Day 9: 9 Ball Shot Shaping Drill

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In this Day 9 capstone video, you'll learn Tiger's "9 Shots" drill, which will help you master each combination of trajectory (high/normal/low) with curvature (left/straight/right). I'll even walk you through how to score yourself with this drill so you can tell: What parts of your ball striking need the most work; What your "go to" shot ought to be; How you're improving over time. Check out the video now because you can have fun while mastering shotmaking!


All right, so by now you guys are ball flight masters, or at least well on your way.

You know all the little secrets and tips from the pros that allow them to more consistently pull off shots that look like they're the impossible.

You're learning all their little secrets, And now I'm gonna show you how to put this into practice so that you can play this and practice this every day and start continuing to develop your skills.

Don't worry if you don't have all the shots right now.

You don't have to.

You're learning something new.

This is exciting because you're gonna have so many more tools in your toolbox, and what we wanna do is continue to develop those tools so that when the need comes, and you've gotta hit that perfect shot, and hit a little baby draw over a water hazard, it's gonna be in your repertoire.

So how do we do this every day? Well, Tiger made the nine ball drill famous, and that's exactly what we wanna do.

It's the simplest way to practice these shots consistently.

Now, The way that I like to personally do it is I like to do all three shots in a row while I'm learning something.

Let's say that I've made a swing change, and I'm trying to get comfortable with everything, or this is brand new to you, and you've never done this before.

Don't bounce around.

I want you to hit all three of the same shots.

So for instance, choose either three draws, the low draw, the standard draw, and the high draw, or choose all same trajectory.

Either one is okay to practice, but you typically are gonna be stronger in one, more so than the other, at any point in your career.

So as you're practicing, you may find that you're really struggling with hitting the high ball, and you keep chunking it, or what have you, because you're pushing against the shaft with your thumb, and hitting behind the ball a little bit.

Well, you'd wanna practice all the high shots back-to-back, so you can kind of develop a feel.

And when you're doing the nine ball drill, if you make a mistake, and it's just a horrible shot, don't advance to the next one.

It's okay if you take some time, hit 20 or 30 balls.

You find your weaknesses, which really what this drill is telling you.

It's not saying, hey, I need to be able to step out there, and hit a high draw, low draw, medium draw, high cut, low cut, et cetera, and pull them off all successively back-to-back.

It's very, very difficult to do.

You'd have to be practicing all the time, and really have everything being on its game.

And even Tiger, when he was doing this, couldn't pull it off every single time.

When he did, he felt like he was really on top of his game.

So it's not a high pressure thing.

You're not really scoring yourself in a way to say it's a pass or fail, or you're not any good, or whatever.

It's saying, hey, I'm actually pretty good at this high cut stuff.

Maybe because I've been a slicer my whole life, but at least I got a shot that I can pull out when I need it.

But maybe you stink at the other stuff.

You can't hit a draw very well.

That's okay.

We're gonna keep going back and working on this draw videos that we already showed you.

And then you're gonna practice it when you go to your nine ball drill.

So what I would do, I'm pretty comfortable at changing trajectory at this point in my life.

So for me, I like to kind of challenge myself when I feel like I've been playing a lot and I'm on my game, I will actually challenge myself and go from a low cut to a high draw.

That's a really hard transition.

But if you really want to challenge yourself, you can do that.

If you don't, that's okay.

Let's just say we'll start out with, you know, we hit a low draw here.

Just a little baby one.

Perfect.

Little three yard draw.

Honestly, it was a little bit higher than I wanted.

It was kind of a standard draw, but it was okay.

And now I say, well, really wasn't exactly what I'm looking for.

I'm gonna try to de-loft it a little bit more on this next one and see if I can hit a little lower.

That one was a lot lower.

So it was about 30% lower than the other one.

Came down a little bit steeper on it than I wanted because I was really trying to de-loft it.

That's okay.

And then I would go to hit the high draw.

And then I would say, okay, my draw is pretty good.

The ball is curving the way that I want it to.

I'm pretty happy with that.

Now let's hit the cuts and now I'll hit high cut, low cut, et cetera.

So as you work through those shots and then your standard shots, those nine balls will tell you what's going on in your swing, what's tending to work and what's not.

And this will give you a simple drill to kind of do a checkup every day.

You go out and practice as you're working on your shot shaping stuff.

I'm going to go out and play.

