Iron advise

[Caine]

Relatively new to golf and I have a question. Of all my clubs my best club is my 6 iron I can hit it 180 yards practically every swing, but my other irons I cant hit. My 7 iron I usually slice my 5 iron I can never get off the ground. Is there something in my swing that we make me unable to duplicate the results of my 6 iron with the rest of my irons?

[Kieran123]

Yes. Inconsistency.....everyone has it, especially beginners.

Practice, practice, practice!!!

There is no reason you can't hit a 5 iron, and one day you will be able to

If you can get a video fo your swing and post it here, many of us can help you identify problem areas

[tws1098]

Originally Posted by Kieran123

Yes. Inconsistency.....everyone has it, especially beginners.

Practice, practice, practice!!!

There is no reason you can't hit a 5 iron, and one day you will be able to

If you can get a video fo your swing and post it here, many of us can help you identify problem areas

What he said.

[The Recreational Golfer]

If you can hit a 6-iron 180, what the heck do you need a 5-iron for?

Really, though, get a lesson. The pro will be able to see right off what the problem is.

[basscat348]

Lesson are over rated IMO .It all boils down to perfect practice and time into the game.I can hit a 6 iron 180 on a smooooth swing or jump on it and go 195-200 ,its all about club head speed and the ability to make perfect contact at those high swing speeds .

[shortstop20]

Originally Posted by basscat348

Lesson are over rated IMO .It all boils down to perfect practice and time into the game.I can hit a 6 iron 180 on a smooooth swing or jump on it and go 195-200 ,its all about club head speed and the ability to make perfect contact at those high swing speeds .

.....and some people don't have the swing knowledge or a good enough senses to feel what they're actually doing to improve by themselves.

[max power]

But give him credit for working in a nice boast about his 200 yd 6 iron.

Originally Posted by shortstop20

.....and some people don't have the swing knowledge or a good enough senses to feel what they're actually doing to improve by themselves.

[B-Con]

I think that most beginners have one iron that they're good with from the start, despite struggling with the rest. I think it's usually an 8, 7, or 6 iron. The reason one of them feels good is probably that it fits naturally with your preferred stance and spine angle to the ground at address. When you switch irons, you get a longer shaft and a different club lie angle, so you have adjust your stance and swing ever so slightly to compensate. Making that adjustment is difficult without practice, the more you practice the more naturally you will be able to assume the varying stances. What I've done in the past to get past to get used to it is to work on sets of three consecutive irons exclusively during a practice session, switching off between them frequently. After I feel comfortable with those three, I'd keep one of them and then work on the next set of three. Eg, for two sessions I'd just do the the PW, 9, and 8, then I'd do a couple sessions of just the 8, 7, and 6. I didn't find working on one iron at a time to be very useful because then I never got to compare the different feelings between the irons, and you have to be able to get to the point where any iron falls into your hand and you can swing it naturally.

[WUTiger]

Quote:

Really, though, get a lesson. The pro will be able to see right off what the problem is.

Yes. + +  A pro can help a beginner more in 15 minutes than the beginner can find out himself in weeks of trial and error. Everyone has a swing inside - you just need someone to help you bring it out.

[B-Con]

Quote:

Yes. + +  A pro can help a beginner more in 15 minutes than the beginner can find out himself in weeks of trial and error. Everyone has a swing inside - you just need someone to help you bring it out.

I don't want to sound at all like I'm discouraging getting lessons, but I think that for the OPs specific problem there's a lot that he can do to help himself. Odds are good that even with the one club he's comfortable with he's still hitting it poorly, but it feels far more comfortable to him than the other irons do. I'm fairly confident that's because he has a natural stance (stance width, spine angle, arm angle, and even club weight feeling) that feels perfect to him and a 6-iron happens to meet it. I think there's a decent amount that he can do to transfer the [i]existing[/i] feeling from one club to the other clubs. A beginner will always benefit from instruction, but I think his specific problem isn't betting his all-round iron plays so much as it is just taking what he already has and getting a better feel for that. An instructor can make his swing better, but I don't think they can make his internal feel what what he already knows much better, that's more of an issue of practice and mental discipline. If he took this problem to them they'd just fix his swing, which, while beneficial, isn't his specific problem. [edit] Whoops, a premature submit left an unfinished sentence.

[clombardi]

A lesson might help and might not. Instead of spending the money on a lesson, have one of your playing partners watch your swing at the range and see what he says. I have done this for friends and it has helped, and I am not one to give any lesson. Just try that first and see how it goes, if not then get a lesson im just not a fan of them, and it will save you some $$.

