Irons for accuracy, better impact, etc

DonM

Have any of you tried to build to encourage a smoother swing, better contact, that sort of thing? I’ve fought irons for years and I’m sick of it. My Moe Norman swing is awesome for driver and woods but I’ve never been able to get irons working for very long.

My path is good, I hit the ball first, in the general middle of the face. But face control is a problem.

Moe famously played extra long, heavy irons. Big grips, and he choked down which counterbalanced them. They were pretty extreme. I’m trying to come up with ideas. I’m willing to give up height and distance. It’s time to think outside of the box.

I hit my 54 wedge great. Great contact, face control, and I can work it low or high. So, one idea is short heavy irons. Maybe 36” single length.

Another idea is JumboMax grips.

I’ve tried choking down on extra long clubs, no real help. In fact almost nobody in Moe world has been able to get anywhere with that.

So the general question is, have you built irons to smooth out an erratic swing?

@colej ?

colej

DonM

For my hack iron swing I go 37 1/4” 7 iron and 3/8” gaps from there. You’ll have to flatten your short irons and wedges but it’ll work. They don’t need to be absolute sledge hammers but the right combination and weight and length are key.

Sneakylong

DonM But face control is a problem.

This is what you posted as your problem. For some reason you can't square the face with you irons consistently. That's fine that you don't want to change your grip, but somewhere in your swing the face is twisting and from there it's all timing. All a grip change does is eliminate the need to twist the club. But all that said good luck in finding something that works for you.

Here's a video explaining the elimination of rotating the clubface. Again, good luck.

KCee

DonM Moe famously played extra long, heavy irons. Big grips, and he choked down which counterbalanced them. They were pretty extreme. I’m trying to come up with ideas. I’m willing to give up height and distance. It’s time to think outside of the box.

I'm not a Moe Norman guy, but my irons have some similarity. Not extra long, but heavier than average and counterbalanced. My 6i is not much lighter than my PW, but they are MOI'd. My grips are really midsized, but almost no taper...thinking about jumbo ones. My old set was +3/8", but my current set is "standard" and I maybe should go back to the +3/8", but during the fitting I was doing better with the shorter set. The problem with fittings is the same as playing a round of golf......you don't know what swing you'll have that day. I sort of think I did better fitting myself as I could experiment over time.

I've pretty much gone to "punching" iron shots. I stand with a slightly open stance, try to keep the clubhead outside my hands and hold it off. I give up yardage, but I can still punch a 7i at least 150 so it's workable. This is how I always hit wedges and then adopted it for irons. I will confess this was working great, but I'm struggling with it this year. Lots of pulls and thin shots this year. I've realized whatever swing I use, I still need some tempo and that's always been an issue.

toraider

TLT may help…

scotts33

If it's me and I had a single plane swing I'd play single length irons but that's just me. ☺

DonM

scotts33 I’ve never seen the connection. SL irons make the same amount of sense (or not) for any swing. However when I played them my iron play was about as good as it’s ever been. I quit because of my swing speed being on the low side. I wanted better trajectory at both ends of the set. Nowadays my irons stop at 30 degrees 7 iron. I only carry 7-GW. If I was happy with any one of those five clubs, it would make sense to duplicate it in an SL set. But I’m not. The one I’m happy with is a heavier sand wedge. But I doubt it would really work with lofts in the 30s.

It’s probably worth trying a 36 inch SL 7 iron to see if that is functional.

rsvman2

Have you tried learning how to keep your clubface square to the swing plane? Most golfers over 50 were specifically instructed to open the clubface on the way back and to close it a lot after impact. Modern swing techniques are quite a bit different.
I would recommend a video on Youtube with Milo Lines (not on his channel, though) called something like 'three steps to a better swing' or words to that effect. If you take the time to stay on step one for a long time and then stay on step two for a long time, your face control will almost certainly improve. I dropped an average of about six strokes per round.
This morning I hit 7 out 9 greens in regulation and most of my approaches were within about two yards of the perfect line. I could never had come even close to that before. I have been working on this technique for two seasons now, though, and I hit a lot of practice balls in the yard.

Good luck.

