Contact Drill

Does anyone have any good drills to practice making that good contact with the ball with my irons. I know just constantly hitting is the best way of doing this but I was just curious if there was any drills to help me get more consitant contact hitting the same spot on the ball. Thanks

I used to hit alot of balls keeping my feet together.

Lately I am hitting alot of chip, pitch, and punch shots to improve contact. I focus on keeping my weight forward, and keeping the hands leading the clubhead (i.e. no flipping).

I was just getting ready to fire up a thread on how I've been expanding my homebrew impact drills. I'm only a year in, have a couple of conflicting information lessons that I've abandoned, and have gone to almost exclusively doing my stupid little impact drills for around the house practice. Last couple of 9's I've played have been solidly in bogey golf territory -- Drastic improvement for just a few months, in my opinion.

Anyway, to begin with I sort of combined the idea of 'chips and pitches' with Hogan's slow-motion drill. Essentially, I was standing in my yard looking like a tool for hours on end doing slow-motion chips. Just getting the feel for impact path and clubface angle. I'm doing them at about half speed these days, though if things get out of whack I'll drop back down to slow motion to see what's going on.

Between that practice and a few swing vids, I've located the source of all of my mishits (I'm sure I'll find a few new ways to mishit it as the season goes on, but for now...). Can see in slow mo how my main issues (Improperly setting my wrists on the backswing and getting out of sync with my lower body are the biggest culprits, and they can produce a variety of problems) creep into the impact zone.

It's worked well for me with solid contact and getting my body parts all on the same page. However, it's probably one of the less exciting practice sessions I've enjoyed. *hah* Takes a pretty boring personality to spend over an hour in one's front yard slow-motion chipping the little plastic ball up against the wall.

Haven't found a club it doesn't help with, yet -- Hell, I was focus-tapping my driver off the turf the other day. Only have to pull it back a foot or two and that little whiffle ball just ZIPS, haha.

I have a drill that has helped me make solid contact with all my clubs including the driver. The drill is practicing with the wedges. I will go out to a grassy practice area and start hitting wedge shot until I make consistent solid contact. When I mean solid contact, I mean middle of the face on the wedge. when you make solid contact you will first feel the contact, hear the click and finally see the mark it leaves on the center face. I found that if I focus on my backswing especially how I lift the club on the backswing and the position of my club at hip high has help me position my club for solid consistent contact. When the wedge is hip high on the back swing the toe is pointing up, the shaft is in line with the target and the wedge face is perpendicular to the target,

Mike Weir and Justin Leonard both have a pre-shot routine that rehearse the backswing and position.

Once you make solid consistent contact with your wedges you can slowly move up to PW and all the way to your fairway wood and finally to your driver. It works for me when ever I need to find my club and just before a round of golf.

As soon as I read your question, I thought, "wedges." ks8829 beat me to the punch. I cannot think of better advice better said. A teaching pro I used to see told me that to tune up his full swing before a tournament, he would hit lots of wedges.

I like the half swing and focus on the divot. It helps me feel what good impact is.

This is what I've been practicing at the range. It's great because a) the grass ranges are closed for at least another month, so I am forced to hit off mats. This drill works fine off mats, but isn't ideal obviously. And b) it serves the duel purpose of working on acceleration and good contact with my short game.

I was never a fan of those types of impact drills because they force you to straighten your trail arm going through. You loose leverage when you do this and might begin a habit of trying to time the realease, which is impossible. Because of the long winter layoff, ive been at contact drills alot latley and my basic drill is the simple half swing wedge with my thighs sqeezed togther. Lead the club through your crotch with your hands and it all works out. I fight a hook, so the toe up position half way is good for me. Its an open position and my habit is to shut the face.

Here's the drill



And for reference

JETFAN1983, great video, but on a side note how has P90X worked for you since November?

great comment...hate to say it goes over the heads of 90% of the readers.

this is one of the best drills i've ever seen for good contact, tempo, and what a golf swing is supposed to be.

I practice yesterday, slowly taking the club back in position. almost in slow motion and simply returning to the ball making solid contact with my wedges.

So I struggled with a "dip" that started my downswing. I would slide too far forward, dip my shoulder and solid contact went out the window. A lot of solid contact comes from getting through the ball on the swing, like the ball just gets in the way, you're not even trying to hit it. What most people do on chip shots without even trying because its a smooth, accelerating strike.

A drill that someone gave me that i sort of liked was: hold the club by the its head, so you're swinging the shaft. When you swing it you'll hear a whooosh as the butt end passes the zone. Try to make that whooosh sound outside your front foot.

Typically if you're hitting at the ball instead of coming through it the sound will be right in front of you. The only way to make the sound come from outside your front foot is to come all the way through the shot.

Definitely consider half-swings if your contact goes - focus on clipping the ball off the turf/mat, not hitting the ground first and then steadily increase your swing length. A "free gift" included with this drill is that it reminds you how far you can actually hit a well-struck iron with only a short swing. My own experience says that I can hit a ball about 80% of the distance with 50% of the swing (and waaay more accurately), but I just can't bring myself to apply that mantra out on the course! Maybe I'll try it for a full 18 when I'm on my own one day!

Here's my theory and I'm 100% correct...........20% of the time.

You read about all these slow motion, half swing, or pitching drills that quite the swing down, but what do they all have in common, they keep your lower half(right knee to be specific) very quite in the swing. For shits and giggles video yourself doing an easy pitch shot......then a full long iron/driver. I would put some money on your lower half moving much more on the full shot than the pitch shot......given you are not thinking about it. Look at the pros, no matter the shot the good ball strikers have little movement in their right knee....they keep that consistent "Flex" in the backswing. I practice keeping the flex in my right knee consistent on the way back and this really helps in creating solid ball contact on the way down.....no matter the club.

Obviously there are so many other factors that could lead to inconsistent shots....even while keeping a consistent knee flex, hopefully this will click for somebody. Did I use the word consistent too much?

This is one of the 80%. All the good players straighten the right knee during the backswing. Not fully straight to where the knee locks, but it definitely straightens. On the downswing, the right knee should move towards the left foot, rolling the right foot inwards.

It is the hip rotation that cause the right knee to straighten and the left too gain more bend on the backswing. If you keep the flex constant, the hips won't be able to rotate on the backswing. Without the rotation back, the hips have to wait for the upper body to rotate first, before it starts turning, gaining speed. This means you have to start the downswing with the upper body, and during the downswing let the lower body take over. A terribly difficult way of playing golf. Without hip rotation, you'll end up either swinging too much with the upper body, or coming over the top. The hips should rotate about 45 degrees, which is downright impossible while keeping the flex in your knees.