Strike Your Irons Pure - Do This Before You Swing

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Transcript Summary- 

Last week I shared a tip on how to hit your driver straighter, and the feedback’s been incredible. Thank you so much for all the comments — many of you have said how much it’s already improved your accuracy off the tee. But a lot of you also asked, “Danny, does this apply to irons as well?” And the answer is yes, it does — with just a couple of small tweaks. So in this video, I’m going to show you exactly how the same principle can help you strike your irons better, add a little more distance, and hit them straighter too.

Now, the principle I introduced was something called face-to-path. If you can learn to control it — and more importantly, feel it — you can fix slices, hooks, and improve consistency across your whole bag. When the path of your swing and the clubface aren’t matching up, that’s when you get all the side spin. Slice if the path is left and the face is open. Hook if the path’s out to the right and the face is closed. The key is learning how to control that relationship.

The first thing to check is your setup. So many golfers are already setting up to slice before they even swing. Most slicers have their elbows and forearms in positions that force the clubface open. By simply reversing those positions — lead elbow pointing out, trail elbow pointing down — you can start to square things up. At first, I actually want you to exaggerate this. Get used to seeing the opposite flight, even create a hook. Once you’ve felt both extremes, it’s so much easier to tune it into neutral and find straight.

But of course, it’s not just about setup. You’ve also got to keep that face-to-path relationship during the swing. This is where a lot of golfers lose it — often because they roll the club around with their hands and arms instead of letting the wrists hinge up while the body turns it around. A simple drill here is to hold the club out, hinge the wrists straight up, then turn the body. Hands move it up, body moves it around. If you do that, the clubface stays stable, and you stop fighting compensations.

This is where feedback devices like HackMotion can be brilliant. They let you see and feel if you’re keeping the face in the right position. You’ll notice when you roll it too far inside or lose the relationship — and you can instantly correct it. With practice, that feeling becomes second nature, and you’ll find yourself striking the ball straighter, more consistently, and with more confidence.

So give this a go — start with the exaggerated setup, learn both extremes, then tune it in. Keep the hands working the club up and let the body take it around, and you’ll look after the face-to-path all the way through impact. It really is that simple once you get the feel.

Full Transcript- So, last week I shared a golf tip on how to hit drivers straight, and the feedback has been incredible. Thank you so much. Many of you have been saying, "Look, I can't believe how much it's helped my accuracy off the tea with my driver out on that golf course." But you did ask, does it apply to your irons? Is it going to help you strike your irions better and help them? It is, but you need to make some little tweaks. So, what I thought I'd do is just share with you the drill and how it applies to irons, but add one little thing that I didn't mention in last week's video, which would really amplify this and hopefully not just improve your strike and your accuracy, but also maybe hit these a little bit further, too. So, can't wait to share it with you. Before I do, though, look, if you're new to the channel, your first lessons of mine, please consider subscribing. I release videos just like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game. Plus, you never have to remember a thing. Everything we do here, I'll put into a free downloadable practice guide in the description box below. So, the principle I introduced last week that's helping so many golfers hit drivers straighter is a principle called phase two path. And I mentioned that if you can learn to control this principle, you can learn how to feel it, it won't just help you actually with your driver. It's going to help you accuracy with your irions, your ball striking, and the distance that you hit every single shot. So, let me explain to you what it is and then I'm going to show you how you can control it with your irions with a unbelievably simple setup change and one tiny tweak in your back swing. So, what is face to path? Well, if you are slicing the golf ball, ultimately what's happening is is you have a path that is heading in one direction. So, it's heading, if you're right-handed, to the left of target, while your club face is actually aiming to the right of target or it's aiming right of where that club path path is swinging. If you do that, this is what tends to happen.

