Why is shaft lean so important? This fascinating video shows us

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

There’s no feeling quite like catching an iron just right. For the pros, that feeling is an expectation. For the average recreational player, it’s a hope.

There’s no reason these shots have to be so rare, though. All you’ve got to do is develop a little bit of consistency. And a great place to start in that endeavor is by understanding what a crisp iron shot looks like at impact.

If you watch a slo-mo video of a well-struck iron, one thing should stick out immediately: the shaft lean at impact. This forward lean with the shaft de-lofts the face at impact — producing much more power — and it presents the sweet spot of the clubface to the back of the ball.

You can see the phenomena in the video below from GOLF Top 100 Teacher Andrew Rice.

“As soon as we get some shaft lean, and we have the clubhead traveling down to a certain degree, that center of the face has much cleaner access coming into the back of the golf ball,” Rice says.

If you don’t maintain the proper lean — especially with higher lofted clubs — you’ll have a tendency to catch the bottom of the clubface. However, when you lean the shaft forward a bit, it allows you to make contact with the sweet spot much easier.

That forward lean also helps you compress the ball into the turf, producing spin (and height) on your shots. This will make it much easier to attack tucked pins and get the ball to stop quickly on the greens.