I recently listened to a podcast by Andrew Murray, a previous European Open Champion, talking about his career as a golf pro and the struggles he had with his game. He began talking about the importance of finding your own swing and spoke about Tony Jacklin and how he used a 7-iron to groove his swing. Unlike other pros, Tony would practice with only his 7-iron. He strongly believed hitting his 7-iron helped him to find his swing tempo and improved his ball striking. Having found his tempo he would then transfer this to all his clubs including his driver, which proved to be hugely successful for him. So this got me thinking could this still be useful today? I'm going to give it a go at the range next week. I wanted to give you more than this hot tip for my blog and so set about researching more on 7-iron theory, after all when we start to learn the teaching pros always give us a 7-iron to coach us in the swing mechanics. I came across this great 7-iron challenge and thought I'd share it with you. After all now is a good time to try techniques like this, especially with the weather challenging many courses. 7-Iron Challenge Play just 9 holes of golf using only your 7 iron! You can use your putter for putting, but no other club allowed. Typically in 9 holes you will encounter 2 Par 5’s, 2 Par 3’s, and 5 Par 4’s.
If you hit every green in regulation, that would equate to 18 golf swings, with 18 putts to give you a par score of 36. This means you have 18 swings in 9 holes to make the challenge. Now I know some of you are thinking but I can't hit my 7-iron far enough to reach the green in regulation for the Par 5's, but what you will find is that you have to become creative with your shots especially those hitting to the pin. For the longer par 3's that you can't hit the green in regulation you will have to begin thinking about your short game and chipping with a shorter swing, with your aim to landing the ball closer to the pin giving you a chance with sinking your putt.
This challenge has added benefits in that it will
get you to hit different clubs of the tee instead of reaching for your driver every timeimprove your tee shots, they will become straighter and you'll find more hitting the fairway instead of erring off into the undergrowthimprove your course management, as you will become more focused on where to land your ball to avoid hazardsyour short game will become stronger, those chip shots and approach shots will start to find the pinyour score will improve as you will start to reduce the amount of penalty shots to be taken
So hopefully I've convinced you to try this challenge out, what have you got to lose?
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