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So I was at the range yesterday hitting some irons. I got down to my 9-iron and was practicing some draw and fade shots. Then I started to mess around a little. I opened my clubface maybe 5 degrees from the target line and put a draw swing on the ball. The ball flew higher with a slight draw at the end. But when it hit the green the ball would back up like a BET music video.

Anyone know why this is? Im not complaining just wondering about the physics of it all.

so you opened the club face a few degrees, but the ball flight was that of a draw? Man, I'm trying to figure out how that would work. I would say that if you open the club face, the ball will end up fading or slicing, with pretty much any swing. Do you think you flipped your wrists at impact, closing the clubface which caused the draw? I'm stumped.

Well the only way to produce a draw is with a good swing plane and a slightly closed clubface at impact, regardless of what you did with the club before you started the swing.

As far as it backing up, playing a draw and having the ball back up is nothing new. A ball can easily back up off a draw. Maybe this particular time you caught the ball extra clean with zero grass between the face and ball, maybe the part of the green you hit was slightly softer. It could be a number of things really.

well i already have a pretty big natural draw/almost hook so i tried opening the club face at address. Maybe that just gave me a square face at impact or maybe Ive been hitting with a closed face at address all these years...who knows

Yep, that's right. If you already had a normal draw/hook, then opening the clubface a little and then swinging simply made you not have as much of a closed clubface as you would have by no opening the clubface. By opening the face a little bit, you added more loft (which should go high anyway with a 9 iron).

Should note that if you're going to practice draws and fades, you probably want to do it with a club more like a 5 or 6 iron, something with less loft because the more loft the club has, the more backspin you're going to apply to the ball, thus the harder it is to hit a draw or a fade.

Good Luck