How Do You Hit Your long Irons?

What’s the difference between hitting your 9-iron and hitting your 3-iron? What a huge question! There are 5-other golf clubs between these 2-clubs - So surely you need to swing them differently. Right? I mean, isn’t that what everybody says you need to do?

It’s like the Monkey says - “You need to hit down with your short irons and sweep your long irons.”

Have you ever heard that before? So the question is - If you hit down on your short irons and sweep your long irons - what do you do with your mid-irons? Do you kind of hit down and kind of sweep at the same time?

Should you hit more down on your 8-iron than you do on your 7-iron? And if so, how much more? And do you sweep your 3-iron more than you sweep your 4-iron? If you say yes to any of these questions - it’s no wonder that you might be struggling on the golf course - even Tiger and Annika aren’t thinking about being that precise!

So the question continues - What’s the cut-off point that says you’ve moved from short irons to mid irons and mid irons to long irons? Some Monkeys say that the short irons consist of the Sand Wedge, Pitching Wedge, 9-iron and 8-iron. The mid-irons include the 7, 6, and 5. The long irons are the 4 and 3. And some others consider the SW, PW and 9 to be short irons - the 8, 7 and 6 to be mid and the 5, 4 and 3 to be the long irons.

Now this is serious Monkey business because if you don’t know which category the 5-iron goes in, how do you know if you’re supposed to sweep it like a long iron or do that half hit down and half sweep thing that you’re supposedly supposed to do with your mid-irons.
This is so confusing!

(It’s now wonder the Monkeys are having so many problems! Because if it’s this difficult to read, it’s probably100 times more difficult to do.)

Yet, the Player doesn’t put their clubs into the ’short iron’, ‘mid iron’ and ‘long iron’ categories. Maybe that’s why they’re less confused on the golf course and more confident with their golf swing. The Player just swings all their clubs the same way. The Player says - “If I swing all my clubs the same way, why would I need to come up with categories such as short irons, mid irons and long irons? I’m just trying to put the same swing on all my irons and just let the Loft Of The Club and the Length Of The Shaft determine the different distances the golf ball flies.”

That’s so refreshingly simple!

It’s like the Golfer that came to see us to work exclusively on their ‘long irons’. We spoke about what you just read above – that all swings should be the same.

“That’s not what I’ve read or been told in the past. I’ve been told I need to sweep the ball off the ground with my long irons to hit them correctly.”

‘Is this what you’ve been trying to do with your Long Irons?’

“Yes, it has.”

‘How long have you been trying to learn this sweeping motion?’

“Oh, probably for the last 2-years.”

‘If you’ve been trying to sweep the ball for the last 2-years and it hasn’t been working, why do you want to continue attempting to do it? It’s like a car with no gas in the tank - regardless of how many times you turn the key and push on the peddle, 2-years from now it’s still not going to start working regardless of how much you practice turning the key and pushing on the peddle in those 2-years. Maybe what you’re trying to do isn’t the correct way of doing it.’

To which 9.8 times out of 10 we hear the same answer - “Well, that’s what everybody has told me I need to do.”
Monkey See, Monkey Do!

Golf is so overanalyzed that it may be messing up your golf game. Even if you’re not an analytical person, the opinions of others on whether to sweep or hit down is going to affect the way you swing. Why? Because you’re a Golfer and you want to find out the best ways for hitting the golf ball more consistent and even if you’re not actively listening to others, you’re still hearing what they have to say.

So the questions is - why would you need to hit down with a ’short iron’ and sweep with a ‘long iron’? My best answer is - I have no earthly idea! If the Golfer understood what makes the golf ball go up in the air, they would understand that there is no difference in the way you swing or make contact with the golf ball with any of your irons.

Repeat after me by reading this out loud –
All my irons are swung the same way. I do not swing my ’short irons’ more upright and my ‘long irons’ more flat. If I try to change my swing according to the number on the bottom of my club, I will end up with 13-different swings for the 13-different irons and woods in my bag. And if I want a consistent golf swing, I need to have one consistent swing for every club as opposed to the frustrated Monkey who has many different swings and who besides having to worry about all the bad places to hit the ball on the golf course (like into the water or into the trees), the Monkey has to make the decision if they’re going to hit down on the ball, sweep the ball, or do whatever they need to do with their so called ‘mid irons’. Which causes me to be a Thinker on the golf course. And you know what Thinkers are?

Thinkers are Stinkers!

OK, you’re done repeating - apologize to everyone around you for your outburst and then continue reading to yourself.

The Player on the other hand just plays and scores. And ends up taking the Monkey’s money 99% of the time!

So the moral of the story - If you think that you need to practice hitting your long irons to find your long iron swing and you need to practice your mid irons to find your mid iron swing and that you need to practice your short irons to find your short iron swing - Please don’t sign-up to come see us in Florida, Arizona or California. You won’t enjoy your time with us. We want Golfers that want to get away from the Monkeys. We want Golfers that want to learn to be Players by using principles that deal with Results as opposed to all the Theories & Assumptions that you’re constantly bombarded with.

Theories and Assumptions are for the Monkeys that find a strange fascination in always being frustrated and confused and voicing their complaints to others on the golf course about how bad they’re playing.

Raise your hand if you don’t want to be a Monkey anymore.

Raise both hands if you want to be a Player!

Go Ahead, Be A Player!

Regards,

Marc Solomon - Your Instructor For Life

www.GolfMadeSimple.com