If you’re hitting your sterling irons way to the left, then I’ve got three things here that can hopefully help you string those shots out.
So, first is to check the club’s lie angle, and the lie angle is this angle from the shaft to the hosel, to the bottom of the clubface here, so that angle is really important because you put this magnetic tool in here that shows where the clubface is pointed. If you come through squarely, then the shot is going to start out in the direction hopefully that you want it to, assuming the center face contact hit here, and it’s important to note that wherever the clubface is pointing at impact is where the ball is going to start out at. So, if your lie angle is a little bit too upright, even though the club might look it’s coming through squarely, that uprightness will actually mean at impact, the clubface is pointing to the left there, so that certainly could be one cause that maybe causing a left, so again, it might look like it’s coming through straight, but if that clubface is too upright, then it could be one cause. The good news is that with your sterling irons here, we designed these, the hosel and the clubface, and the clubhead here with a soft enough metal that it can be bent, and that’s why when we do your fittings, we ask for the lie angle. It’s such an important club fitting specification, I guess, or if you order on the website, that’s another reason why we get a performance advantage, because we ask for that, and then we fit it, and we bend that. So, ideally, your sterling iron’s lie angle should be right. However, if they’ve drifted or if they’ve got moved a little bit, one way that you can check that is to get a golf ball here, and then draw a line on it, a straight line, and then what you do is you line that line up vertically, and then you hit a ball with it, and the idea is that if the line comes through and it’s straight up and down on the clubface, then your lie angle is okay and you don’t need to worry about this. However, if the line is pointing a little bit more at an angle like this, then that certainly could be an issue and that would be something that you’d want to check and we can either have those bent for you if you want to send them back in to us, we can do that or if you go to a custom club fitter, bending the lie angle is a pretty common service with custom club fitting. So, that’s one potential cause for the lefts.
The second thing to check for is to check where you’re contacting the clubface with the ball, so what you can do for that, a cheap little way you can check that is get a can of this foot powder spray, and it doesn’t have to be – this particular one is the Dr. Scholl’s OdorX, it’s a pretty common tool, I guess, used with teachers, and so you just spray a little bit on the clubface there, and then when you hit a ball, it will leave a little imprint on the clubface where the ball struck the clubface. So, hopefully, with the sterling irons here, we designed the center of gravities to be right in the center there. So, hopefully, that’s where your contact is, is right in the center. However, if it’s our a little bit more towards the toe versus in the middle, due to gear effect, that could cause a leftward shot. So, again, your clubface could come through and it looks square when you’re coming through impact there. However, if you get that toe strike – I won’t get into what gear effect is in this particular video, but just know that if your strikes are toeward versus in the center, that could be a cause of left shots as well, so what you can do is you can get a towel and get your can of foot spray here, foot powder spray, you can use chalk powder spray, the kids’ spray chalk, that works well too. Basically, anything that can be wiped out pretty easily with a towel here, and spray som eon, hit a few balls, and then don’t think too technically about how to do it, just, if I were to reach for a bottle here and I reach here, if I want to and I miss it, but the ball is over here, I don’t have to really overthink it or think about it too much, I just move over here, and I didn’t think about, okay, I need to move my arm position like, exactly this amount, and then I need to lift this and raise this, and extend that. Don’t overthink it too much, just note where that contact is, and then let yourself, let your brain and body just kind of figure out what it needs to do to move over towards the center, and oftentimes, just a simple thing like doing like that will fix the technical things that maybe – inner swing that may be causing you to hit out on the toe there. So, that’s the second thing that you could check for.
And then, the third thing is a little path drill. So, what also could be happening if you’re hitting way to the left is that even though your brain thinks that the clubface is coming through straight here, what could actually be happening if it’s not a lie angle issue and it’s not a contact issue, then you could be coming over the top slightly, and it doesn’t have to be much, so if you think about a protractor, a 90-degree protractor, we’re only talking about a couple degrees here, so it’s just a very, very, very tiny amount that you may have to be coming across the top to be hitting a [0:07:20]. What you can do is, you can line yourself up towards a target, and then intentionally hit one where you know you’re coming way across the top, coming over it, and then where you’re coming way from the inside, and push one to the right of the target, and then if you can do that, if you can hit an exaggerated pull and an exaggerated push, then it’s just a matter of fine-tuning where your club path needs to be on the way down to get it coming in the direction that gets the ball started towards the target like you want it to and not to the left, and what you may find is that what your brain think is straight is actually left, so to get it to actually come straight, you may have to go with the motion that feels like you’re swinging way out to the right or way in the out, but it actually, when you arrive at impact, it’s going to come through and it’s going to be square, hopefully.
So, those are the three things that I could offer you here to help you if you’re hitting to the left. Check the lie angle, important fitting specification, check the contact point on the clubface, make sure you’re not hitting out towards the toe, and then lastly, just make sure that your swing path is coming through squarely and not over the top. So, hopefully, those things can help you out and you’ll be, if you can address those three things and you’re doing okay there, then hopefully, your shots will end up being a lot straighter.