Bonus Challenge 3 - 9 Ball Challenge
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Bonus Challenge 3 is the culmination of all that you have learned. You will learn how to take the skills you have acquired through the 4 Phases to be able to hit every shot in the book - high and low draws, high and low fades and high and low straight shots.
Your final bonus challenge is to put everything that you've learned together so that you have absolute mastery over the golf ball.
We're going to take the things that you've learned.
To be consistent in controlling trajectory and controlling shot shape and put them all together so that you can hit all nine shots, which is a high draw, a high straight shot, a high cut, medium trajectory, and low draw, low straight shot, and low cut.
This is going to be a culmination of everything that you've learned.
And so this nine ball challenge will give you absolute mastery over the ball.
And so there's, it's all just a matter of putting the two things that you learned in the previous bonus challenges together.
So in the first bonus challenge, we talked about just altering the release slightly to add a little bit of draw spin or hold a little bit of cut spin on there.
And in the next bonus challenge, we started altering the release slightly, always using this lead hand to alter that.
Now it's just a matter of putting them together.
And we're going to go about lead arm parallel.
By this point, you should be very comfortable going lead arm parallel and making really consistent, solid contact, taking nice crisp divots and hitting the ball nice and straight.
Now we're going to start to alter that.
So what do we do to start to modify these things?
Well, it's very simple.
You've already learned it.
It's just a matter of putting the two together in your mind.
You know that if you want to hit the ball high, you're going to let the club start to release just a little bit.
You're going to have a little bit less shaffling.
You're not going to try to get this left wrist so much out in front of the ball.
You're going to try to let the club start to release just a tiny bit.
And if I wanted to do that and let the wrist rotate a little bit more, that would create a high draw.
Same thing.
If I wanted to hit it low draw, I'm going to bow that wrist and let the release.
So now we're putting both together.
So let's hit a couple here and see what they were.
So the first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to hit a high draw.
I'm going to let my left wrist start to get pretty close to flat here.
And I'm going to start to add a little bit of release.
So I want to practice this first to get the feeling of what I want to feel that club releasing, letting my left wrist start to get flatter sooner and letting the club rotate over a little bit more.
I will alter my setup just a tiny bit.
I'm going to close my stance just a smidge and get a feel for this and let the ball work its way nice and high right to left.
Nice high trajectory, about a three yard draw on that and just a little bit of release.
Now you don't have to worry about the first time you're doing this that you're going to do it perfect.
This is a challenge.
This is very, very difficult to put all these together at first, but you got to practice it and you'll get better.
So if you hit a high ball, but it didn't draw as much, add a little bit more release.
You can be a little bit more freewheeling with it because you hit it high, but you just didn't get the curvature on it.
You need to allow a little bit more release.
If you want to hit it the opposite, if you hit it, didn't hit it high, but you got the curvature on it, you need to allow that wrist start the club to start to catch up with your hands a little bit more.
That shot was good for me.
So I'm going to alter it a little bit.
Now I want to hit a high cut.
So now I still want that left wrist to come in nice and flat, starting to release, but I'm going to hold the release off slightly.
So now I'm going to aim a little bit to the left of my target and I'm going to hit a, I'm going to imagine I got to hit this big high cut around a tree.
So I'm going to get this feeling of holding off that release.
I'm even trying to feel in my follow-through that I end up with my wrist relatively cupped much more than I would normally, because this helps show me what I did through the hitting area.
If by the time I get up here, it's fully released.
I held that club face open pretty well.
So now I'm going to aim just a little bit left.
I'm going to hold off the release, but I'm going to hit it high.
So I'm going to let that wrist start to break down this angle, but hold off the rotation.
Rotation controls curvature, the wrist deviation controls trajectory.
So now let's see if we can put these together.
Perfect.
It's going to end up right on the tape line about a five yard cut, nice and high.
That's a great shot to get to a tucked pin.
So just my felt my wrist being pretty flat there and then holding off the release just slightly and boom, I've got a perfect, nice high cut.
