3 Secrets to Perfect Practice for Accelerated Improvement

Checkpoints for Practice

• Be your own coach — nobody spends more time with your swing than you do
• Use a mirror for quick spot-check feedback
• Use a camera for in-depth feedback on your positions
• Use the Forums to clear up any confusion about swing mechanics
• Exaggerate the correct movement patterns to help break bad habits faster
• Start slow, then gradually speed up and practice with an impact bag

Video Transcription: Practice Pt 1: 3 Secrets

As a golf instructor, I get to work with a lot of different students. Some students improve their golf swings very, very quickly. They're going to drop their handicap and dramatically transform their swing in a period of just a few months, while other students tend to put in just as much work and just as much effort, but they're not improving nearly as fast. Over the same period of time, they may have made no noticeable golf swing changes, and their handicap is exactly the same as it was before.

It really comes down to practicing golf effectively and efficiently — doing the correct things in the correct way. Hard work alone will not make you better at golf. Simply performing moves won't improve your game. You have to be performing the correct moves, and executing them in the correct way.

The Best Golf Practice Plan

It really boils down to three fundamental pieces: being your own coach, getting quality feedback, and using some proven tricks. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much golf instruction you're getting, no matter how many lessons you take, you're going to have to be your own coach.

You spend the most time with yourself. You control when you practice, where you practice, how you practice golf. You're going to have to be your number one asset and become the best coach you can — and that's exactly what the Rotary Swing is about. We're teaching you how to coach yourself.

Golf Practice Tools

Number two is about feedback, and number three involves a couple of tips and tricks to really help accelerate improvement beyond what repetitions alone can achieve.

First, being your own coach — that's exactly what the Rotary Swing website is doing for you. We're providing you with the best information on how to improve your own game. You have to be your own greatest asset. You're going to be with yourself the most amount of time.

As you first join the site, the very first thing you're going to do — because every coach still needs some guidance — is send in a swing to be reviewed.

While you're waiting for your review, start working through the videos. Start from the very beginning — Learning How to Learn — and work your way down the list. Watch every single video in that section and start moving forward.

That's going to help you gather the most information and understand the most about your own swing and what you need to address, so that you can coach yourself more effectively.

Building a Golf Practice Routine

Now, when you get your review back, it's going to identify a few key swing issues that are causing the most problems. At that time, you're going to read the review, watch the videos that correspond with your review, and study those thoroughly.

Again, you're going to start from the beginning and study all the videos so that you have as much knowledge as possible. Then you're going to start working on those moves. Let's say, for example, your golf posture is poor, so your shoulders are slouched. The review recommends a couple of posture videos for you.

You're going to study until you know exactly how the posture should look, and exactly how to get into the correct position. Then you're going to start coaching yourself. One of the keys to establishing good posture is to make sure you have good posture standing upright, then simply let your hips drop back until you can see the ball without cranking your head forward, then allow your arms to hang down naturally.

Most Important Golf Practice Tools

You're going to check yourself on camera — that's where the second part comes in, the feedback. You're going to need a camera and you're going to need a mirror, so that you can coach yourself effectively.

If we can't see ourselves, we're always going to assume that we're doing everything perfectly. I see it time and time again — people put in tremendous work, they hit thousands of golf balls executing the moves incorrectly, and it's really wasted time.

They haven't improved their golf swings because they haven't performed the moves correctly. They've only done the hard work part.

We're always going to assume that everything we do, we're doing perfectly. When I go out and play a really good round of golf, and I'm 3–4 under halfway through, I feel great. In my head, I feel like I'm producing a highlight-reel round — my posture looks great, my setup is solid, I'm generating tremendous lag, everything feels perfect.

Then when I watch the video, somehow someone has switched the tape in the camera to a completely different person. The posture needs work, my elbow is flying out — it could be a multitude of things. But that's how human nature works.

We're always going to assume we're doing everything great until we get the feedback and see whether we're truly executing the moves correctly.

