Was Thinning Pretty Bad

[iacas]

Lately (the past two or three rounds) I've been thinning the ball really badly. That, or I'd hit it fat an inch or two.

Granted, I'd still shoot 80 or 78 or whatever, but good contact with my irons was rare and I've been putting and chipping well to make up for the poor iron play.

Figured out what I was doing wrong today: my hands had crept back in my stance a little. The clubhead was a little ahead of my hands at address with my irons. Moving my hands ahead again re-set the bottom of my swing and again led to the proper downward attack at the ball.

Instant fix. On the second swing with an iron with this technique, I literally put the ball to kick-in distance for birdie. I striped a 4-iron 185 yards dead straight into a 20 MPH wind. Hit a 6-iron 170 into the same wind on the next hole. BAM, instant fix.

[bigboom]

this sounds like a problem that i suffer from, i'll have to make mental note of it next time. but my problem is mainly more getting it fat an inch or two like you mentioned. how far ahead are your hands relative to your clubhead?

[powerhitter]

Ill be honest it really doesn't matter how far ahead or behind your hands are till impact. That is when it really counts, but im sure starting off the right way makes the game a whole lot easier, lol. I normally have my left hand around my left thigh give or take 2 inches.

[MGP]

Erik, I had the same problem for my first 6-8 eight rounds this year.

I felt like I was putting a good swing on the ball but everything was a little thin just like you. At first I played it off as getting used to my new irons but then I went to the range and hit about half of my shots well. I also built my clubs to fit me and my swing so I was pretty sure it wasn't a club issue. I knew I could hit good shots with the irons but something was just slightly wrong. Instead of panicking I decided to "play though it" and just pay attention to the little details of my swing as much as I could. I've had the same basic swing for about 30 yrs. and I wasn't going to make any major changes now!

Then finally a couple rounds ago I made a similar adjustment to yours with my swing and all of a sudden it "clicked". Much higher and longer shots and a lot better consistency. During that round I went from working hard to shoot 45 on the front (made some very good up and downs) to shooting 40 on the back while still missing a couple 4 ft. range putts.

Interestingly (and probably not coincidently), my driving miraculously became much straighter and a bit longer when the iron swing change "clicked".