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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.

Playlists: Train Your Release, Practice Strategies

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.