How to Lower Your Golf Ball Flight with Irons: Actionable Tips and Drills

Britt Olizarowicz

May 20, 2024 . 7 mins read

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Hitting a big high lofted shot into a green will help you stop the ball quickly and be accurate with your shot.

However, on a windy day or when there is a little too much risk involved, a lower iron shot is a better idea.

If you want to learn how to lower ball flight with irons, you are in the right place. We will give you some tips to get this done; a few drills you can try and ultimately a brand new shot added to your golf bag.

Lower Your Ball Flight with Irons (Key Takeaways)

If you don’t have the time to read our entire article, here are the key points to take away on how to lower your ball flight with your irons.

• Lower ball flight gives you more control and lets you attack pins even when the weather is poor.
• The equipment you use (both ball and club) can help with lowering the ball flight.
• Keep the wrist angle of the lead wrist more flexed to ensure the ball flight stays lower.
• Ensure the ball position is slightly back from where it normally is.
• Holding your finish can help maintain that slightly delofted clubface through impact just a little bit longer.

How to Lower Ball Flight with Irons

1. Get the Ball Position Right

Before you make adjustments here, remember that any small change in ball position can create a big change in the ball flight and even the strike of your golf shot.

To get the ball to fly a little lower, move the ball slightly back in your stance. If you are trying this with a 7 iron, start by rolling the ball back about an inch. See what happens in this position.

The ball position moved slightly back ensures that you hit the ball as part of the downswing, not part of the upswing. When it’s moved up in your stance, your club could already have some added loft as part of your follow through.

Once you move the ball back an inch evaluate if it helps you get the golf ball flight down. If not, try moving back a little further and pay attention to the impacts of the flight.

If you move the ball too far back you may see shots going to the right (right handed golfers) because the clubface is still open.

2. Forward Press at Impact

Having your hands ahead of the ball at impact will help get the ball flight down. The forward press of the hands will deloft the clubface and result in a lower ball flight.

Before you start trying to create this, there are a few things to know.

First, don’t exaggerate this too much at setup. If you do you’ll restrict the natural movement of your swing and your turn.

Instead, have the hands slightly ahead at setup and then work on matching that at impact. Using an impact bag can help you learn this forward press position.

Another great drill to try is to hold your finish, essentially stopping the club right after the ball.

You’ll create much more awareness of where the hands are and you’ll have to keep them ahead of the clubhead to strike a clean shot.

3. Flexion in the Lead Wrist

Another way to lower ball flight is to keep the lead wrist flexed through impact.

The flexion in the lead wrist encourages a square clubface and even slightly delofted at times. When your wrist is too extended there is a tendency to open the face and increase the loft of the club.

At HackMotion we analyzed more than 1,000,000 golf swings and one of our key findings was the relationship of flexion in the lead wrist at impact with the quality of the strike you make in golf.

This quality strike with a square clubface will help you get lower shots that also likely fly further than your high-lofted shots did.

4. Make Sure the Weight is Forward at Impact

If your weight is on the back leg at impact you have a chance of dropping your trail shoulder and increasing the loft in the clubhead of your iron.

Instead, push the weight onto the forward leg through impact. You’ll find that setting up with a little weight forward can also help lower the ball flight and make it easier to get the ball flight down.

Be sure that when you do this you are still rotating and not sliding your hips to get the weight on the lead side. Sliding can cause other issues with power and consistency.

Start by leaning a little on the lead side at setup, moving the ball position back and getting that lead wrist flexed.

5. Check Your Grip

Changing the grip slightly is rarely enough to lower your ball flight.

However, if your grip is too weak it could be leaving the clubface a little more open and higher lofted at impact. Instead, create a slightly stronger grip and see if that lowers the ball flight.

For a right handed golfer, take your left hand and turn it a half inch to the right. Then you’ll notice that the right hand fits more on the underside of the club, not on the top of the grip.

Experiment with this just be careful it doesn’t make the golf ball go to the left of the target.

Other Tweaks to Try Lowering the Ball Flight with Irons

Now that you have the basic fundamentals of what it takes to lower the ball flight with irons, here are a few other tips to try and get the flight down.

• Use a lower lofted club when you really need to keep the ball low, hitting a 6 or 5 iron lower is much easier than doing it with an 8 or 9 iron.
• Use lower spin golf balls to ensure the ball flight stays down.
• Hold the finish, stop the finish short of where you normally would and see if that helps to hold the ball flight down a little more.

Drills to Lower Ball Flight with Irons

Most of the drills related to hitting lower iron shots require you to spend some time on the range working with your irons and grooving these different positions.

However, here are a few drills and practice routines you can try to lower your ball flight.

Awareness of Dynamic Loft

This video from Milo Lines Golf gives you a very good overview of what dynamic loft is and how that can play into this for your golf game.

Take a look at this video to pick up some places where you may be increasing dynamic loft, costing yourself distance and consistency without even realizing it.

Learn to Hit Ball Higher and Lower

Here’s an interesting concept, you can learn to hit a golf ball higher, you should also be able to hit it lower.

In this Rick Shiels video, you can see all of the adjustments necessary to hit a high or a low iron shot.

When you can learn to make these little tweaks to your golf game, it becomes considerably easier to score. You’ll start to feel more comfortable standing over the golf ball, like you are the one in control of where it goes.

Final Thoughts

Now all that’s left to do is head to the range and work out these issues with hitting the golf irons a little lower.

It’s a good idea to bring your HackMotion with you. Eliminating that extra extension in the lead wrist through impact can do wonders for your ball flight control.

Use these lower iron shots to stay under the wind, and go after pins with more confidence.