Let's Get It On

- HISTORY HAS SHOWN that the greatest golfers were great iron players—Hogan, Nicklaus, Faldo and Woods are just some of the names that come to mind.

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Their ability to control trajectory and distance set them apart. When Ben Hogan complained to his wife that he was really struggling with his putting, she famously told him to hit his approach shots closer. It was funny, but true. Although it’s often an underemphasized part of the game, good iron play will really help you score, and good iron play is all about controlling distance—playing pin-high golf. In this article, I will help you improve your iron accuracy with some drills and tips you can work on as your golf season ramps up. Let’s start with a few that you can incorporate right now. First, narrow your stance to a little less than shoulder width. This will help you hit down on the ball—an important part of making crisp contact. It also will get you to swing within yourself, which brings me to my next two tips: (1) Take one club longer than normal; (2) swing with what feels like 80-percent effort. The best iron players rarely go full-out, because it’s tougher to achieve center-face contact that way. If that philosophy is good enough for them, it should be a no-brainer for you. The goal: Make greens in regulation a regular thing. Read on for more advice.

—WITH RON KASPRISKE

1 TRIM YOUR SWING

- We first have to get you in the habit of making solid contact virtually every time you hit an iron shot. That’s going to make your distance control a lot more reliable. An abbreviated swing, three-quarter length on both sides of the ball, will help do that. Jack Nicklaus almost never had a full follow-through with his middle-to-short irons, because a shorter swing makes it easier to hit it out of the center of the clubface. It also gets you to drive through the ball, compressing it off the turf (more on that later).