Swing experts Grant Waite and Joseph Mayo discuss how to control trajectory with short iron shots.
Hi, my name is Joseph Mayo from Waite Mayo Golf; and I'm here today with my teaching partner Grant Waite. In this short video clip, Grant is going to explain to us how to control the trajectory of our short irons.
Okay, so first thing we know that at impact, dynamically, the amount of loft that's on the club face is king. That's one of the big determinations of launch angle. Now we're trying to bring the trajectory down; and over time, on the PGA Tour, the best short iron players have been guys that knew how to control the trajectory. They knew how to bring it a little bit lower rather than throwing it way up in the air. So this is really important for us to understand how to do this.
So what are the pieces that control dynamic loft at impact? Well, we're going to do some things at address that's going to help us. The first thing is we're going to take the handle, and we're going to push it a little bit forward; that's already taking some of the static loft that's going to help us, so at impact, dynamic loft is less. We're going to put the ball further back in our stance, which increases our angle of attack. Now as the angle of attack goes more down, that helps launch the ball lower.
So you're saying hitting down does not make it go up?
Absolutely not.
That's a great point.
No, the coefficient of friction on that face is pulling or stifling that launch angle some amount. So, we're going to have the ball back, and we're going to have the handle forward. Now, the key element in the swing here is that the butt of the club has to keep moving at the same rate as the club head. Now, they're going at different miles an hour, because this is further out on the edge. This is the distal object; so it's like a record player, where we have the inside part of the record going at some speed, the outside part going at the same rate, but they're going at different miles per hour. So that's how that works.
So the biggest thing is we're going to keep the butt of the club going with the club head, so we can control that dynamic loft. Now the opposite would be in a driver, as you come down towards impact this butt of the club is slowing down, the club head is speeding up, putting loft on there. It passes the hands at some point, and now you're getting loft on the club and you launch it higher. So that's why we do this with a short iron. So here we go; butt of the club's forward, ball's back, I'm going to increase my angle of attack, and I'm going to long arc my follow-through, keeping the butt of the club going.
Grant, that was a wonderful demonstration; way to keep that ball down. Guys, thank you so much for watching this video. On behalf of Grant Waite, I'm Joseph Mayo; thank you for watching.