The Golf Drill Guru
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.
The Drill:
Place a shaft or stick into the ground just off your lead heel, much like the image shown here (it should be about 3-4 inches from your lead hip). Focus on turning your hips while swinging. If you slide your hips during your swing, you will hit the shaft. Remember that there is some horizontal movement in the golf swing (comes from the weight-shift), but the 3-4 inches leeway should be plenty for you to perform a solid swing without making contact with the shaft.
Think, Turn! ~ This is very important in creating power, and sequencing your swing properly.
Just another note, many players have difficulty “feeling” that they are sliding into impact. If you often hit wild blocks, it’s a good bet that you are occasionally – work on this drill to fix it.
Hi, thanks for the drills. Will definitely give it a try. Sometime, I tend to make these movements that cause my shots to go wild.
I also have a problem with short irons i.e. PW/SW. I tend to get the feeling that I am “scooping” rather than compressing the shot. If its not too much to ask, do you also have any drills that I can try out?
Hey KK,
This is quite common, I find that most people who feel they are scooping, have an overactive lower body… specifically the knees. It will encourage you to scoop underneath the ball often hitting behind the ball, or fat shots. Does this sound like you? It’s also possible that your wrists are to blame – can you give me a little more info?
We have drills for both over-active lower body and scooping or flipping of the wrists on this site.
Cheers,
GDG
I think you are right spot on about both of them, I tend to hit fat on my shot more often than not. My lower body action is rather active and i can feel my trail wrist trying to help the ball to get up. This resulted high ball flight. Half of the times it goes straight, the other goes left. Because the ball goes high, the distance achieved was much lesser than what I thought i should be hitting. I merely got 90yrds.
Hey again, ahh, some new info. The fact that you lack distance, feel like your flipping, hit it fat and often hit the ball left leads me to believe you’re swing path is too blame. Possibly, that you’re coming over the top. I’d take a look at your swing path – it’s quite likely on an out to in path. Check your divots – do they point left?
For the over-the-top, I’d suggest this drill:
http://sirshanksalot.com/pulling-drills-golf-drills-81/1119-45o-ball-drill-stop-coming-over-the-top-
http://sirshanksalot.com/pulling-drills-golf-drills-81/1113-top-5-most-common-faults-causing-you-to-come-over-the-top
For the flipping issue – you may want to try this drill:
http://sirshanksalot.com/chipping-drills-golf-drills-77/990-pencil-chipping-drill
For the over-active lower body – give the drills under the “push section” of this post a try:
http://sirshanksalot.com/pulling-drills-golf-drills-81/1337-fix-your-push-pull-or-shank-with-only-a-range-bucket
Good luck!