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9 To 3 - Follow Through Hold

This version of the 9-to-3 is great for troubleshooting the follow-through position & challenging awareness. Specifically, we want to focus on monitoring:

  • Body Position 
    • Upper-body slightly behind lower-body (good "bracing").
    • Head, shoulders, & hips titled slightly towards the golf ball.
  • Arms
    • Finish with the arms straight out (parallel to ground, in front of belly button).
    • Clubhead finishes to the right of the hands (see "Hands In, Club Out In Follow Through").
    • Clubhead finishes slightly below the hands.

After each shot, you will want to perform a quick "mental scan" for these checkpoints; this will improve the feedback from each rep, regardless of the contact or result (as long as you hold your follow-through for a few moments), and ultimately, make your practice more efficient. At times, golfers can get into the habit of "hitting & raking", which is typically an emotional & frustrating way to practice; this is especially true if you are unaware of what may be causing your issue(s). If you fall into this pattern or struggle with the release, this is a great way to "double-dip" and do some mental & technical work simultaneously.

Tags: Practice Strategies, Follow Through, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is 9 to 3, follow through hole.

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So I'm going to do some 9 to 3s and I'm going to focus on getting into the best follow-through

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position that I can get to.

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So I could do some compilamentary movements here in transition or at the top of the 9 to 3.

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So I could be working on hinging, I could be working on sequencing, I could be working

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on the wipe or the motorcycle or any of the other key components here.

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But I'm really going to pay attention to where I finish.

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And I'm going to try to focus on a couple different things.

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With the body position, I'm going to make sure that my upper body is slightly behind the

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lower body so I have a good brace, I'd be in that water-skier position.

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And I'm going to make sure that my head and shoulders and hips are all pointed down towards

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the golf ball like so.

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With the arms, I'm going to make sure that my arms are finished straight out in front of my

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belly button so I'm not way up here, not way down there.

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And the club is slightly out to the right of my hands, so I'm going to make sure that

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it's not way over there.

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I'm also going to make sure that the club is slightly below the height of my hands, it's

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not way up here.

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So I'm going to do my best to hit that position.

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But then the real key to this drill is I'm just going to hold the position and I'm going

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to scan each one of them.

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So I'm working on that follow-through position.

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I'm actually not too concerned.

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At this point, the golf ball is more of a distraction.

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So my goal is to stay here and check the positions.

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I was a little bit taller than I would have liked to be.

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That makes sense why the ball might have gone a little bit left.

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But I'm not judging whether this was a good one or bad one based on the contact and the

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ball flight.

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I'm judging it based on that position.

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So oftentimes what I see on the range is some golfers will be working on this and they'll

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go and they'll reach for another one just like that.

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And I'll say that was a wasted rep.

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You overreacted, you built an emotional pattern, you didn't focus on where you were trying

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to get to.

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And one of the skills that hitting really good golf shots is just letting the golf ball get

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in the way and learning to basically make this wing either hitting the positions or

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feeling the rhythm and not necessarily being so focused on the ball but focused on the swinging

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motion of the club rather than having this violent kind of tense position of impact.

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So we'll do a few more to get that out of my system.

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And now I'm just going to bring it back.

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Check this position.

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That's pretty good right there, a little fine tuning.

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Okay.

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And then do you want more?

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So the other thing of note is if I find that I'm hitting most of the positions, I'm not

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going to try to necessarily get it perfect all at once.

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I might zero in on the one or two that I'm having trouble with.

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Like today it looks like I've a tendency to get out of the side because I were out of

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the side bending because I slept a little funky two days ago and it hasn't quite recovered

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yet.

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So that one was a little fat and I can feel that my hands are a little bit high and I've

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slipped a little bit more forward than I would like to be.

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So that tells me that when I was trying to do the side bend I was cheating and trying

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to do it more with the arms and with the lower body instead of doing it more from the

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spine.

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So there I'm just zeroing in what I want to work on.

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Even though that was poorer contact to me that was a better rep.

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Now I'll probably get decent contact on this next one.

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So again I went through the little process there of refining the piece that I needed to

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and then putting it together back into a movement.

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I wasn't reacting just to how well I did as far as contact with the ball.

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I knew that that would come with enough practice once I was hitting more the positions

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and the movements were more in sync.

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Hopefully this gives you a little insight as to how to do these drills as well as some

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really key components to when you're working on your follow through side of the nine to three.

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