A little while ago I posted a drill called the Cart Lag Creator Drill, where the concept was to force yourself to lag the club properly by sticking a golf cart in the way of your downswing. This way, only a swing employing proper lag would avoid the cart entirely and allow you to make contact with the ball.
Golf Drills
Bucket in Knees Stabilization Drill
I myself have used this drill many times to help stabilize my lower body. It’s really is amazing how easily it helps to fix an over-active lower body. By placing a bucket between your thighs, right above your knees (as shown), you can really minimize the movement allowed by your lower body (remember to pinch your knees inwards to hold the bucket in place). Take a look at the picture to better understand what I mean. I personally focus on squeezing my knees inward, it helps to increase resistance and torque while preventing a slide, it’s a very effective combo.
If you tend to suffer from quick hips or you slide them through impact, try this golf drill. Hit balls with a short iron and focus on turning through impact. You’ll see a large difference in ball contact, direction and distance.
Stop Sliding Drill ~ Cure your Push
You reach a short par 5, you’re playing well but could really use another birdie. You address the ball and swing a little harder than normal, thinking about reaching the green in two. You make your swing, you finish, and watch your tee-shot sail way into the trees on the right. Sound familiar? It does for me, especially when I was a junior golfer. I had the tendency to slide my hips into impact in attempts to get more distance. This fault lead to an in to out swing path, resulting in my blocked shot.
This was one of the drills I have used to help force my hips to stay stationary and turn instead of sliding to get those extra yards. You can clearly see in these two pictures that this student’s hips are moving horizontally. Timing the motions of the hands and sliding hips to create solid contact is nearly impossible with this swing problem. To help maximize consistency a player would ideally, want his hips to turn rather than slide. This drill will help you reduce your hips from sliding.
Chair Drill For Spine Stability & Blocks
Problem:
Thousands of junior golfers can relate to this problem – in attempts to gain more distance, they all move their hips so forcefully into impact that they cannot maintain their spine angle. The result is often a block / push. Maintaining your spine angle throughout your swing is the key to unlocking your consistency. This simple drill using a chair is a great way to improve your consistency.
How to Reduce Your Head Movement & Eliminate Fat Shots
For most players, extra head movement during the swing is a nuisance. It can result in inconsistent contact, and quite often lead to fat shots. The players on tour that get away with extra head movement, like Jim Furyk, get away with it because they are able to maintain a consistent spine angle throughout their swing. This type of swing is not something that can be taught, it takes years to perfect. So with that in mind, a simple, repeatable swing that maintains a consistent spine angle is the best approach to improving consistency and ball contact. The easiest way to maintain your spine angle is to reduce your head movement – this drill will help you achieve this.
This drill is simple enough to perform… you don’t even need a club. Face a wall, and get setup in your address position. Cross your arms across your chest, and move towards the wall until your head is making contact with it. Next, start back as if you were performing a swing – at the top of your backswing – hold the position… your head should still be in contact with the wall. Next, follow-through, focus on keeping your head touching the wall until after impact.
This simple drill will help you steady your head, and feel what a stable spine angle is like. With some practice, you shouldn’t have any issues with fat shots anymore. Give it a try.
What’s First? Club Fitting or Golf Instruction?
If you’re thinking of getting into golf, or simply wanted to get back into the game after a hiatus, chances are you’re in the hunt for new clubs. You’re starting fresh, so your clubs should be new as well. But before you go down the road of club shopping, fitting and lessons, let me explain a little more about club fitting.
Club fitting is now an essential part of learning the game for anyone wanting to take up golf. But here’s something to remember about club fitting – it fits the swing you have at the time. If you’re getting back into the game – your swing is going to go through a bunch of changes until you “find your swing”. Our advice? Use your existing clubs, or get a demo set to practice with and groove your swing first. Next step is lessons.
Once you’ve got your swing working, lessons should be next. Explain to your pro your plans to buy new clubs and get fitted. Your pro will work with you to ensure your posture and address position is in check, and fix any big swing mistakes you’re making. Posture is one of the most important factors that influence how your clubs get fitted to your swing.
10 Quick Ways to Fix your Slice
Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by. We’ve made a list of 10 quick ways to fix your slice. I’m sure many of you out there suffer from a slice, I’ve given you ten quick and easy things to try and fixes this dreaded fault. Give these a shot. Enjoy!
Impact & the Golf Swing
Impact is the moment of truth in a golf swing. If your impact position resembles the picture at right for your irons, you’re already a very solid player. This position is the key to power and consistency, and you can see it among all the best players in the world. As unique as every professionals swing is, their impact positions are pretty much identical. There are two key features to an ideal impact position.
1) Your head should be behind the ball.
As you swing into impact your body is transferring all the power created by your larger muscles into the smaller quicker muscles into impact. Anatomically, power is generated first with your core, as your weight begins to transfer over your legs kick in and add to the power. This power is then transferred to your shoulders, down your arms and finally as your wrists release from their cocked position, into the club.
With the rotation and movement your body is experiencing, your body center must remain relatively still to ensure you make contact with the ball. This balanced position is what creates consistency. So what does this mean to you? If your head is ahead of the ball at impact, you’re not creating power properly, and your swing is inconsistent.
Headcover Power Drill
This drill helps players who keep their right elbow too close to their body at the top of their backswing. This fault causes your swing to lose width (a key factor in creating power) and your muscles to tense up.
Place a headcover in the armpit of your trailing arm as shown in the image (sort of). The headcover will lock your right arm in place during the first part of your backswing helping you to maintain the ideal ‘triangle at address’. Start swinging back, letting the right elbow slowly move away, but not so much that it starts to ‘fly’. If you make the right move at the top of your backswing, the headcover should fall out. If it doesn’t, you’ve tensed up and your swing width has been drastically reduced, much like your power. Remember that the headcover should fall out at the top of your backswing, any earlier and your arms are separating from your body too soon.
Fix Getting Underneath It
Many players suffer from fat shots. Instead of laying the sod over the ball, quite often you can get underneath the ball and pop it up, or sky it. The ultimate symptom that causes this swing fault is an overly steep swing into impact. As this video shows, the most common fault for such a steep swing is poor ball position. If the ball is placed too far back in your stance, you can’t properly sequence your downswing. Instead you’re forced to release your wrists early, and it becomes very easy to pop it up. The simple fix – keep a close eye on your ball position. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply place a shaft on the ground, pointing at your ball – setup to the ball, and you’ll get instant feedback on your ball position in relation to your stance.