Sneakylong

rsvman2 I would recommend a video on Youtube with Milo Lines

Milo is good. Again, he's a Mike Malaska disciple. Malaska is big on a strong left hand grip (four knuckles) with a neutral right hand and no twisting of the face. It's a throw with your right hand. No twist needed to square the face.

Milo uses a relatively strong grip himself, but has protocols for different grips. And like Malaska he's big on making sure you put your right wrist in extension (bent back towards your forearm) somewhere in your backswing (early, mid or late).

I've been using a Malaska strong left hand / neutral right hand grip with no face rotation along with an early right wrist hinge with pretty good success.

With a neutral left hand grip (2 1/2 knuckles) my left wrist would naturally cup resulting in an open face, but with a 4 knuckle grip it can cup naturally and the face stays square with no rotation / twist needed to square the face.

scotts33

DonM I’ve never seen the connection. SL irons make the same amount of sense (or not) for any swing.

I disagree it makes more sense for a single plane swinger IMO. The sets that I have built for single planers work as well or better than for double planers. Especially if face control seems to be that your irons aren't on plane with face down the line per Moe Norman. As you know Moe was one of the most accurate players in the professional ranks of all time.

If you keep coming back to a heft issues/total weight then that's the fitting issue and that needs to be replicated to test.

DonM

I’m not changing the way I grip or swing. That’s out. I know that sounds crazy but you don’t know the context. This swing took me from guy who struggled to break 90 to guy who breaks 80 now and then. I drive great. Everyone has that thing that is harder than the rest. Irons are mine. Even the couple of 72s I’ve shot, my irons were not great.

rsvman2

DonM Fair enough.
But I still agree with Sneaky and that video he linked is fantastic.

garyt1957

DonM Everyone has that thing that is harder than the rest. Irons are mine.

Hello, you called me?

DonM

I think I grip pretty lightly. That’s why I asked about JumboMax. Anyone tried them?

DonM

Sneakylong
I know I'm going to get swing advice because that's how it goes on a golf forum. 🙂

I don't have a face rotation issue. The Moe swing is very low on face rotation. I have a face control issue that is rooted in body drive versus arm drive. My driver swing is unbelievably accurate, and it's definitely arm driven with the body supporting. With my irons, for whatever reason, it's a lot harder to let that happen. So I have sync problems. I am able to have the same straight divot every time, and good contact, but if the hips are too fast, the face is open. If the arms are too fast, the shot goes left.

So, I was just wondering if anyone has built an extreme iron build for accuracy sake. Moe's irons certainly were extreme! 🙂

DonM

I think it is a heft issue.
I'll dig myself a deeper hole on the face issue in the next post. 🙂

scotts33

DonM I think it is a heft issue.
I'll dig myself a deeper hole on the face issue in the next post. 🙂

So Don are you saying you have 2 different swings? Moe Norman single plane for longer clubs and another swing for shorter clubs? Inquiring minds. ☺

DonM

scotts33 I try to only have one swing. I have the same grip and setup with all clubs. I swing on the shaft setup plane with all of them. But irons seem to engage a different power source than long clubs.

scotts33

DonM OK I agree on heft. Note all the threads on G'Buzz with I like this shaft and I need graphite or steel it's always a heft issue for the majority.

What I am trying to understand if you are using Moe's swing why the face issues?

DonM

scotts33 Go up to my reply to Sneaky.

DonM

Very typical: My hips drive through the 7 iron shot, and the ball starts right and curves right. When I take a slow practice swing, I see the face is wide open. It's all in the timing of the lower and upper body.
Different iron builds produce different body reactions.
scotts33

scotts33

DonM Go up to my reply to Sneaky.

Ahhhh I see now. Missed that when I posted. OK why not extreme? This is why I build out/fit MoI heft match. We are not attached to the club 14" down the from the butt of the club. I have fewer issues fitting this way solid center impact doing it this way. Are some how the JumboMax grips skewing this?

DonM

scotts33 I'm not using the JumboMax.

DonM

scotts33 So a question would be, let's say I build very short heavy irons. I only swing in the low 70s. How bad is it going to be?