You're gonna create a swing that puts side spin on the golf ball. Look at my swing circle there. It's heading miles to the left and then that causes the spin of the ball to go miles to the right because I'm putting side spin on the golf ball. Now, the opposite is true if you tend to be somebody who hooks a golf ball. Ultimately, if you're hooking it, your path is heading out in this direction, more to the right hand side, and your face is aiming to the left of that path. And when you do that, you tend to create shots that look a bit more like this. And what's going to happen now is the ball's going to kind of set off to the right and hook. Look at the different swing circle. A positive number means I'm swinging it way out to the right and I creating this kind of curvature. So, how can you learn? More importantly, how do you feel? how to change that so that you can start hitting every single shot so much straighter. So, the first thing I want you to do is check your setup. So, many of my students don't realize that when they're slicing the golf ball, they have a slice built in to their swing, even before they've made a swing. It's already built into their setup. Let me explain. So, what I want you to do, if you got time, stand up and just put your arms out like this. So, your palms are facing the ground, right? So, your palms can face the ground. They do that. What do you notice about the elbows? They point outwards, right? If we turn the palms upwards, the elbows now point downwards to the ground. So, but if you slice the golf ball, here's what I see with 99% of people that slice. They have too much of this. They have too much of their lead arm elbow pointing downwards and the palm facing upwards. And they have too much of their trail arm like this with the elbow pointing outwards. Then they hold the golf club like this and like this. Now they look at the face and they go, "That's straight, Danny." It is. But the problem is is what do you notice about my forearms? They're pointing down to the ground. And if you look from this angle, they're pointing actually left of my target. In fact, left of where that face is pointing. When this happened, you should be able to see this because you should be able to see almost my lead arm. I mean, my left arm below my trail arm. When you get into this position here, you're looking at the face and you're wondering, why am I slicing it every single time? It's because you're simply swinging like this.

And you look at this and what we got here, look, is a swings path, swing circle. It's going miles left. Look at the face there. 9.9 degrees open. The face is that 10 degrees open to the path. And this is what creates this kind of bend. So, what is the very first thing you could do at setup just to change that? Well, let's go back to this. This is your slice setup, right? Too much of this. What happens if we simply start to reverse it? And I gave this to a recent student of mine, Tina. This is what's helping her drive unbelievably straight. But it can also work for the irons beautifully as well. I simply reversed it. So, I did this. I got the lead elbow pointing outwards and the elbow on the trail side pointing downwards. So now suddenly she's kind of more on top with the lead hand and more underneath with the trail hand. So the now what we've got is reverse and this will be an exaggeration and I really suggest you start with that. It's really important. So the face is square but if you have a look now look my face might be square to the target and lining up but my forearms now are pointing in this direction. This is my path. So my path is heading here and my face is aiming here. This should naturally without me trying. Now if I do a normal golf swing, we're going to see a ball that sets off and curves look to the left. Look at this. There's my face. My face now is a minus number. It's closed to the path. That's what creates the curvature. Now, I'm sure you don't want either. You don't want a ball that's going left miles or right miles. You want something that's much, much straighter. But if you happen to slice it, I really suggest you learn to hook the ball. Feel what this is like to an extreme first. Create some of those hooks and then tune it. And the same if you hook the golf ball. Move to the other way first. Feel what that's like and then tune it. And tuning it. What I mean is this. So what I got and I says Tina to do with driver was is once I got her into this position, all I then did was this. Leave the elbow alone and just turn the hand this way a bit more. So now the hand is on the golf club slightly more neutrally. And same with the trail hand as opposed to it being massively underneath. Now just take the hand palm and face it on the target. When I face my hand, look, my elbow isn't sticking out. It still stays down. And we take the club like this. What this does now is it starts to neutralize the shot. But this comes after you've got the both curves going. So let's show you this in action. You'll see now my forearms are much more in line. The club face is much more in line. Let's have a look.

