Consistency

Getting a consistent golf swing is the most important factor to start your scores tumbling. Master hitting the ball consistently by preventing fat and thin shots.

To be consistent with your swing you need to have a stable foundation. Check out my posts on basics and fitness for golf.

How To Stop Fat & Thin Shots

Turn your hips in a tight circle to improve contact and consistency

This story is for you if...
• You didn't strike your irons crisply during the round you just finished...
• You're not sure what a proper hip turn feels like.

Try This!

Find a hula hoop (or coil a garden hose), drop it on your back lawn and address an imaginary ball with your feet inside the hoop. Make a few swings.

What You're Looking At

Your hip rotation. Swinging inside the hoop reminds you to make a full — yet tight — hip turn both back and through, and to fight the urge to sway away from the ball on your backswing or slide toward the target on your downswing. When you turn your hips while keeping them inside the hoop, you lessen the chance of catching it fat or thin.

If you tend to hit your irons fat...

Focus on your backswing hip turn. Try to keep your right hip inside the right side of the hoop. If it strays outside, you've moved too far off the ball. When you turn your right hip correctly, you should feel your weight work into your right foot, and your upper body should be "stacked" above your right knee.

If you tend to hit your irons thin...

Focus on your downswing hip turn. Try to turn your left hip along the left-hand side of the hoop (keep your left hip above your left foot). When your left hip slides outside the hoop, you'll tend to hit down on the top of the ball. If you do it correctly, you should feel your weight move only into the heel of your left foot.

Use this club drill to get your swing online

Your swing is too up-and-down, which causes either a fat shot or a wild slice.
The Solution

A too-steep backswing creates two problems: 1) The resulting steep downswing will force you to stick the club in the ground before impact (fat), and 2) When you take the club back too high, your forearms tend to rotate down, cupping your left wrist and opening the clubface (slice). To swing the club properly around your body, think about keeping your elbows level at the top.

The Drill

Here's a good way to learn how to keep your swing on plane. Take the club back and find your position at the top. Then, have a friend grab another club from your bag — something long like your driver or 3- wood — and try to balance it between your arms (see photo). If your elbows aren't level, the club won't be straight. Practice this until you can feel the correct position all the time.

Hit Clean Iron Shots

Make solid contact, avoid mis-hits and start knocking down more pins

When you want to punch the ball under a branch, it shoots up like a rocket. When you want to boom a towering approach shot, the ball barely gets airborne. What's going on?

Irons are tricky to master because what your instincts feel is the right thing to do is really dead wrong. To hit irons solidly, which is the key to distance control, you need to hit down and compress the ball between the ground and the face of the club. This produces backspin which, added to the club's loft, makes the ball rise.

These tips should help take your iron game to new heights.

Learn from your divot

Good iron players hit the ball first, then the ground. Next time you're at the range, press a tee into the ground about 1 inch from the ball outside your target line.

Hit the ball with your 7-iron. If you make ball-first contact, the divot will be on the target side of the tee. If the divot starts slightly behind the tee, you hit a little fat and sacrificed distance and accuracy. If the entire divot is behind the tee, you chunked it.

Practice goal: Hit 10 shots in a row with your divot starting on the target side of the tee.

At left, the clubhead is ahead of the hands. At right, hit a series of balls and stop the clubhead below the level of your waist.

Incorrect: Getting flippy

If you hit low-flying skulls, chances are your clubhead is whipping ahead of your hands as you try to scoop the ball into the air. That puts the leading edge of the club into contact with the ball. At impact, the back of your left hand should face the target an your right wrist should bend slightly away from the target.

Correct: Full Extension

To check your impact position and get a feel for hitting solid irons, hit a series of balls and stop the clubhead below the level of your waist. You'll find it impossible to scoop at the ball and achieve this shortened finish. And don't be afraid to shorten your follow-through if you mis-hit a few irons in the middle of your round.

The Drill:

Address a ball in the middle of your stance while holding a 5-iron. Bend your right knee, point your toe into the ground and hit the ball. By dropping your right foot back, away from the target — a classic reverse pivot — as you make your downswing. Instead, you will rotate around your left foot and make a descending blow on the back of the ball.

Three Steps to Better Contact

Legendary golf instructor Eddie Merrins explains the motions you need to make better contact

Your golf swing is three-dimensional. It has height, width and depth. If you understand how each of the three dimensions works separately, you can properly blend them together.

1. Get a vertical hinge

Your hands and wrists hinge the club up and down relative to the ball. To practice the height dimension, hold your 5-iron in front of your chest so the shaft is perpendicular to the ground.

Now, raise the clubhead over your head. Feel how your wrists hinge the club upward, and your biceps lift it higher? That's how you should lever the club up on the backswing. Now move it back down — your hands and wrists unhinge. That motion should occur in your forward swing.

2. Make a jab

Your left arm determines your swing width. To feel the proper width, take your address position without a club, turn your shoulders back and throw a left jab at the air to your right, extending your left arm as far as it can comfortably go. On your forward swing, extend your right arm.
Throw a left jab to feel how wide your swing should be.

3. Lead with your forearms

Your right forearm creates depth as it pulls your hips and shoulders into a full backswing. That movement needs to be fairly level: If you move your right elbow up and down, you won't get the depth you need to make a full backswing turn and you'll likely mis-hit the ball.

To gain depth, move your right elbow over your right hip.

To practice this movement, take a 5-iron and swing to a three-quarters backswing. Your right elbow should be over your right hip at about the same height it was at address. It's also as deep as you want your swing to get. From here, you have a direct path to the end of your backswing, as your wrists hinge the club up and your left arm provides the width you need to complete the three-dimensional effect and make solid contact.