DEAD Drill Step 5 - Add the Club
Sorry, you need to be a member to access to this video.
Become a member here!
Hitting all your checkpoints with your body and lead arm? Awesome! Now let's add the club and feel, for the first time, what a proper release feels like!
Once you're hitting all your checkpoints and you've added your lead arm into the swing and nothing is breaking down with your body checkpoints. It's time to stack the club in there. I highly recommend at first that you start out with the club upside down and just grab it down here by the hozzle. The reason is the mass of the club starts generating a lot of momentum. And so the tendencies that you had in your old swing of ripping the club inside being too handsy, picking it up, they'll start to show up here again. But if you take the club upside down, it'll be much easier for your brain to focus on your body movements, because you won't have a club trying to pull you around all over the place. So again, just like when you, I was saying, adding
The lead arm, the key here is that what you're going to focus on is
Allowing your body to move the club and don't try and do anything with the club. The less you do with your arms and hands, the more consistent you're going to be as a golfer. The body is the key. So just like when we added the lead arm, your checkpoints are focusing on your body. And if you do that and you move of your body, just like I've taught you so far, the club will automatically go exactly where it's supposed to without you having to do anything with worrying about positions and planes and paths and all of that stuff. So let me show you from set up what we're going to do. So I'm going to turn back, making my back swing. Now, as I squat to square, when my left arm is about parallel to the ground, I should have at least 90 degrees of lag or angle between my forearm and the shaft.
If you look like this, you're pushing against the shaft with your lead thumb. So as I go back, what I want to do is I squat to square, make sure that club shaft is at least vertical or slightly inside a vertical. And now the big checkpoint is the, as I post up and finish my shift, that my hand is right in front of my thigh. And the club shaft is at least parallel to the ground. Now there's no benefit of having this much lag at this point. That's way too much. And you'd have to do something very aggressive with your hands at the bottom, or have a ridiculously strong grip think Sergio Garcia in order to get the club face to square up. So don't try to get any bonus points here. There is such thing as too much of a good thing. So as I start down my wrist back in front of my thigh club, shaft parallel to the ground, that's it you're done at that point.
If you can get to here, we're going to be golden from down the line. I'm going to do the same thing, go to the top shift and transition squat to square post up now club. My wrist is in front of my thigh. The club shaft while parallel to the ground should be pointing straight down the target line. If you've done that the rest of your swing and the rest of your golfing life is going to be so much fun. You won't be able to stand it because all you have to do from there is released the club. And as you flip the club, right side up, which we're going to do now, the release is going to happen. Automagically because the body is in control of the swing and all your hands have to do from that point is let go. That's what it means to release.
Think about what it literally means to be, to release something. It literally means to let go. And that's how I want you to imagine your golf swing through the hitting area. Once you get to the delivery point, we're in our checkpoint here. All I want you to do from there is just let the club go where it wants to go. Your wrist is just going to re rotate, letting the club go from a towed up position to square, to tote up. That's all you're trying to do. And if you let that happen, it will happen with great speed and great consistency. That's the key we want to put, sir, Isaac Newton in the driver's seat at impact, you don't want to be trying to steer or try and manually square. That club face up. You want to let physics do it for you and let the club release in the more that you get out of the way, and you let Knight Newton get in the driver's seat.
The more the club face is going to consistently do the same thing through the hitting area. So once we have the club right side up, it really helps to choke up on it a little bit at first, because it's a little unwieldy when you're going just with your left hand, only go to the top shift, post up and now from here, just let it go. Now it's a little bit tricky when you stop and you hit this checkpoint, which you need to do at first to make sure once that club has flipped right, set up, because it's going to feel a lot heavier. Now you're going to want to start losing lag or pushing against the shaft, et cetera. So once you get here, you just want to let it kind of naturally release. You can start to get the feel of the release, even stopping here.
But the real goal is by now, if you've done enough of these body drills and you've done enough repetition, you should be able to make the entire backswing transition and post up all in one smooth movement. If you can't do that yet with just your body, then you've skipped too far ahead and you're not ready for the club yet. If you can't put all of these moves together like this at a normal pace of a golf swing, like I just did there. You're not ready for the arms and club yet, but if you can do that, watch what's going to happen. I'll do it slowly. At first.
Pretty fast, right? All I did was just put those movements together without having the pauses in the chunks. The pauses and chunks are necessary at first, so that you can stop and make sure you're hitting your checkpoints. But once you get those checkpoints down, it's time to start taking the training wheels off and start trying to blend this into one smooth motion. That's the goal. And as you do that, I'll go really slow this time. So what I want to do when I'm hitting my checkpoints and going through the, the whole thing slowly, but as one piece is that I want to make sure as I come down and I get into the post-up, it's just my arm and clubs that are moving at that point. You see how my lower body is just post it up. I'm like a big old Oak tree anchored to the ground, driving my feet in the ground, contracting my glutes.
At this point, this is making sure that my body stays stable and protected so that I'm not only protecting my spine and hip from injury, but I'm also going to be more consistent. Imagine if I'm just trying to move my lower body all over the place in the downswing or move my upper body all over the place, it's impossible to be consistent. So as you start grouping this together, you want to make sure that your chest stay square. Notice that my head is still looking down at the ground. Even when I get into the release and my shoulders are still square from down the line, this is a little bit easier to see the club pulls me around to a follow-through. You never, ever try and move your body into a follow-through. The club is going to move. You remember what you've been working on this whole time is getting posted up and then slamming on the brakes, contract the glutes, push the feet into the ground and then release the club.
But nothing changes. The club is releasing, not my body. So as you start adding a little more pace to this, you're going to start getting pulled open a little bit more, but the club is doing the pulling. I'm not trying to get into a follow-through position. I'm trying to get into an impact position and then release the club. And as I do this with speed, that is how you get pulled into a follow-through. So a couple of critical checkpoints, as you start adding a little more pace to this, the biggest thing is going from toe up to toe up, which you remember from the nine to three drill from down the line, it's really easy to start seeing the K the club shaft is parallel to the ground and the club face is toed up or slightly towed in squared impact towed up on the other side while my shoulders are square, my hips are open.
All that's happening is that my wrist bones are being allowed to rotate. And they're being rotated by the toe of the club. Naturally wanting to turn over. I'm never trying to flip the clubs over actively with my hands. That's impossible to time consistently. So you just want to let the club release, remember release means to let go. So that means you're not trying to steer it. You're just letting the club release. You'll also notice as we start down doing nothing with my arms, look how the club naturally drops into the proverbial slot. You're perfectly on plane here and you haven't tried to do anything with your swing plane whatsoever. It's just shifting squat to square, post up clubs in a good position release and let it go. You put those together and watch out because once we add that right arm and ball, you're going to have a brand new golf swing. That's going to perform as good as it looks.
Jon
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ryan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ryan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Olav
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Todd
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tom
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Gerry
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Tony
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Peter
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Peter
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Gerard
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Richard
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Veasna
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alfred
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Neil
Neil
Dmitry
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Brian
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Brian
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Michael (Certified RST Instructor)
John
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
John
Todd (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Martin
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kyaw Thet
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Max
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lorenzo
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lorenzo
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
James
Todd
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ross
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Remington
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Erik
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rich
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rich
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Rich
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Daniel
Mikko-Pekka
Daniel
Mikko-Pekka
M. (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andre
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andre
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andre
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andre
Andre
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Andre
John c
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Serge
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
van
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Serge
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Serge
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
gary
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jonathan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Stan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Shreeraj
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Ron
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Paul
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
charles
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Diane
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Diane
Bernard
John
Bernard
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lippen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Lippen
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jens
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Alan
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)