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9 To 3 - Lead Arm Only

Lead arm only training during the release is useful for cleaning up the movements between impact and follow through position. This includes scooping, chicken winging, rehinging too soon, or having a flip roll style of release. I use this drill frequently with golfers of all handicap levels.

Tags: Poor Contact, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner

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This reel is lead arm only 9 to 3.

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So in the release section, I break down what each arm should do.

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And what's going on with the trail as well as the lead.

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But I find for a lot of golfers, especially if you're kind of in that midhandy cap, maybe even into the upperhandy cap.

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So with a five and below, I love working on each hand and making them work perfectly.

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So for a lot of golfers, just working on that lead hand swinging through kind of staying connected, getting into a good checkpoint on the way through.

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And then once I've got that good checkpoint putting the right arm on and then just trying to get back there.

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It forces you to be a little bit more lead side dominant, which for many golfers is a good thing.

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But what it really helps with is if you're, if you tend to struggle with kind of scooping and breaking down and having no awareness of what's going on with the lead.

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Because the trail side is really overpowering it, focusing on the lead arm during release can really be helpful.

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So you're just going to alternate hitting shots with just the lead arm and then hitting shots with both hand on the club.

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So with the lead arm only, I'm hitting a little kind of 9 to 3 and then I'm going to take my trail hand and put it on and check where that club is.

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So it shouldn't be way to the left kind of like so.

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There shouldn't be a whole lot of bend in that arm. So from the face on view, that arm is going to be pretty straight.

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The club is going to be pointing kind of out towards my left hip like so.

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And the club face will be pretty close to vertical.

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So from face or from down the target line, it'll look kind of like so.

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And I'm just working on kind of really being somewhat relaxed and letting it swing, but making sure that I make contact with the ground as I do this.

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A lot of golfers when they try to do this lead arm only will really try to hold off that face rotation.

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And allowing that arm to rotate is one of the key parameters that I see with pretty much every tour pro, where I rarely see that with amateurs.

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They tend to amateurs tend to want to hold their forms pretty tight.

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You tend to see more of this form rotation in tour pro with the longer club.

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So with the driver or five iron compared to when they're looking at a short, whether it's eight iron or 50 degree wedge or something like that.

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So again doing just a little kind of 9 to 3 focusing on that club feeling wide.

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And then putting both hands on the club either doing kind of an open hand or just both hands on the club and feeling that left arm really lead and rotate.

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Through those shots will help you work on kind of this flat spot building in the bottom of the swing.

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Because if this arm starts bending and breaking down on the way through, it's very hard to have the club continuing kind of down and staying low to the ground.

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So you're going to tend to have a smaller margin of air, especially with the longer clubs where you wouldn't want to have your upper body shifting on top of the golf ball in order to balance that out.

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So if you're struggling with working on the club between impact and follow through position.

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Try working some lead arm only and simplifying it to a kind of a simple one arm feel where that arm is just kind of softly rotating.

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But staying pretty firm as it's rotating. So the wrist isn't really breaking down and going this way.

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So it's kind of gently rotating. Then put the trail arm on.

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I promise if you work on that it'll really help the way that the club works and the way that your swing will work from impact to that follow through position.