be hitting down on the ball -- that's how you get a divot, after all -- but you'll shallow out your attack angle enough to launch the ball a bit higher. That will translate to more distance and, according to the article, more accuracy.

That sounds like a good deal to me.