This article is a follow on from a previous article called Making Solid Contact With Irons. The reason for revisiting this very important topic is because I spent many years chasing the proper ball position to set up great iron contact. It is an important skill that all amateurs should know and hone. It will save a great deal of frustration by knowing and understanding where to contact the ball with your irons.
Ultimately, consistently lower golf scores is every golfer’s goal. In my case, it has been achieved (at least to the best of my ability at this time) through education, trial and error, practice, and trail and error (no I did not make an error in my sentence structure). To shorten your learning curve as a player trying to lower your handicap, this video is a great teach aid:
My efforts to improve my contact with my irons followed the roller coaster approach. I would think I had the solution only to find out during my next round that I was still struggling. Now, I understand the concept of where to contact the ball with my club and more importantly why. If you are wondering, I tried to time my contact to hit the back to the ball and as a result, my divot was a 1/2 inch behind where it should have been. It took many swings (and a great deal of research) to find the proper ball position in order to bottom out my swing plane in front of the ball.
As my 2022 season is just starting to get underway, I will heed the above video to ensure that knock the rust off of my iron contact early in the season. If you are wondering why your iron contact is not as crisp as you hoped, you might want to do the sand trap drill outlined by Annabel Rolley.
I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!
The Grateful Golfer 
The line drill was key to set me on the right path. I used to sway back and then forwards through the swing. Far too many of us have that issue and it causes us to not hit ball first consistently. The line drill was my savior.
Best way to do it for me today is on the range. I don’t have a backyard anymore that I can attack with my clubs. On the range I don’t “draw” a line. I create an imaginary line using two tees to give me the reference points. Or if I’m forced to use the matts then I have some foot powder I can spray down. Again I don’t draw a long line, I spray a small rectangle instead. Just wider than the clubhead and about 6 inches deep. I place the ball so it’s leading edge is over the beginning of the block. I get from that a perfect view of the strike pattern. Just like I’d taken a divot in the grass. Yes it’s a pain to keep spraying that block over and over and wiping down my clubs but it’s worth it. Besides we should spend at least a minute between swings on the range. We should be taking practice swings before hitting each and every ball. Practicing our routine while we practice our ball striking. Just hitting a bucket doesn’t provide all that much help. Adding things like this help make our time there more productive. So no matter what else I’m working on, I add those tees or spray that block and do my routine between shots on the range.
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Kevin,
Thanks for sharing what you do for the line drill. Your method is spot on and is a great substitute when a sand trap is not available. I also agree we should take a bit more time on the range between shots…..just like on the course.
Cheers Jim
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