So nice easy one there. So you can see there, look at the difference there. Look now my face to path is completely almost zero. Neutralized it off. So that's where I would start first. Do that. But let me show you now how you can keep that face to path all the way into the back swing and through impact. So that cuz some people do lose it. You might start off well, but sometimes you can lose it. Let me show you how you can keep it throughout the entire swing. So you're off to a great start. You're now in a position to basically hit a hit the ball much straighter and much more consistently. But you can lose it of course during a swing. You could lose that first path. And most times people do it from just a simple misunderstanding. So I'm gonna get myself set here. I'm gonna use hack motion as a just to kind of help me out here and demonstrate it to you. So here's me looking after my face to path relationship. And this is a drill I gave to a recent student and Nana. Turn the body right. Turn the body left. And you let the arms go. Yeah. And the wrist comes naturally. Well, now you've got this feeling. All you do is go right and left. So right. Boom. That's it. And now turn your body. So now all your body is go right and left. And Got it.

There you go.

Oh my god. Come on. Golf shot. Is that just fluke or was that? Thank you. So, hold the club out in front of you. You can do this. Pause the video. Do it now. You'll kind of really feel this. Leave the boat alone. Don't lift it up and down. Leave the butt alone and just hinge your wrists so that the club just pitches just over your trail shoulder. When you do that, I have completely looked after that face. It hasn't rolled. It hasn't closed. The role of the hands and the arms are simply to move the club upwards, right?

Upwards. What gets this club working around is my body, right? So, the role of the hands and arms to work is to work the club up and the role of the body is to work it around. Most of my students, this is what happened to Nana and Paul recently. They were losing that face-to-path relationship very, very early because they were taking the club around their body with their hands and the arms. Watch the difference. This is what I want to see happening. This is what they were doing. Either they were pulling it around with their arms, rolling the wrists inside, and this is just from there, you're dead. You've lost that first pass relationship. you can hit some good shots, but you're having to compensate. So, how can you maintain this through the swing? Well, let's use Hack Motion to demonstrate here. So, I'm going to set up one of their drills. And this is super super simple. So, I get myself into an address position here, just like this. Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to feel these wrists working in this position like this. I'm going to feel like this. If I do that and blend this, hear the noise. And then I keep it all the way to the top. It gives me immediate feedback. Compare that to this. So I get myself set. Now moving here, I've lost the face to path. Now I'm in big trouble, right? Big big trouble. I've taken the club too far around the body and lost that face to path relationship. So what you want to do is in reality is understand this is controlling the face all the time. Just use this simple exercise. Get yourself set. If you've got hack motion, use a device like this to give yourself some feedback. There's my back swing. Perfect. Bang. Every single time I know it's right. Compare that. Every time you kind of go, okay, how do I do this drill? Get into my start position. Look at that straight away. You can see big big red marks from here. From there, I've got to go back there. No. Get that feeling. Blend it in. And then keep those arms working up while the body takes the club around. And then just simply start hitting some shots. Look at this in action.

You see here I get the kind of mark. And now look, just minus one. Absolutely spot on. And that's kind of what you want. You want that level of feedback. Once you've got into that setup position here, the setup is absolutely huge. Then what I want is you want to feel how to keep it just that's the hands and the abs. That's the relation. I'm looking after the club face. I'm not rolling it. I'm not flicking it around. I'm looking after that club face position all the time with my arms working this motion here while my body does the rest. That takes the club around. And then look as I'm coming down. Look at this motion here. I'm simply allowing that club look to continue down there. I've still got the face to path relationship. And I release it back down to the golf ball. I'm not rolling and moving those arms all over the place. It's just a simple and wonderful feeling. That of course requires a bit of practice, but with feedback from devices like Hat Motion, it's huge. Hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, give it a thumbs up. I will put a, by the way, a discount code. If you are interested in Hat Motion in the top comment below this video, so go and check them out. They're a wonderful company to deal with. If you enjoyed this video and you'd love to see the video that I did with a driver, check this video out right here. And of course, look, I'll put a free download practice guide in the description box below, just about here.