Get yourself a mirror for golf. We have 360° mirrors on the site. These are incredibly handy — you can set them up on the ground, they're portable, and you can put them in your golf bag. That's going to help you get immediate feedback. If you can't use a camera, the 360° mirror is your fallback. You can also use a full-length mirror when you're practicing at home.

Now, the camera is the ultimate tool because it captures you at full speed. You don't have to look at a mirror mid-swing. You simply take your normal setup, make your normal swing, and the camera shows you exactly what's happening. That's your best line of defense.

We're going to produce some videos that walk you through how to use the mirror, the camera, and an impact bag — showing you exactly how to use each tool and why they're so important for your improvement.

Now that you've gotten your feedback and know what to work on, you've watched all the videos, practiced the moves, used feedback to refine your positions, and you feel like you're executing correctly — that's when you want to submit another swing review.

Once you feel you're performing the move to the absolute best of your ability, and everything you can identify that needs work on that particular move has been addressed, submit a review. I'm going to check it — or another RST certified instructor will — and say, "OK, that's looking great, here are the next pieces we need to work on."

There's really no point in sending another swing review unless you've made significant improvement. If you submit before you've improved, we're just going to cover the same material again — and we don't want to do that.

I want you to be able to coach yourself. That way, you can achieve the most improvement in the shortest period of time, and I'm simply going to help walk you through the system and keep you on track.

Now, if you're confused or unsure about how to practice or what's going on — and you've already watched all the relevant videos — that's the time to use the Forum to ask questions.

Underneath all the videos there's a Forum. Post a question there. One of the RST certified instructors will get right back to you and help with any of your issues. If you're confused, that's an excellent resource to take advantage of.

The last part involves the tips and tricks I mentioned. The first one is exaggeration — a powerful tool that's going to help you improve dramatically faster.

A common example I see every day is where the hands travel out away from the body while the club head moves inside. That's very common. To exaggerate the correction, I'm going to feel the opposite — I'm going to feel like my hands go inside and my club stays well outside. When you're first working on this move, you want to feel like your hands are going way in and the club is going way out.

What you'll discover is that as you're feeling this exaggeration, the actual result is much closer to being correct than it feels. When you check the camera or mirror, what feels dramatically exaggerated is actually pretty close to the target position.

This technique speeds up the process significantly so it doesn't take you two months to arrive at the position we need.

Continue using this exaggeration until you find that when you make a full practice swing or you're hitting the ball while feeling the exaggeration, and you check the video and it actually starts to get exaggerated — your hands truly do go inside, the club head starts going outside for that particular move — that's when you tone it down and go back to a feeling that isn't as extreme, to dial it in precisely. Then you continue ingraining those moves until they feel natural.

As we mentioned earlier, another trick to accelerate improvement is actually going slow. This is something I do in every lesson. If I'm going to work with you on creating lag in your golf swing, I'm not going to start out doing full swings focusing on lag. You're never going to get there that way — it would take us six months to see any real lag improvement.

The first thing I'm going to do is describe what lag is. I'm going to coach you on how to coach yourself on creating lag, and then we're going to start with very slow-speed, slow-motion practice drills. We'll gradually increase speed, eventually start working with the impact bag, and then only move to hitting balls when you're truly comfortable with every step along the way.

That's the second key. The slower you start, and the more you constantly push your boundaries of "where does this break down?" — as soon as it falls apart, go back to a speed you can control and build from there again.

The slower you start, the faster you're going to improve. I want all of you to improve tremendously. If you follow these principles, they're going to help you improve as fast as humanly possible. I look forward to seeing you more on the site.

Part 2 Transcript

We all want to get as good as we can, as fast as we can. I think we all share that in common.

In order to do that, we need to not only work on the correct things, but work on them in the correct way. We really need three different pieces of golf practice equipment that are going to help us improve as fast as possible.