Maybe I won't favor that fade today.

Maybe as I go out and play, if I have a shot where I really need to hit a cut here, but I'm just, you know, on the range, it wasn't quite there.

That's okay.

Just don't try to pull that shot off.

But when you get done after the round, go back and hit a few balls and start working on those cuts as you do this.

And you keep working through this nine ball drill and all the last nine, 10 videos that we've gone through in our nine days to amazing ball striking, you're going to start becoming a much more complete player.

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Gary C
Been hitting balls at the range putting everything I’ve drilled together. I noticed today that when I lightly grip the club everything seems to come together and I can hit a very easy and effortless feeling shot that goes straight consistently. Been practicing with my 58 degree wedge since that was my shortest club for drilling indoors and is most comfortable at this point. Was carrying this club about 80-90 yards with an easy swing. While I am happy with that result I am curious on a few things. 1. How do I build on the fundamentals I’ve learned to be able to hit both a draw and fade when needed? 2. How do I know when I have really flushed the ball (especially with range balls)? 3. When I swing very easy I get a good result in distance and and the ball staying on target but when I try to hit the ball harder to gain more distance I actually end up hitting the ball less far and my contact overall suffers. Was hoping I could get to a carry of 100 yards with my 58 degree wedge but am I striving for something that is unnecessary given I am consistently carrying the ball 80+ and straight when I swing easy?
June 2, 2021
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Gary. Owning the swing first will aid in the switch up on ball flight. When you don't have to think about the other mechanics you will be open to controlling different rates with chest rotation and holding the club off. It will be feel based. Range balls are tough to know because of the lower compression. I haven't really described a flushed shot before, but feels like butter. Swing easy but you may be changing power sources when going harder. You could be tensing and deleting lag vs allowing for more lag and more aggressive leverage pull from the ground on posting.
June 3, 2021
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Ian
When playing the draw or fade, what is the relative position of the club face at set up. Ian
July 9, 2016
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Ian. Ideally, still aimed at the intended target.
July 9, 2016
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Brandon
Hi, do you have a link to a calendar that pros use to plan out their daily practice sessions? I would be curious to see how they structure their days and what is on their checklist of shots to practice everyday.
May 2, 2016
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Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Hey Brandon, we do not have a specific calendar as each player is a little bit different. Some players are constantly adjusting their practice schedule to accommodate any current weaknesses in their game. As instructors, we can help lay out a game plan for the player based on where all facets of their games are currently at.
May 2, 2016
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Brandon
Are there any drills you do to hit the sweet spot consistently? One thing I've tried is using Dr. Scholl's foot spray to check my impact, but it's difficult to do this with irons/wedges.
January 17, 2016
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Brandon. Work on solid impact positioning and alignments. Impact Series and (Face On/Down the Line) alignments video will help with the sweet spot.
January 18, 2016
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Roger
Do you play all 9 shots with the same club? Or a longer club to hit the same target with a high flight?
January 5, 2016
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Steven (Certified RST Instructor)
Roger- use the same club for every shot! Good training game.
January 5, 2016
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Arnie
Great series! Is there a series about how to hit balls above/below your feet? Uphill/downhill lies?
November 26, 2014
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Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Hey Arnel -- Really glad to hear that you enjoyed the 9 day series. We do in fact have a series of videos that will be released starting next week on uneven lies. I would look for them to start releasing on Thursday.
November 27, 2014
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Kim
Can you tell me what variations in distance you would expect from the different ball trajectories, for example on a 7 iron?
October 12, 2014
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R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Kim, To be honest, there's no way to tell without hitting the range and testing it out after you have your ball striking honed in. There are many variables in how far the ball is going to fly. The degree to which you hit the ball higher or lower in trajectory will have a big impact on that. How cleanly that you hit the ball, the wind, slope of the hole, humidity, the lie the ball was hit from, there are all kinds of factors when addressing distance. However, when you hone in your trajectory shots to the point where you can hit your high and low ones at consistent heights, you might find that you have a variance of plus or minus a club. So, a lower trajectory will have that 7 iron coming into the green like a 6 iron and a high 7 will come in like an 8 iron. At least, that is what I have noticed in my own game. Like I said, there are many factors and it will be different for each person. You'll have to hash it out on the range. Hopefully, you can find a range that uses new golf balls so you can get a good reading. I hope this helps, R.J.
October 12, 2014

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