Picking it Clean...What does it mean?

[ks8829]

short iron shots need a divot for solid contact. The reason for this is if you hit the ball in the center of your iron face your can not help but take a divot after hitting the ball on the turf just in front of where the ball was. If you are not taking a divot you could be hitting your iron a groove or more too low or thin.

[shaun]

Originally Posted by ks8829

short iron shots need a divot for solid contact. The reason for this is if you hit the ball in the center of your iron face your can not help but take a divot after hitting the ball on the turf just in front of where the ball was. If you are not taking a divot you could be hitting your iron a groove or more too low or thin.

Yep, that's right. Do you ever take a divot? Do you sweep the ground after the ball? If not, without seeing your swing, I'd assume that you're hitting the ball slightly on the "up" -- that is, your body (including your legs) and your arms are too far "behind" the ball coming into impact, and you flip the club with your hands to make solid-ish contact. You can check whether this is happening by forcing yourself to take a divot. If you find this uncommonly difficult, or if you can only hit the ball fat, then you have a problem.

While some posters have commented that a divot isn't sbsolutely necessary, i think it's beyond argument that it's certainly desirable, at least with clubs shorter than, say, a 5-iron. If you take a divot, you'll know a couple of things. First, if your divot was correctly positioned after the ball, you know your contact was good. Second, if your divot is pointing along the target line, you'll know that your downswing was probably on plane.

Good luck.

[Zeph]

Isn't the only difference that the ball is struck closer to the bottom of the swing, so the club doesn't go low enough to take a divot? Like hitting a wood at the bottom of the swing.

[chilly]

I don't take a divot with any iron, always found it a bit strange. I may "trim" the grass in front of the ball on shorter irons, but never a divot. Odd thing is that I hit the highest ball of anyone I play with, by a large margin, my 9iron literally has the trajectory of a SW. I don't have distance issues, my 9iron is a 150 club. I'm not too worried about it at this point, I don't really spin the ball but the trajectory makes them drop and stop, just a little tougher playing on windy days.

[Zeph]

Makes perfect sense that you hit it higher. The closer the ball is struck to the bottom of the swing, the more loft is added to the clubhead. With the hands further ahead of the clubhead, the clubhead has less loft at impact.

The clubhead will always reach the lowest point when the shaft is perpendicular to the ground. If you hands are in front of the ball at impact, the shaft will be angled with the butt pointing forward. This means that the clubhead has yet some distance to travel before it's at the lowest point. Which means that if the ball isn't tee'd up, you will brush the grass or take a divot.

If the hands are directly above the ball at impact, the shaft is perpendicular and the clubhead will be at the bottom of the swing. No divot taken there.

If the hands are behind the ball at impact, you've either hit the ground first or hit it thin.

[Zeph]

Some pictures. Probably exaggerated a bit, but it's for demonstrational purpose.

Spoiler:

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[Chas]

Lots of good posts here. If you change to taking a bit of a divot you will be delofting the clubface a tad at contact, hence it will behave more like a "longer" club and you will hit the ball further (except the club will be the same actual length of course ... - that's partly how the pros get those impressive distances with their irons). The ball trajectory will start lower. You definitely want to achieve that in the end - ALL good players do it. So you are right to want to do something about the clean picks with mid/short irons.

Another point, based on a good article I just read that tells you how to intentionally pick a ball clean (e.g. out of a fairway bunker): you may be hanging back a bit with your body on the down stroke and have learned to avoid chunking (the normal consequence of doing that - don't ask me how I know ....). So IMO (without seeing a video I'm guessing) you should try moving your hips foward (towards your target - the famous "bump" move) as you start the down stroke, but of course keep your head just behind the ball all the way to contact (or else you'll push the bezeesus (right, right hander) out of the ball - don't ask me how I know that either .....). You have to commit to a forward movement so that you hit slightly down on the ball with all irons but the longest.

All of this assumes proper ball position, which it seems you have.

p.s. see other threads on this forum about getting that hip move going as you inititate the down stroke - it's really important to proper angle of attack to the ball.