There are many situations on the golf course where club golfers rely on their iron play to find the right position on the fairway, set up scoring opportunities or escape trouble – but often they come unstuck by making poor decisions or being imprecise in their execution.
Flushing an iron from the middle of the fairway is a great skill, and one that will help you cut your handicap, but being able to hit a range of different iron shots can actually help you to shoot lower scores in 2026.
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7 Shots Every Golfer Must Learn To Play With An Iron
1. Safety shot off the tee
If you are planning to hit a safety shot off the tee with an iron, you need to commit to achieving this via a centred strike.
So often, amateurs intend to use this shot as a fairway-finder only to then miss the fairway and leave themselves a long and difficult second shot into the green.
Your weight should slightly favour your lead side at address, with ball position just forward of centre for a mid-iron and below your collarbone for a long-iron.
Your tempo should be committed but not too aggressive, focusing more on a centred strike and finding the correct landing zone than distance.
Setting a tee in the ground ahead of the ball is a great way to practise a ball-then-turf strike. You’re aiming to smash the tee out of the turf instead of thinking about making contact with the ball.
2. Taking your medicine
For the majority of players, there will be times when they put themselves in positions out on the golf course where they really don’t want to be.
Here, I am blocked out by the trees, which are obscuring my route to the flag and interfering with my swing. Instead of being a hero and taking it on over the water, the sensible shot…
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