Fading / Draw at will with irons

[Sai-Jin]

Erik , or anyone good,

Do you guys have a tip for me , a solid one so I can practice mainly fading the ball at will?

Most of my shots are draws and sometimes straights. My main errors are push.

But also even though my main shots are draws and straights, I still want to know what I do to cause them so I'm aware rather than

just think it happens automatically.

Thanks

Oh btw, my set up is usually slightly closed stace and square face and I usually keep the ball infront of my sternum.

starting 7 and up irons, I square my stance and open a little to PW.

[max power]

I'd focus on hitting it straight "at will" first, but a closed stance will in most cases make fading the ball more difficult.  Try a neutral or slightly open stance, even with longer irons.

[senorchipotle]

line up your clubface where you want to start the ball. let's say just left of the green. when you address the ball, open your stance but keep the face constant. so you might want to weaken your grip just a tad. swing along the line where your clubface is pointed, with a little more width on the backswing and downswing. others might do it differently, but this is how i accomplish it.

[Sai-Jin]

Cool, thanks.

I actually tried this before and I ended up fading the ball very strongly.

How about square stance, but open / close the face and swing normal?

[RayG]

As mentioned above. Line up the club with the landing spot. Adjust your stance- open for a fade, closed for a draw. But this is important- take your grip according to the STANCE, then take a normal swing as dictated by the swing. Just remember to add a club for a fade, drop one for a draw.

[Leftygolfer]

I don't see much of an advantage of shaping your irons.  I think it would be best to set up consistantly and try to hit the same shot.  If the pin is opossite your normal shot, just shoot for the center of the green.  It is hard enough to hit greens with one shot.

[RayG]

Bending around that tree or bush is a skill that can lower your scores. Maybe you didn't quite get to the corner of the dogleg- you can use the ability to draw or fade to get further around the corner than just laying up to the corner. I don't use these shots as a normal shot, but being able to do it certainly impresses my partners AND maybe opponents.

[SESHONE]

hitting a draw produces more distance so if u aim a little right it will still end up going straight but further!

[dsc123]

I certainly don't qualify as one of the better players on here, I've recently started to try shaping the ball, with the help of the discussions on this forum.  Still struggling with it--every now and then i hit a slice, then stand more open to correct it, and end up with a bigger slice, and have to remind myself that that's not how it works.  So its a work in progress.  But damn is it fun!

Do exactly what seniorchipotle said.  I like to set up with everything square to the line i want the ball to start on, then keeping the clubface where it is, i open my stance a bit further.  The more you open, the more it curves.  I read elsewhere on here that you want to have your stance open to the target twice as much as your club face is open to the target.  Maybe its stance 2 times as open to the club face as your club face is open to the target.  But play with it.

Like RayG said, it can really help you out of trouble.  I found myself behind a tree yesterday, and just before hitting a 56 to get over a tree and back onto the fairway, about 150 yds out, I pulled out a 9 and bent it around the tree.  I actually ended up bending it back into the rough on the same side where i started, but only needed a PW to GIR.  I dont think i've ever been that excited by a 9 iron into the rough.  If i was more confident with it, I might have chosen a 6 and tried to ride it up to the green.

Another place where it really helped was again, from the trees, about 160 yds from the hole.  The limbs prevented anything high, so normally i would just try to chip back onto the fairway.  Instead i hit a line drive and got it to shoot through the opening in the trees, then bend up towards the hole.  Left me with a short pitch instead of a long wedge into the green.

Like I said, i'm definitely not one of the better pl[ayers on here, but i've been trying what they've said, and had success.  I think it makes the game much more fun.

[phillyk]

My normal shot is a draw as well, and when I focus on hitting a small fade, I use less rotation and less wrists.  This allows me to control a slight outside in swing path. It might sacrifice my distance, but improves my accuracy.

[Sean Dainty]

To hit a fade, opening your stance a little is essential, but one thing that has not been mentioned is to ensure you swing along your feet line. While this may be intuitive, knowing this in your head while you swing is essential to a controlled fade. Hope that helps!

[Sai-Jin]

Thanks for the tips!

Sean: You said swing along the feet line, but the back swing is straight back per club face angle, correct?

Also, someone here mentioned that my grip has to be according to the feet line too? Really?

[senorchipotle]

sa jin.... depending upon the player, you're going to swing along a different "line." my ball flight is a natural fade, so if i line up open and swing along my foot path i'll slice it to high heaven. so i just play the ball a little bit more forward than normal and swing in the same direction as my face is pointed. i come slightly out to in by starting the club back a little out side the line and come just a bit over the top. this is just my feel however, and when i look at it on film it doesn't look much different from my normal shot. this is an example of how i fade a club, as demonstrated by bubba watson:

[Sai-Jin]

Holy mother of.... Bubba is nuts....

Hmm... I can't see the difference in swing... he has square stance and just comes a little from the outside?

[senorchipotle]

you can't see that his stance is open here? look at his feet. he's lined up towards the woods! look at the grass line between his feet and the ball as a reference. the line is going straight, and his stance is clearly open to that line. his shoulders however, are square to the grass line and he starts the ball out on this path.

[Sai-Jin]

O YEA!! ok, i think i understand more now.

Gonna give this a try.

Thanks!

[zeg]

Originally Posted by Sai-Jin

Thanks for the tips!

Sean: You said swing along the feet line, but the back swing is straight back per club face angle, correct?

Also, someone here mentioned that my grip has to be according to the feet line too? Really?

I can't execute the shot with much consistency, but you definitely do NOT want to swing along your face angle.  If you do that, you'll get a dead pull if you're trying for a fade.

The tip that RayG cited above about lining up with the club face aimed at the landing point is the conventional wisdom, but it's technically incorrect.  There are a few long threads about "ball flight laws" on here, but the quick summary is that if you actually strike the ball with the club face aimed at your landing point and a swing path that is open relative to that angle, you will hit a ball that starts nearly at the landing point and then fades beyond that.  If you mean the ball to start left of the target and then to fade to the target, you need a club face at impact that is aimed left of the target (i.e. more open for a right-hander) and a swing path that's more open than that.  This is as dsc123 described.

One thing to note, and why I wouldn't say that RayG's conventional wisdom is "actually wrong" is that feel and reality often don't match, and just because you line up with your club facing in a particular direction does not mean that you will return to that same angle even if you feel that you hit the shot you intended.  The golf swing is complex, and your body learns how to react to your intentions to achieve a desired result.  I suspect the reason that the advice RayG gave has survived so long is that it's effective in "tricking" your body to get the effect you want.  Still, I think it's good to know the ball flight laws so you can work on the technical details correctly when things aren't working.

[Sai-Jin]

Zeg: Ok. I'll keep all those in mind and experiment tomorrow.

So it's like as if it's a reversed Draw

Thanks