Hank Haney on How to Hit a Solid Iron Every Time | Chipping & Pitching Tips

Hank Haney, Tiger Woods’ coach and pro golf instructor, has chipping and pitching tips for you. With the irons, shift your hips and lead with your hands for great ball-turf contact.

Transcript
Here, teachers use two phrases.
Flipping at the ball, and compressing the ball.
Here’s what they’re talkin’ about.
Amateur golfers who struggle, tend
to flip their hands through the shot,
meaning the lead hand, their left hand,
in my case, collapses.
This causes the club to swing up through the ball,
and will cause thin shots and weak shots
because you’re adding loft to the shot.
When you’re compressing the ball,
what you’re doing is, you’re turning
the back of your hand, your lead hand, down.
And that allows the club head to lag behind the handle.
This gives you a little bit of a downward strike.
And it also de-lofts the golf club slightly.
That will give you more hit, more power.
So by compressing the ball, with the proper release,
you’re gonna get ball turf contact
and a much stronger hit.
So the back of the left hand, instead of hitting this way,
on the collapse, I’m trying to turn my hand down.
So I turn the knuckles of my left
hand down through the shot.
And if I turn my hand down, I’m gonna get
the ball, and then the turf.
And that’s where you get the solid, powerful hits.