The first one is an impact bag. If you don't already have an impact bag, you absolutely must get one. This is going to be crucial for your driving range practice time and is one of the most important golf practice tools. Here's how we use it.

Let's say we're working on lag. We get out to the range. First, we're going to work on our slow-motion drills. We're going to use a camera for this — I'll get to that next — but first, the slow-motion drills.

I'm working, I'm squatting down into my lead side, I'm keeping my shoulders closed, and my arms are getting back in front of my body. OK, this is feeling pretty good. I feel like I'm maintaining excellent lag with the slow-motion drills — and that's Step One.

Step Two is performing this with speed. But if I try to hit the ball right away, I just lose it — I go right back to what I've been doing before. I'm flipping my wrist, cupping at the bottom, all the bad habits I've been grooving forever. So I need an intermediate step, and that's where the impact bag comes in.

This is your intermediate step. It removes all the fear of hitting the ball and simply allows your body to make the swing at full speed.

What you're going to do is work on the same movements, make a few practice swings, and then do one at full speed where you try to maintain lag as you strike the bag.

This tool helps you make a full swing, hit something that gives you a similar feel to a full shot, but without any of the anxiety of having a ball in front of you. This is absolutely essential for golf practice.

It's also going to specifically help you with impact — getting those hands leaning forward and achieving positions that are difficult for many golfers to reach. That's number one. You've got to have an impact bag.

Number two is a mirror. We sell these on the site as well. This is a 360° mirror — it sits on the ground and allows you to check your positions no matter where you are. Because it's so compact, you can set it up anywhere.

This allows me, as I'm making swings — let's say I'm working on keeping the club from coming too far inside during the takeaway, so I've been really pulling this club inside. Now, as I'm on the range and practicing, maybe I don't want to check the camera every two seconds.

I've got the mirror down. Now I can glance at it and say, "OK, that looks good. I think my takeaway is tracking exactly where it needs to be." It provides immediate feedback. It's all about feedback.

We have to know if we're executing these moves correctly during practice, or you'll spend an entire day practicing the wrong things and go home, check the video, and it looks terrible. You've got to have a mirror for feedback.

Now the third piece of equipment everyone needs is a camera — and this is a must. If you're going to work on your golf swing, you need a camera. You can get a high-end camera like I use in my lessons, shooting at 1,000 frames per second. They're a bit of an investment — you're looking at $400–500 for a good one.

Or you can pick up a used camera. I'll tell you where I get mine — at the pawn shop. People buy nice cameras and then sell them. I've picked up several for lessons. This one is a Canon, and it does everything I need. It's compact, it shoots video, and 30 frames per second is perfectly adequate for checking positions in your swing. I paid about $30 for this one. It's roughly a $300 camera new, but used ones work perfectly fine.

Cameras - Vital Golf Practice Tools

But the camera is key. Whenever you practice, you need a camera set up. If you don't have a camera, you absolutely must have a mirror. But ideally, you're going to have a camera set up. As we're working on these moves — again, let's say I'm focused on my takeaway — and I feel like I'm doing it perfectly and I'm making these swings and it feels wonderful.

Then I go check the camera and, as you can see, the club is way too far inside. I was convinced I was executing it perfectly, and without any feedback, I'm always going to assume it's right.

You've got to have the camera to verify. I'd make four or five practice swings, go back, check the camera, see if I'm hitting the right positions. If I am, I'm going to move on to trying to speed this up — maybe instead of stopping during the takeaway, I'll swing all the way to the top and see if it holds together.

If it holds together there, I'm going to start making full practice swings. Does it hold together? If it does, I'm going to start hitting balls. If it holds together through all of that, then I've gotten a great day's work in and my takeaway is well on its way to lasting improvement.

That's how we have to approach improvement. It's all about feedback. It's all about seeing in a mirror where you are, verifying on camera that the moves you're making are correct, and using a tool like an impact bag to eliminate the fear of hitting a golf ball.

I hope you all improve incredibly fast, and good luck with your golf game.