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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at the Iron Swing of Matt Wolfe,

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and why he's ranked fifth in approach shots of the green.

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We're going to talk about a couple of keys that you can apply to your own game to help

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with your Iron Consistency right away.

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Whenever I'm analyzing an Iron Swing, I always want to start at Impact.

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I don't want to look at basically the Impact line, or roughly a spot for a line about

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four inches in front of the golf ball, and what we'll see is with really good Iron players

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typically you'll see the left leg, left shoulder, hands, and club shafts kind of all in line

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with that line after Impact.

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That tends to lead to really good ground contact and bottom swing control.

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The most common issues for amateurs is that they're too far behind the line, or on this

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side over here.

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Either the upper body, the hands, or the hips, don't get enough ahead of the golf ball.

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They have a hard time controlling the bottom of the swing.

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If too much is behind the line, you'll typically have more of a picking of the golf ball,

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or you'll bottom out an inch or two behind the golf ball, so you'll hit lots of fat in

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thin shots.

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That wolf does a great job of getting his hands into this good Impact position, and even

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though his hands are ahead, you'll see that he takes a nice shallow divot, and the shallow

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divot comes from having the body position of rotation and side bend on the way through.

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We can see that better from this point of view, which is as he's making contact, you'll

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see that his left shoulder continues to go up, so he's going into side bend and kind of

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lengthening this left side to help bring the arms around.

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That pattern tends to create again this nice shallow bottom of the swing with the hands

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out in front of the golf ball.

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In order to get into that good Impact line, we're going to look at this kind of lag checkpoint.

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For basically, you'll tend to see good iron players, good ball strikers, get the hands

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out in front of the shoulder just before Impact.

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Many amateurs will have their hands compared to their shoulder back in this space here, and

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that when with the momentum of the club releasing, it's typically going to bottom out there,

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or at the very least, it's going to be kind of sweeping on the way up, or the only way you

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could have your hands there and get the bottom this way out in front would be a swing way

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from the outside.

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It causes a host of ground contact problems, which is one of the biggest skills for being

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an elite level iron player.

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In order to get into this position, where you see the elbow, the trail elbow, or the right

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elbow, continuing to work across the body as it extends, in order to get into that position,

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you need to make sure that your ribcage is physically out of the way.

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What that means is you probably shouldn't stand up too much on the downswing.

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In order to get into this position, I need to physically have the space for my elbow to fit

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in front of me.

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If I start standing up, then if I had my elbow in front of me like this, it would tend

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to throw the club too far out into the golf ball, I might start shanking it, so most

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amateurs, or most golfers, if the elbow comes up, or the body comes up this way, you'll

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tend to see that elbow almost connect and become a pivot point, and then it'll swing like

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so.

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As opposed to what Matt is demonstrating there, where his body is physically out of the

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way by staying a little bit more down and back, that allows him to get that elbow in front

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and get into that really good impact position.

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If you find that trying to feel like you're holding the leg doesn't work, and the

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hands continue to be back behind the golf ball, then the next place you want to look

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is, well, am I raising up, am I standing up on the way down compared to where I was

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at the end of my delivery position, because that's going to typically cause my arms

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to get more behind, or it's going to cause a lot of contact issues.

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If we take a snapshot of Matt Wolf at Impact, and we put a line at the top of his head,

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we will see that if we compare that to where he was at setup, he's closer to the ground

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at Impact than where he was at the start of the swing.

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That helps create the slack to allow for the hands to get forward.

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Basically, in order for me to get my hands ahead and still have the club on the ground,

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if I start here, and then I move my hands ahead, you'll see that the club actually comes

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closer to me.

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So if I bring it this way, it's coming a little bit closer to me.

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I have to count for that distance more with my body down.

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So if my body is down, I have the slack to still have the club on the ground and get the

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hands ahead.

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If my body is, if I have the club on the ground, and my body is too tall, then I don't

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have any slack to physically get my hands far and forward.

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So many good iron players will actually be closer to the ground at Impact than where they

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were at setup.

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In addition to being down, you'll tend to see that his body is creating enough space

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by working away from the golf ball.

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When I speed up the club and get it moving really fast, it's going to tend to pull out

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towards the golf ball.

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Well, I'm going to have to pull back on that with something.

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I refer to that in our program as bracing.

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If I'm bracing with my arms, they'll tend to pull in.

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That's kind of more of your chicken wing pattern.

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If I'm bracing more with my body, my body moves away from the golf ball and my weight

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tends to move more towards my heels.

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That allows golfer to extend the arms and not lose balance and get pulled over, especially

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if I've increased the flex of my body.

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If I've increased the flex and gotten down closer to the golf ball than where I was at

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setup, I have to move a little bit away to account for that space.

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If you are really working on trying to get your hands in front, which is helpful for being

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a good iron player.

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You find that at that lag checkpoint, your hands are just a little bit too far back.

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Then see what you can take away from Matt Wolf's wing about maintaining or keeping your

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body angles.

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That'll help create the space to get your arms in.