Want to add a quick 10 yards to your shots and fix at least 4 common swing faults with one practice drill? Then scrounge together $20 and buy the best training aid for the money. The impact bag is probably one of the best training aids around for several reasons.
One, it helps return your focus to the only point of the golf swing that really matters - impact.
Two, it helps ingrain the proper sensations one should feel at impact position. And three, it helps train you to use the bigger muscles in the golf swing to strike the ball — the same principle that powers the GOAT Drill system, built entirely around body-driven power rather than hand manipulation.
That's a tall order for a training aid, especially for something that costs less than $20, but this one can do it all. In this video, I describe two very important, yet simple and effective drills for how to properly use the impact bag to strike the ball more with your core rotation and train your body to be in a solid position at impact. If you want an objective read on how well your mechanics are developing, upload a swing to the AI swing analyzer for data-driven feedback on your motion.
Using the impact bag is also one of the best ways to "winterize" your swing for those of you living in cooler climates. You can get just as much quality practice time indoors working with an impact bag as you can from hitting one hundred balls on the range.
Here are just a few key things that using the impact bag will help with:
- Working with an impact bag and making 3/4 swings will help increase clubhead lag for golfers who tend to overswing and cast from the top. The impact bag helps return your focus to impact.
- Working with the drills from the video will immediately help those who tend to cup their lead wrist through impact and hit with their hands.
- Hitting the impact bag properly will help develop the sensation of keeping the arms passive and learning to aggressively hit with the body rotation.
- Once you learn how to use your body, you will be able to tap into increased swing power and compress the ball properly with less effort.
Look at the sequence below, they are from the video segment above. The goal that you want to achieve is to have your swing in the hitting area look identical when you are hitting the impact bag and when you are hitting the ball.
Many golfers will do it correctly when hitting the bag, but as soon as they start hitting the ball, their mindset changes and they return to their old habits. Strive to make the exact same swing when hitting the ball.
Note that I have retained the same amount of lag and my lead wrist has remained bowed the same amount in both swings. My body rotation is the same and I am in a very powerful position to strike the ball and the bag with my body.
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Video Transcription: Impact Bag Drill
For years now, people have been asking me, "What's a great training aid for this one plane swing; this idea of swinging the club on the same plane? How do I get a good training aid that's going to help me do that consistently so I can practice, especially during the winter?"
The winter months are coming in for a lot of you guys up North. If you're looking for something that's going to help you maintain your swing and you're looking for some great contraption, the best thing that I've found for maintaining a golf swing is an impact bag.
There's nothing better to give you all the proper sensations and teach your body naturally how to swing through the shot than an impact bag. It's so simple. You can buy these things for $20-30. You can buy them from my website. There's a link to Amazon to buy them from my website for $20.
They're absolutely the best bang for the buck, when it comes to a training aid, especially for the one plane swing.
The reason that they're so great is that, as I'm sure you know, the only point that really matters in the golf swing is impact. If the club face is square and it's coming in on the right path, etc., etc., the ball is going to go in the right direction.
One of the things that we need to learn how to do properly is how to get into this proper impact position, and the impact bag is perfect for that.
There are two drills that you can work on that are very, very simple drills, but very, very useful for helping you learn how to use your body in the shot. These same principles drive the GOAT Drill system — a structured, rep-tracked approach to building body-driven mechanics from the ground up.
The first one is just put the impact bag where your ball would be for your normal shot. This is where I would normally set up to the ball. What I want to do is simulate my impact position, so my body is rotated a bit more open here.
I'm pushing the bag, not with my arms and hands; you can see here that I'm trying to really push hard with my trail hand. I'm pushing it with my core. My stomach is actually what's pushing this bag. I want the sensation that my hips, my core, my chest — everything — is what's moving this bag, rather than trying to push it with my arms and hands.
What that's going to do is give you the proper sensation of how you should be using your body rotation through impact to hit the ball.
Of course with the heavier object, the impact bag, which in my case weighs several pounds, I can't move it very easily with my arms and hands. I have to use my body to rotate through it.
Of course, when you put a golf ball in the way, the ball weighs only an ounce and a half, so it allows you to cheat. You can flip at it and slap at it with your hands and get away with it, but you'll never have the same solid, effortless impact that you will if you use your body correctly to rotate through the shot.
Just standing here getting into your address position and then just moving it with your core, your whole core, is the sensation you want to have during impact.
That's more of a static drill, to give you the sensation of using your core muscles.
The other drill is actually making full swings. That's one of the nice things about this, is you can completely make a full golf swing into this impact bag, and as long as you do it correctly you shouldn't hurt yourself.
But be careful — you can hurt yourself. Don't make an improper swing and release your hands into impact. I'll show what that looks like.
In the impact area of the one plane swing, as we come into impact, we really want to use our body to come into impact. What a lot of golfers do is they use their hands. They're so used to using their hands to release the shot that you can actually really hurt your hands.
If you release this club head at full speed, at 100 miles an hour, into that bag, you will very, very seriously injure your hands. You need to make certain that as you come into impact you're doing it properly.
The proper impact position is this. As you come into impact your body is rotated open, your arms are back, arms connected into your chest, and the shaft is leaning forward — that forward shaft lean is the hallmark of a body-driven, lag-preserving swing.
You don't want this motion, where you're releasing with your hands. That's a slap, weak motion, and it's what's going to cause you to get hurt. You want to come into this position where the shaft is leaning, your hands are flat, and the body rotation through the shot is what's releasing and hitting into the bag.
When you do this correctly, you should be able to move this bag several feet as you come into a full swing. Start out at first just by making little half swings to get the feeling of coming into impact position like this, with your hands leading the club head.
You don't want the club head releasing in front of your hands. We're just coming into here, making little half swings. You'll notice my finish — my lead wrist and everything is flat. The club head hasn't released out in front of my hands.
I want the butt of the club and my hands to lead the club head into impact. I don't want that club head passing me. I don't want to ever look like this, where I'm really trying to hit it hard with my hands and fighting off this release with my hands.
I should finish more in a position like this, where I'm rotating through and the club head is still behind my hands — a sign of genuine power transfer rather than a weak hand flip.
As you get more comfortable making half swings and getting into this proper impact position, you should be able to start making full swings where you're coming back, making your full golf swing, and hitting it with your core — using all the rotational power of your body to drive this bag.
You'll notice that, when coming through impact, I'm not releasing my hands. I'm not fighting it. I'm just using my body rotation to turn and launch the bag.
I should have plenty of power as I do this. Now, when I go to start hitting a full shot, I want that same sensation at impact. Of course, as I'm making normal golf swings the club head is going to release fully into a full follow through — the impact bag is not there to stop that release.
But I still want the same sensations that we just talked about; this feeling of pushing the ball more with my core, hitting the ball with my core rotation.
If you imagine that the ball weighs as much as the impact bag, you'll immediately stop slapping at it because it would be foolish. Just imagine that this ball is the impact bag; that it weighs the same amount, and you're using your body to hit through this shot.
You just want to come back and you can start out just making little half swings. Just use your body to hit through that shot. Learn how to start doing this with half swings. Use the impact bag. Take it out to the driving range with you. I use it every day when I teach.
Start hitting half shots, then work up to that same solid, powerful impact position in your full swing. Then start putting golf balls there and hit the ball the same way you hit the impact bag, and watch your swing power increase dramatically.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
Impact bag
Use your core muscles, not your arms, to push the bag
Drill 2: Release with the hands
Proper impact position: Body open, arms connected to chest, forward shaft lean
Wrist is flat at finish
You never want to look like this
Once you're comfortable with the drill, move on to full swings
