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9 To 3 - Training Solid Contact and The Release

This classic drill works on the swing from waist height to waist height, or as some call it, 9 to 3. This drill works on the timing when the arms are doing the majority of the work as they transfer speed from the body to the clubhead. This drill is very versatile, and can be used to work on a lot of things around impact. The most common ways to use it is to work on the amount of rotation/side bend of the body, the direction and timing of the arm motions, and the adjustments the wrists have to make to square the club face.

Some of the most common problems that show up in this drill are standing up and early straightening of the trail arm to help square the face or not having enough rotation and side bend to delay the straightening of the trail arm. These two often go hand in hand, but the 9-3 drill is a smaller version of the full swing, which gives you the opportunity to practice the release and impact and get a general sense of the proper body positions that you will want to use in your full golf swing.

Tags: Poor Contact, Follow Through, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner

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This is the 9-3 or waste of waste drill.

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I know you're excited because so far we've been just going over some of the mundane things

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of getting into setup, getting into impact position, getting into follow-through position.

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Now we're going to start moving.

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You're actually going to strike a golf ball.

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I want you to keep in mind what you've been training with the impact position and what you've learned about the follow-through position.

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Because you're basically now going to try to figure out how to move through those two positions.

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Okay?

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So reminder about the impact position, you're going to have your weight all the way onto your left heel, hips are open, your right elbow is somewhat close to your side.

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Your left wrist is pretty flat and your right wrist has a cup to it.

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Just like so, there's a little bit of side tilt.

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Now as you go to that follow-through position, that side tilt continues.

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Those arms are fully extended now when the club is about parallel to the ground here.

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And your hands are pointed somewhat behind you.

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Okay?

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So now what we're going to do is we're going to take a backswing to the club parallel to the ground or about waste height,

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or what my first instructor referred to as 9 o'clock.

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So if you imagine a clock, we're going to go from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock.

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So, again, keep in mind those impact and follow-through positions.

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And then you're going to practice going from waste height to waste height.

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And this is really helping you feel where the club will extend out to.

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The only reason that the club goes all the way up here when you do a follow-through is because you add more speed.

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It's not that you're manipulating and raising the club.

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The club is working out away from your body as your body or stalls it and causes it to move up.

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So now I'm going to demonstrate a couple of these 9 to 3 things.

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And really for example purposes, remember your swing is going to look slightly different because your body is slightly different.

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You've got little tendencies.

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But the big picture is trying to get into that good impact position and trying to get into that good follow-through position.

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So the 9 to 3 drill.

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That was about a B plus.

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There's the A.

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Okay, so the 9 to 3 drill again swinging from waste height to waste height.

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The biggest problem that I typically see on this is because it's a short swing compared to the full swing.

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You're not going to have a lot of time to shift your weight onto the left side.

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When you're practicing this, one of the common issues that I see is that because it's a short swing,

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you're not going to have a lot of time to shift your weight into that left heel.

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So you almost want to pre-set more to the left and you'll just have a little weight shift into that left side before you go to the follow-through position.

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So just be aware of getting into that left heel kind of as quickly as you can.