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This is an especially challenging drill, but it can be very useful for advanced players or anyone who is willing to go through some struggles to improve their game. The goal here is to build better awareness for the proper release mechanics, but the kicker is that a "standard" grip cannot be used. That is, we are going to ask players to hit a draw with an extremely weak grip and a fade with an overly strong grip. This is going to exaggerate (2) very important movements and feels; an early squaring of the clubface and a continuous rotation of the upper and lower body through impact.
Tags: Practice Strategies, Release, Drill, Advanced
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This challenge drill is extreme face awareness.
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So extreme face awareness is applying the, I'm going to hit a straight shot, a draw in a
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fade, but what I'm going to do here is I'm going to create an uncomfortable situation.
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So I'm going to use the wrong grip in order to challenge myself in order to feel the
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risk mechanics.
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So I'm going to hit my fade with a stronger grip and I'm going to hit my draw with a very
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weak grip.
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I'm going to work on 9 to 3 is or 10 to 2's but not full swings, but I'm going to exaggerate
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these movements.
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I'm going to put my hands in a very weak position and try to hit a draw, which means
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I've got to on the way down really motorcycle, really bow that risk, really get that right
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hand on top.
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Feel almost the extremes of these motions in order to get that club closed enough to then get
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it to draw on the way through.
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So I'm actually going to do a stop version at first, so I'm just going to bring it
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there, get that super close, and then try and get it.
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Well, it was very thin but you did see the draw happening.
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So then we'll try to do it without the stop action.
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So very weak, I've got my thumb all the way on the left side.
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This is the one that I tend to do.
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Good, got a nice little draw from that position.
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This is the one that I tend to use the most for golfers, for better golfers, oftentimes
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with juniors who have time and are willing to work through these struggle drills a little
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bit, because it really forces you to exaggerate the risk closing mechanic.
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Just like so.
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So we'll do a little bit bigger.
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Didn't quite get it closed enough.
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When you do the bigger swing with the weak grip, it is harder to then get it to draw.
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So if you notice that that's one thing that you can draw, then pretty well on nine to
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three's, but then have trouble when you take it to the full swing.
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It is possible that it's mostly because of the weakness of your grip, and so when you set
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the risk becomes harder to then square the face more on the way down.
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Okay, so now we're going to go for the opposite.
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We're going to work on, we're going to take a stronger grip, and we're going to really
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work on feeling the body rotation help hold the face off so that I can get more of a
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fade.
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So with this grip, if I was to just stop and let my arms pass, you can see that club
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face would come in very close.
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But if it instead, I hold the hands back and let most of my delivery come more from
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the body rotation instead of from the arms, then I should be able to still hit a
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fade even with an extremely strong grip just like so.
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And that's how some golfers, some good elite level ball strikers actually hit their
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fade is more with a strong grip and just requiring excessive body rotation.
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So if you tend to have more of a kind of a stall flip pattern, this one can really help
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with getting the feeling of the body rotating.
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Didn't quite, it's trying to fade.
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It was just more of a little bit of a pull.
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So we'll do one more, try to really feel like that body gets open and holds those hands
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off.
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There we go, that's clearly fading back.
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So to really challenge your ability to control the club face, I recommend tweaking with
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your grip to require you to feel a little bit different waiting and exaggerate these
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wrist motions that help you control the club face.
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Once you have the feeling, then you can go and do the standard nine shot drill just using
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your normal grip and some of these subtle feelings that you picked up in this extreme
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face closing.
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So if you want to adventure, go practice this for 20 minutes.
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It will really elevate your ability to control the club face with whatever challenge or whatever
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grip you choose.
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The hardest ones are always trying to hit it dead straight.
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So I'll put my neutral grip on and try to feel somewhere in between.
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A little bit more draw than I wanted there, but now I have a good feeling of which one I
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need to apply in order to balance that out.
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So now we're going to try for the dead straight ball.
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That's pretty close there, very, very little curve to that.
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And I did that by applying more of that body rotation field field in order to help take
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away the natural draw of my swing.
