Practice Strategies
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The 9 Shot Drill is used to calibrate your face to path, path, and low point control in a functional way. To complete the drill, you must hit all 9 ball flights - 3 different curves with 3 different heights.
- Low Draw
- Low Straight
- Low Fade
- Medium Draw
- Medium Straight
- Medium Fade
- High Draw
- High Straight
- High Fade
Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Draw vs Fade, Practice Strategies, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner
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This is the famous Nine Shot Drill.
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So the Nine Shot Drill is one of the tried and true tested drills for really refining
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your face and path and low point control.
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Basically understanding all your track-man parameters.
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So the Nine Shot Drill is basically taking the launch direction and creating a grid and
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you're going to have high medium low and you're going to have draw straight fade.
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And there's really a variety of different ways you can use it.
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There's no one right way.
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You can try to hit low draw, low straight, low fade, medium draw, medium straight, medium
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fade, high draw, high straight, high fade.
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Or you could go all the draws, all the straights, all the fades, or you can do random.
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I've had juniors, you know, both of them practicing on the same thing and we'll play Tic-Tac-Toe
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where you've got to kind of hit the shots, the block each other.
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There's a variety of ways you can use it.
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But the whole purpose is to refine your path and your face control so that you can adjust
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it, close enough to make it draw, open enough to make it fade or get it pretty close to
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hit it reasonably straight.
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And you can control the trajectory with your low point control and where your upper body
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is in space.
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So the easiest way to make the adjustments is just with setup changes.
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Moving the ball back will help it go low.
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Moving the ball forward will help it go high.
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Moving the ball back will make the path a little bit more into out and make it easier to
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draw it, assuming you get the club face closed enough.
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Moving the ball forward will help move the path left, which will make it easier to
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fade the ball and launch it higher, assuming you don't close the face too much.
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So anyway, there's a variety of different ways to do it.
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We'll do it with simple setup changes and we'll do it with movement changes.
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I like to start with just kind of whatever your stock swing is and just hit a normal every
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day shot.
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So for me, that one there was pretty much medium straight.
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So now if I want to induce a little bit more of a draw to it, I'm going to move the ball
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position slightly backward.
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Now, because I'm not really doing it in any particular order, this is likely going to
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launch low and we'll go for low straight.
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So we're going to try not to close the face too much.
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So there we've got low.
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It did fade just the touch, but not enough for me to consider it a fade.
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I'll call that that was pretty straight.
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So now I'm going to stick with the low shot by moving it back.
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But now I want to make it fade.
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This is the low fade and the high draw are the two harder shots.
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So the low fade, even though I've got it back, I have to make sure that I get the path
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outside in.
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So I'm going to tend to try to decrease my axis still and almost keep my upper body more
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ahead and maybe even swing a little bit more outside to end with my arms.
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I can potentially even get a little bit more open with my body.
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But make sure that I still keep it back in order to launch it low.
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That was borderline medium that didn't stay quite as low as I would want, but that did
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have a pretty good amount of fade to it.
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So next one I'm going to play the low draw.
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This is usually one of the easier ones and you'll see that this makes a really good recovery
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shot.
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So this is a great drill or a great shot for you to practice.
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So I'm going to play the ball a little bit more back in my stance and then I'm just going
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to make sure that I get that club face closed to the path.
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And I'm going to start with a little stronger grip to make it easier for that.
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So the club face is more turned to begin with, clubs ball is well back.
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And I'm going to hit a really easy low sweeping draw.
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I could when I'm working on refining this drill, I might hit a couple in each shot to try
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to either slightly vary the trajectory or slightly vary the amount of curve.
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Okay, now we're going to go for some of the high ones.
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So for the high ones I'm going to move the ball forward.
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The easiest one is going to be the high fade, which is almost more like a flop shot where
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I'm going to stay behind it, hold the face just a touch more open, and really turn my
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body to help keep that club face open.
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And what I'll find is that's going to tend to launch more right than I could plan for,
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but it will launch high.
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So because it launches a little bit more right in my mind, I usually have to aim well
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left of where I think I'm aiming.
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So even if I think I'm aiming just a little left, I'm going to almost double that in my
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head so that it starts closer to where I want, because if the club face is open and
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swinging outside in, it's going to launch right, curve right, and it's going to launch
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high.
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So for practicing using this as usually a recovery shot, I have to make sure that I'm
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going to have some clearance on the safe side, which is usually the left for my fade.
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Okay, now for the high draw, this is the tricky one for a lot of golfers, because you
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got to play the ball forward in order to get the launch up, but usually staying behind
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is going to cause you to swing a little bit more outside in.
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So I'm going to stay behind, I'm going to get some decent access to it, but I'm going to
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use a good white movement so that I don't hit behind it or hit it fat.
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So high draw, got to make sure that the club face gets a little bit more close in order
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to draw it.
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And that was pretty much high straight.
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So if I'm playing, you got to call your shot, I just got an X, because I didn't actually
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get its draw.
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And got the high, that was the high straight.
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So now I'm going to make sure that the club face is more close.
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I'm going to play the ball forward, close it just a bit, and I'm going to just for a good
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measure, get my swing path a little bit more from the inside.
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So there's the high, well 5 to 7 yard draw.
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So you can use this drill for really refining your face to path.
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That will give you the skill set to be able to adjust your low point on shots where the
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ball slightly above your feet, slightly below your feet.
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You've got to curve it.
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It really helps you refine your face to path.
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This can be a great warm up as well, because it requires or it induces a little bit of
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random practice, and it requires you to make small adjustments.
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What you'll find out is day to day.
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There will be certain shots that are great, and there will be certain shots that are
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challenging.
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If you do it as a warm up, it'll help you know which should be your go to shots on
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that given day.