Day 7: High and Low Draw

Rory Mcilroy's go to shot is the high draw with any club in the bag. I'm going to show you how to put it into your arsenal.

All right, guys. It's graduation day. You've made it this far. You've learned a ton about how the pros learn how to manipulate ball flight while still giving themselves the biggest margin of error. It's not just a ton of talent and hand-eye coordination out there, building in things that are going to make it easier to repeat the shots consistently. In today's final video about this, we're going to talk about how to hit the high and low draw.

                                Yesterday, I talked about high and low fades and we talked about the wrist positions and ball positions and all those things. Today, the good thing about hitting a draw is it's very natural with RST. There's a couple things I want to point out that are going to make this shot more repeatable, more consistent for you.

                                Number one, the biggest thing that I think about, I don't really talk about what I think about or what I feel on my swing, I like to be very objective, but shaping shots is more of an art form than just science. It's a combination of the two, of course. The ball's not going to defy the laws of physics. But some things that you learn over years of practice and playing is certain things that feel consistent across the board for most golfers. The one thing that I've found when I'm going to hit a draw and I want to hit it high is that the more I slow down, the more consistent I can hit that shot. When I say slow down, I mean everything but particularly my chest rotation. If I'm really aggressive with my hips, it's going to pull my chest around, it's going to be very hard for me to get that club face to rotate and release. Because now, as we're trying hit not only a draw but we're trying to hit it up in the air, I need that club face to get back close to in line with my hands, depending on the trajectory that I want to hit. I can't my hands way leading, so if I'm real aggressive with my chest and shoulders, my hands are going to be really ahead of the ball and club facing going to intend to stay open. That's how you hit the cut.

                                Now, what I want to do when I hit this high draw, is I want to be syrupy smooth and nice and relaxed. Understand that the worst thing you can try and do with a draw, especially a high draw, is try and hit it hard. The ball's going to go further anyway, because you're delofting the club face and hitting a draw with hook spin on it, the ball's going to already going to go further. Don't try and make it go further. If anything, try and hit it less. You're going to hit it more consistent, more pure when you do that anyway. Try to take a little bit out of it and let the club face, the mechanics of how the ball is going to be compressed a little bit more, it's going to have a little more spin on it, hook spin on it, that's going to help it bite through the air, is going to get you the extra distance.

                                Slow it down a little bit. Get that feeling of being really nice and smooth and release, let that club face release. That's the critical thing. When we're doing this, we're trying to get the club face to release but also rotate. We've got to get that toe pointed over, even though we're rehinging. It's really important that you slow everything down to buy time for that to happen with the club. When I try to hit a high draw, I try to picture Ernie Els in my head. Just nice and buttery smooth to buy time for that to release.

                                The ball positive for the high draw, as you might have guessed, can be up in your stance just a little bit, because what's that going to do? It's going to allow the club a little bit more time to get the shaft more vertical and the club face more closed. Those are the two prerequisites for hitting a high draw, right? It's not rocket science. So if I move the ball up a half a ball width or maybe a full width, that's pushing it but, how about half a ball width, I'm just buying myself a couple extra degrees of rotation, which is all I need.

                                Now, when I go to hit the low draw, now's where things get a little bit tricky. That's why I started with the high draw first. That one's pretty simple. The low draw, the tendency is for people to put the ball way back in their stance. In this case, to some degree it's okay, believe it or not. There's a couple things I'm going to do and it depends on the severity of the low draw. Typically, a low draw tends to be more of an exaggeration shot because it's not very often that you're going to hit this as just a standard golf shot. Typically, when I think of hitting a low draw, I'm thinking about taking a longer iron, a three-iron or even a two-iron, moving it back in my stance and really hitting a low runner that's going to only fly half the normal distance but it's going to roll an extra 100 yards. It's typically where this shot is used in real life. Now, it doesn't mean you can't hit seven-irons that fly 125 yards in the air and fly really low, but not very often that you do that. This is more of a tee-off shot. Think of Tiger Woods' old stinger shot.

                                In that case, as we move the ball back in our stance, what's going to happen to our path? I want you to think about this. If the club is coming in still from the inside, like it normally should be, it's going to be working out to the right. So as it's working out to the right, the tendency is going to be for the ball to want to start right and you're going to have to hit a huge draw to get it to come back, and that's a lot of work. But we do need the ball to be back a little bit in order to deloft the club face enough to really get any value out of this shot.

                                Now, of course, there are varying degrees, here. If you're just trying to bring your trajectory down a little bit, then the low draw is a pretty simple, straightforward shot. You keep the ball in the same spot as normal and move it back maybe a full ball width and then just bow your wrist and really release it. That's where you're going to be looking like this in your follow through like we did in our first day drills. That's where this shot really comes in. But I'm really going to talk about this again as more of a tee shot kind of weapon that you can put in a windy condition to get the ball to roll a lot, so this one's a little bit different.

                                I'm moving the ball back moreso than I normally would, and here's where things are going to get a little bit interesting. I'm going to change the way that I take the club back. Now, again, if you're hitting a seven-iron normal shot, you don't have to change [inaudible 00:05:17]. You're taking a two-iron, three-iron, four-iron, even a three-wood and trying to do this shot, things need to change a little bit. So here's what happens. As I have the ball further back in my stance, I have less time and space for the club to square up.

                                What do you think I should do in order for to get all this stuff to work? Well, here's a secret. As I move the ball back in my stance, I'm going to take the club face back a little bit more closed. So as I get to the top of my swing, I'm going to have this wrist already pre-bowed slightly so that as I come down, even though the club is traveling more from the inside than normal, it's severely delofting. This coming from the inside makes it easier to draw the ball because the toe's going to want to naturally rotate over. Then, taking the club face back a little more shut allows me to really hood it coming down and get my wrist really bowed. Again, this is a severe specialty shot. You're trying to hook a five-iron under the woods, it's got to fly very far, fly very low, those types of things.

                                So that's where this shot really comes in handy. Move the ball back in your stance a little bit. You can play with this, that's what I want you to do, so you may go out and practice moving it back quite a bit. This is back of center. Take it back a little shut, and that ball was super low and a little bit left. It's going to draw quite a bit. As you start adding speed to this, you'll start finding the balance of how to put the ball in just the right spot, to how much to take it back closed, and how to find that perfect little sweet two-iron stinger out there.