Improve Your Ball Striking Golf Swing Drill

Learn the 3 Tour Pro Consistency Secrets You've NEVER Heard!

Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!

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Published: May 16, 2017

In today's golf instruction video, we're going to be discussing a simple little effective golf swing drill that's going to help you get more compression and become an overall better ball striker.

                One of the things that we're going to be discussing today is the actual position of your shoulders at impact. If you've been unclear as to if you're doing something right or wrong, then you want to pay close attention to today's entire video, because I'm going to show you a really simple drill at the end that's going to help you correct this.

                One of the most common mistakes that we see for amateur golfers is actually the position of their shoulders at impact. I know probably a lot of you at home are probably going, "Okay, Chris, what in the heck does that even mean?" Well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.

                Let's talk about where we're trying to go first. Then I'm going to help you identify your problem, second. Then, third, we're going to help you identify a solution that's going to help you overcome this problem.

                First things first. Let's go ahead and talk about axis tilt at address. We've talked about this in quite a few other videos, but if I set up here, you'll notice that my set-up position, my spine, is going to be just inside my lead knee here. You can see that it's right down the front of my body, through my navel. You can see that I have enough tilt just to have it just inside my lead knee. The importance of this is just to help us get the head in behind the golf ball. It also helps us rotate around our spine without running the risk of reverse pivot.

                What we're looking for at impact is, we want to have our spine ... If I were just to take this address position, and I were to shift my hips all the way to the left, and then open them up a little bit, keeping my head nice and quiet, we want to have enough tilt to where our spine is now just outside of our lead knee. You can notice that my shoulders really haven't increased much in that tilt in order to be able to get to that position.

                One thing that you're probably running, the issue here, is this is where a lot of people make this mistake, is that they've got just too much of this tilt. One of the issues here with this is that, number one, it changes where the club is going to bottom out, which in turn can start to change the way that you release the golf club. Typically, what we'll see is, with people that tend to have too much of this, is they're going to start to cast the club, which tells them that they're going to be losing lag. Then they're going to start flipping a little bit at the bottom of the swing.

                But also what it does, is from a down the line perspective, when I turn my body to the top of the swing, and if I were to lean my spine back, what does that do to the shaft plane? Notice here as I start to lean back, see how it starts to flatten out quite a bit? Why is that an issue in the golf swing? Chances are, that's going to start to shallow you out too much, going to have your swing path swing too far from the inside. But also what it's going to be doing is, it's going to be causing you to swing more on an ascending blow to hit the golf ball, rather than a descending blow. In order to be able to hit your irons or your fairway woods nice and solid, we typically want to be hitting down on those. That helps create that compressed feel.

                You can see that the position of the shoulders can affect, number one, where the club bottoms out. And number two, it can also affect the angle of attack and the path that the club is on, which makes it much harder for you to actually get that compressed feel of the golf ball. If you've noticed yourself on camera with too much secondary axis tilt at impact where your lead shoulder's way back here, and you get your spine way outside your left knee, then let's go ahead and get you a drill here that's going to help you overcome that.

                Okay, guys, so good news. This is a very simple drill today. It's going to take you a little bit of time to correct this problem, so every time you set out to practice, what you're going to aim for is right 100 to 150 total reps. What I want you to do is, I want you to break your session up, and I want you to start out very slow, just so you can make sure that you're doing these movements correctly. Then as you start to become more proficient, you start to increase the speed.

                This is a drill I call the left shoulder low. When you go ahead and take your set-up here, I want you guys to go ahead and grab a golf club, put it just in your lead hand here, and get your trail arm out of the mix here for a little bit. This is a pretty common theme around Rotary Swing. We want to eliminate our troublemaker at first, and then we'll slowly add it back in there.

                What I want you to do here is, I want you to go ahead and make a backswing up to the top of your swing. I want you to freeze. When you make your first initial shift left, I want you to try and feel like your left shoulder stays really low to the ground, and your right shoulder stays up and behind your head. You can see, left shoulder low to the ground. You can see me sitting almost kind of working down into my left side. Now from here, what we're going to do, this is what we call the post up move. This is just where you take all that weight you shifted over into your left leg, once your left knee, your left hip, and your left ankle are all right in line with each other, you're just going to push your heel into the ground, and start to clear your hip away from the target.

                The way that looks from this perspective is, once I shift, you're going to see I'm pushing my heel into the ground, and I'm pulling my hip away from the target. That's going to be happening simultaneously as the club is swinging in front of your body. I know it sounds pretty complex, but you'll see that this is pretty easy once we get the hang of it here.

                We're going to turn our body up to the top. We're going to shift left, keeping the left shoulder really low to the ground, and then I'm going to post up and let the club release. What you just noticed there is that my golf club bottomed out way up here underneath my left shoulder, instead of way back. You'll also notice that it's much easier to be able to start to swing down, and you'll start to see that you can take these little nice brush divots.

                Let's do that again. Turn to the top, shift left, left shoulder low, post up, and let it release. Okay, so you can see I got the club bottoming out in a good spot here. Turn to the top, left shoulder low, club will release. Oops, I hit the bag there. Shift this way a little bit, up to the top, left shoulder low, post up, and release.

                Once you start to do maybe your first 50 to 75 reps right at that speed, then try to make it all one movement. You're going to go up to the top, left shoulder low, let the club release. Up to the top, left shoulder low, let the club release, so you can see that my club is bottoming out right in the same spot every single time. Left shoulder low, let the club release. Okay, now I've got another 50 to 100 reps of that, and I want you to slowly start to put the troublemaker back on there.

                You'll structure your drill sessions. You're going to go for 100 reps, do 33 of them really, really slow. Then the next 33 of them, try to make it all one fluid movement, and then the next 34 of them with the right hand on the golf club. What you're going to be looking for at impact is that your spine is just outside your lead knee, and your left shoulder is stacked right on top of your left hip socket, your left knee, and your left ankle.

                Okay, guys, so there you have it, a simple little drill that's going to help you start to control the bottom of the swing arc and help you get a little bit more compression in your golf shots, as you start to move into the new year. I wish you guys all the much success for this drill.

                I also want to let you guys know I've got a great bonus video today that's going to talk to you about the number two fault that could actually be affecting your ball striking, and that's early extension. If you want to see that video, there'll be a link in the description below, or you can go ahead and click the link on the screen now. That'll take you over where you can watch that video, and it's free in its entirety.

                Also, do me a big, big favor, guys. If you like this video, go ahead and click that like button below. Also, remember, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post those up. I will certainly do my best to help you out as much as I possibly can. One other thing here, guys, just remember to subscribe to our channel. Go ahead and click that button below. There's also a bell button that you can click so you get notifications any time we put out some of our latest video.

                Let's get out there. Put this drill to use. Hopefully you guys all become really great ball strikers. I wish you all the best. Make it a great day.


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