Now let's say I want to hit it low.
The standard shot, the medium line, that's pretty easy.
We've been working on that.
We were all kind of hitting every shot about the same, but now we want to start hitting it low on the nine ball challenge.
So I'm going to start to get a feel for that left wrist being a little bit more bowed through the hitting area.
And I'm going to hit a low draw first.
I'm going to bow it and release it.
So now we'll see a much different starting line or in terms of trajectory wise, it's going to be a much lower ball, make a couple of practice swings.
I'm going to practice now, instead of being here with my release, it's going to feel a little bit more here to me because I'm wanting to hit a draw and this helps my bowed wrist, help shut the face and take the loft off of it.
So on my follow through, I'm just kind of exaggerating this feeling of that wrist, not being cupped and that will help me get some curvature on the ball and keep the loft off the club face.
So I'll aim a little bit right.
Now that one didn't come out as low as I wanted.
So now what do I need to do to correct it in this nine ball challenge?
I didn't hit the ball nearly as low as I wanted.
I wasn't aggressive enough by bowing that wrist.
So I'm going to go back to my little nine to three check swings here, right?
The nine to three, I can really start to exaggerate getting that left wrist nice and bowed.
We always can go back down steps, right?
We can go back to parallel to parallel.
Now I got a feeling for it again.
Let's see if we can get the ball a little bit lower.
That's this time.
There we go.
A little two yard draw came out nice and flat and penetrating.
That's a totally different ball flight.
That's a great shot to hit into the wind, trying to get to a pin rather than getting this really spinny ball.
I took the loft off.
Same thing with the cut.
I want to hit a low cut and you can also start to experiment now with ball position.
I don't move ball position more than a ball in either direction.
That's extreme.
I really move kind of half a ball, but you can move the ball position a little bit to help take and make it easier to come from the inside, to get a little bit more curvature on it, to hit down on it a little bit more.
You can do that.
And this is a great time to start to experiment with that.
So for the low cut, I'll move the ball back on my stance a little bit.
By moving it back, this gives me a couple of little benefits.
So my normal ball position, you know, is going to be off the left ear.
I move it back half a ball.
What that does, the club has less time than normal to square up because it's further back.
So on my normal swing arc, the club is releasing, releasing, releasing, but now it's just got less time to square up.
So that helps make it easier, kind of a full safe way for me to keep that club face from releasing.
The opposite is true in a draw.
I may actually, especially if I want to hit a high draw, I'll move it up in my stance.
It gives me more time to get that club face released.
Of course, you can also hit a draw by moving the ball back in your stance, but we're not going to talk about that for right now.
So I'm going to move it back in my stance to help hold the face off, keep it from releasing so I can get the cut spin on it.
But it'll also help me hit down on the ball slightly, a little bit more, to bring the trajectory down.
But the main thing I'm going to use to control trajectory is that lead wrist.
So I'll make a couple of little nine to three swings, holding that release off while keeping the wrist nice and flat.
Now I'll do a little one here at first, cause you can do this too.
You don't have to be going full speed, especially on shots that you're not comfortable with.
So if you want to hit a low cut, you can just do a little shot like that.
That was a nice low cut, ended up right on the tape line and I can build up from there.
So these don't have to be every shot full bore, like back it down to nine to three, nine to three club parallel, nine to three arm parallel, and then you can go back up to full swing.
So now I got a good feel for that.
I got a good feel for my release on the little, little punch chip cut there.
Now I'm going to do a little more speed.
Nice cut.
You can see I held off the release a little bit and I got a nice penetrating cut that will get through the wind and land nice and soft.
Nine ball challenge is the graduation.
When you can hit this shot, when these nine shots, you have complete mastery over the golf ball.
So work on these drills.
Don't expect to get them perfect every time.
This is mastery.
This is Tiger Woods uses this to practice when he's getting ready to go out for a big event.
He makes sure you can hit all nine shots.
When you can hit all nine shots, you're a golfer.
You have complete control over that ball.
Manny (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)