[Blades4me]

Get a lesson or a set of 3 lessons. Lessons ARE NOT overrated. If you don't have the fundamentals down you will ingrain bad swing habits which will be even more difficult to get rid of; (and bad swing habits in golf are very, very easy to fall into). A good PGA teacher is well worth it. Find a teacher you can relate to.

I doubt your buddies know enough about the golf swing to be of much help; well unless of course they are a PGA teacher.

[basscat348]

The thing im getting at is if your going to give a guy or a business (example Golf Tec inside Golfsmith here locally) $500 for 3 Lessons just for them to give you some knowledge about the golf swing and show you a video is totally absurd to me.I have had 1 lesson in my life and it was a total waste of money and time (and no Im not boasting about it im just stating a fact). The key in golf is understanding the swing and most importantly your swing because everyone is different until impact where it should be the same.I have said here repeatedly read books,magazines,look at the golf channel etc to gather info, the person who mentioned having a buddy watch you is a great way I had a friend  who did that.You can become a good golfer in a couple years but hey if you got the money to blow on some instructor basically explaining what you could have learned elsewhere then I say go for it.I have seen so many people get lessons and they never help it just amazes me.

If your set on getting lessons this is the only thing I would suggest that you do.Dont get lessons from someone where your just hitting a ball into a net,you need to be able to see the result's of what you are accomplishing and the range is the best place .

[iacas]

Originally Posted by basscat348

The key in golf is understanding the swing and most importantly your swing because everyone is different until impact where it should be the same.

The counter-argument to your bizarre rant against instructors is: why waste years when you can acquire the knowledge in a much shorter time period with a good instructor? Too many people who try to "figure it out on their own" hit a ceiling or spend just as much money buying books, etc.

As for the italicized part, uh, no.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Originally Posted by basscat348

The thing im getting at is if your going to give a guy or a business (example Golf Tec inside Golfsmith here locally) $500 for 3 Lessons just for them to give you some knowledge about the golf swing and show you a video is totally absurd to me.

$500 for three lessons? Good grief! That's absurd to me, too.

How about getting a lesson from a qualified professional who charges ~$45 for a half hour and ~$80 for an hour? (Going rates in the PNW)

Really. Unless you're an original genius, you need lessons to get better.

And iacas is right about plateaus. I was stuck on 20 and had some lessons to get me moving.

Now I'm stuck at 10, so I had a series of lessons last fall to do the same.

[saevel25]

When you get stuck at 10, then its all about game management, and fine tuning that shot pattern. I am a big advocate of playing one shot type, i like the concept. There are those who like to shape it, but under pressure we fall to our tendencies and i like to know that my tendency is either the fade or the draw.

I would get a book on the mental aspect of the game, some self help books can work as well

I would practice different strategies on the course, think about the hole, how you want to play it, try to execute that plan.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Agreed. I know that I throw away about three shots per round because of bad decision-making.

But the lessons I got last fall were to learn advanced playing skills that I saw in better players, but I didn't know how to teach myself. There's certainly nothing wrong with being a more skilled player.

In my practice rounds this winter, though, I've found that more skills, more options, make it easier for me to decide what to do; makes me a better course manager.

For example, can you hit the ball 100 yards with a PW, a 9-iron, and an 8-iron? If you have learned how to do this, you have also learned why you should know how, and that's wind.

Knowing how to hit a fade or draw on command, for example, which I formerly could not do (and am still learning, BTW), makes it much easier to hit into the green because I have more options that make sense.

Things like lie and wind make a lot more sense because I learned specifically how to play through those variables and now I'm looking for them ahead of time instead of forgetting about them until after the shot has been made.

Gotta go. My golf buddy just showed up and we're heading out to the course.

[EverythingGolf]

Originally Posted by Caine

Relatively new to golf and I have a question. Of all my clubs my best club is my 6 iron I can hit it 180 yards practically every swing, but my other irons I cant hit. My 7 iron I usually slice my 5 iron I can never get off the ground. Is there something in my swing that we make me unable to duplicate the results of my 6 iron with the rest of my irons?

This game is the most difficult to play and understand. When I started to play I hit the biggest slices, fat , and thin shots ever. After a few years of playing and hundreds of tips from my friends, who are good players, and getting no where I told myself its time to try lessons. After the first lesson I was able to hit the ball straighter and it was the greatest thing I ever did. Now you are not going to go and get a lesson and then be able to hit great golf shots. It takes several years of practice and lessons to see an improvement. So you should go to a local pro and get a few lessons to understand how the swing works so you can play better golf.