Different swing for Driver and Irons

[Golfer2223]

 

The side view iron shot comes at the end. My point is the left wrist is angled below the right shoulder, not above it. Obviously if the wrist stays below or even with the right shoulder the club will lay flatter. If the wrist angle is too steep an adjustment has to be made to flatten the club on the way down, causing a push unless there is early release.

[saevel25]

@Golfer2223, did you even read what @iacas said.

1 hour ago, iacas said:

@Golfer2223, please start a new topic if you want to cover something outside this topic.

And embed YouTube videos here please. Consult the How To menu at the top if you're not sure how.

This thread is not to talk about your swing theories. Don't hijack threads. If you want to talk about this create your own thread about it. This thread is about if people have different driver and iron swings.

[vangator]

44 minutes ago, iacas said:

If that's the only difference I would say they have a lot more the same than not. Are the swings a golfer makes with a 5I and a 7I "the same"?

For most, a 7i and 5i are different, but not radically.  An iron and driver swing are really quite a bit different.  I always shake my head when I see a divot on a par 5 tee box.  Maybe they're hitting irons.

[Golfer2223]

You know what happened I clicked on new posts and it took me to page 3, so I thought you started the thread talking about your swing. Now I see the original post. Feel free to delete all my comments in this thread whoever has the ability. Rookie mistake.  

[iacas]

2 hours ago, vangator said:

For most, a 7i and 5i are different, but not radically.  An iron and driver swing are really quite a bit different.

I disagree that they're very different. Far, far more in common than not. Wrist angles at A5 are a bit different? Arm angle (setup, impact) a bit different. For many, that's about it. Their posture, etc. remains very similar.

[mvmac]

4 hours ago, vangator said:

For most, a 7i and 5i are different, but not radically.  An iron and driver swing are really quite a bit different. 

If I posted two swings of a golfer at A5, one where the player has a 7 iron and another where the player is hitting a 5 iron, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

An iron swing and a driver swing really aren't that different. The golfer will still hit the same general positions and have the same tempo for both swings. If the swings were different they would look different. If you saw your buddy making a swing from a distance you would be able to recognize his swing, where it was a driver or an iron swing.

[vangator]

7 hours ago, mvmac said:

If I posted two swings of a golfer at A5, one where the player has a 7 iron and another where the player is hitting a 5 iron, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

An iron swing and a driver swing really aren't that different. The golfer will still hit the same general positions and have the same tempo for both swings. If the swings were different they would look different. If you saw your buddy making a swing from a distance you would be able to recognize his swing, where it was a driver or an iron swing.

Yep, I couple of times lately I've been playing and thought I saw a buddy a few fairways over.  Wasn't sure until I saw his swing and then noticed his horrible bucket hat.

I've never videoed myself, but obviously have seen thousands of golfers over the years.  Of course it's probably a gradual change over the entire iron set, I do notice a difference.  The PW and 3i have enough difference that I'd call them "essentially" a different swing.  Obviously they are a lot of similarities because I doubt most consciously try to make really different swing.  Again, there's a lot of similarities with the driver, overall I call it a different swing.  In my case, I know I'm much flatter, more around my body and have a different "release" to generate the impact power than an iron.

For the short irons, I tee very low and try to make the same swing as the turf.  The tee provides a margin of error. 

When I tee a "long" iron for a par 3, I try to make the same swing as if it were on the turf.  However, when teeing off on a par 4, my swing is more like a driver swing than a par 3 swing.  On the par 4 I'm looking for accuracy and distance.  I like the ball to roll whereas on a par 3 I want it to stop.

If I make a different swing with the same club, I certainly make a different swing with an iron and a driver.  Particularly turf versus tee.  Maybe there shouldn't be such a difference, but for me it is what it is.

[mvmac]

@vangator, if you filmed your 7-iron swing and driver swing you wouldn't see much difference. Yes the driver "plane" would be more shallow but a big part of that is the length of the club and the fact the ball is teed up. 

Let's say you have a tendency to roll the club head inside the hands on the takeaway, steepen it on the downswing and tip the head back. You're going to do that with the driver, fairway woods, 5-iron, 9-iron, etc. 

[iacas]

Aside from the shaft being a little flatter on the downswing and being a bit farther "out" away from him at setup and impact, I don't see enough differences here that I'd call them very "different" swings.

2011 Masters.

Camera angles pretty close to the same.

[DrvFrShow]

Erik, quick question on drivers. If one needs to save penalty shots resulting from errant tee shots, out of say 100 balls, how many of those should be hit with a driver?

[vangator]

19 hours ago, mvmac said:

@vangator, if you filmed your 7-iron swing and driver swing you wouldn't see much difference. Yes the driver "plane" would be more shallow but a big part of that is the length of the club and the fact the ball is teed up. 

Let's say you have a tendency to roll the club head inside the hands on the takeaway, steepen it on the downswing and tip the head back. You're going to do that with the driver, fairway woods, 5-iron, 9-iron, etc. 

My daughter has a nice camera.  I'm going to have to get her to film me.  I'm one of those dinosaurs that doesn't own a cell phone.  I'm curious.

Erik, your pictures of Tiger are pretty compelling.  Gets me to wondering.  I'm heading out today to the range before I play to work on my smoothing out my iron swing.  I can see how the swing should be more similar.  Mine certainly doesn't feel that way, but as the saying goes, feel ain't real.  I'm trying to recapture what I was doing this past summer when I was really hitting the ball well. 

I was 2 over on Friday, but I didn't feel like I was playing all that well.  Other than a double bogey I had when we played through a group (really impressed them ), I was getting up and down but not many shots really came off as envisioned.

[iacas]

7 hours ago, DrvFrShow said:

Erik, quick question on drivers. If one needs to save penalty shots resulting from errant tee shots, out of say 100 balls, how many of those should be hit with a driver?

I don't know that I can answer that. Some players are relatively good drivers. Some are relatively poor drivers.

So I'd love to give you a better answer, but… 20-30 seems fine as a very general guideline. Alter the target, though. Hit some at the left tree line. Hit some down the right side of the range. Hit a few down the middle. Pretend one of the greens is a big pond on some. That sort of thing.

4 hours ago, vangator said:

Erik, your pictures of Tiger are pretty compelling. Gets me to wondering. I'm heading out today to the range before I play to work on my smoothing out my iron swing.  I can see how the swing should be more similar.  Mine certainly doesn't feel that way, but as the saying goes, feel ain't real.  I'm trying to recapture what I was doing this past summer when I was really hitting the ball well.

Yeah, I'm not ever going to say that the driver and irons are identical. There are differences. They're just what I would call "minimal" differences. They're not huge.

There are more differences from driver to hybrid, too, than hybrid to wedge, simply because the driver presents a different challenge: the ball is not sitting on the ground, and it's a club without a pre-set distance we try to hit it (except maybe a minimum distance!). I still wouldn't call them "big" differences.

And, maybe your swing has more differences, though if you have single-length irons, those should be less than even the minor ones you could spot in Tiger or someone else who is quite good.