Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in
America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America.
Meet your new instructor.
Fix Your Flip
Subscribe now to watch the full video.
There are a few challenges with trying to feel face rotation earlier in the golf swing. Some of those are:
- The location of impact compared to your body
- The feeling of rotating the face gradually vs quickly
- The feeling of the club head being low to the ground to compliment the body rotation
- The feeling of rotating the club without steepening the path with the arms
This drill helps you isolate one or more pieces of your release and put it into an athletic feeling.
Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Chicken Wing, Draw vs Fade, Driver, Impact, Release, Drill, Intermediate, Beginner
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000
This drill is face closing with the impact bag.
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:08,000
Many golfers struggle with closing the club face during the downswing or getting the club
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,000
to rotate through the downswing.
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:16,000
They tend to want to hold the face pretty square and then square it more by straightening
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,000
the arms as opposed to rotating the face.
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,000
The problem with that method is if you straighten it more by straightening your arms then
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:27,000
it's very hard to have any amount of shaffling because shaffling as you can see opens
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:29,000
the club face.
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:34,000
So what the better golfers tend to do is they have this rotation of the club face to match
00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:35,000
that shaffling.
00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:39,000
That's part of the reason why you don't see that with wedges where wedges you want the bottom
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:43,000
of swing a little bit more in line with the golf ball.
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,000
So to work on face rotation early enough in the downswing we're going to use the impact
00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:48,000
bag.
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:55,000
So again I'm not a huge fan of using the impact bag to actually train impact but it's a good
00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:59,000
way to stop the club at various points during the swing.
00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000
I can give you a little checkpoint.
00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:08,000
It's something that I've done in the past with using just a bag or pillow type thing but
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:10,000
this is an easy way for you to do it at home.
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:15,000
So I've got the ball roughly in the middle of alignment stick and this is somewhere pretty
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000
close to the toe line.
00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:24,000
Now what I'm going to do or another way you can look at it it's about chef 30 degrees 45
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:26,000
degrees back.
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:28,000
That kind of like so.
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:34,000
Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and stick the toe into the club or into
00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:40,000
the impact bag kind of like this and I'm just going to get the feeling of closing that
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000
down and turning that toe down.
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000
Many golfers when they first try to do the motorcycle and when they're trying to close
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:52,000
the face more will end up doing it more like this.
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:57,000
They'll do it more with shaff rotation and getting the club well outside.
00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:04,000
So having this position deep enough forces you to use that older deviation and forces
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:10,000
you to do it in a way where you'll still be coming from the inside.
00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:16,000
So this kind of gives you a reference of what it's like to get that club face closed
00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:17,000
early.
00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:22,000
The other thing it gives you a feeling of or a sensation of is instead of hitting the ball
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:27,000
with more of the club passing the hands you kind of get the sense of hitting the ball.
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:33,000
More with this rotation or that palm press or palm strike feeling.
00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,000
So I get the feeling that I'm basically going like this and then what I'm going to do
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:41,000
is I'm going to try to make there's my release and I'm going to try to use my body
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:47,000
rotation so that that release there gets the impact.
00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:53,000
I'm going to try to use my body rotation to move impact from there to there.
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:59,000
I'm not going to use my hands and arms to move the impact from there to there.
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:04,000
That's a little tricky concept but hopefully you can follow what I'm describing there.
00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:10,000
Now if I was going to adapt this for a driver the question is what I make it happen
00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,000
earlier or later.
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:16,000
Well what we really want to have happen is we're going to move this up so I'm going to grab
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:22,000
a chair and it's going to happen earlier.
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:28,000
So if I was doing this with a driver I would be basically getting that same amount of
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:35,000
rotation right around there actually probably a little bit below that but I'm limited
00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:37,000
in the chair I've got here.
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:41,000
So right around there and then now same rules I'm closing it to that position and I'm
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:48,000
going to use body rotation so that my arms feel like they're doing there is happening
00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:50,000
until there.
00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:58,000
So you can see that if I do that facing the camera so if I get that position spring
00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:05,000
this back just a touch so it's roughly in line with just inside a shaft parallel to the
00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:06,000
target line.
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:13,000
So now if I close that down kind of like this and then I use my body rotation so that
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:20,000
felt like I did the exact same arm movements to hit it there but that's ending down there
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:26,000
an impact and you can see if I had driver of the well behind it those would match up.
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:35,000
So with an iron it happens a little bit lower to the ground kind of like there not
00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:40,000
quite as side bend and rotated with the iron as I would be with the driver but this gives
00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:44,000
you a sense of what are the arms going to feel like and where are they in space compared
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,000
to your body and then gives you the challenge of how can I use my body to get that to
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:50,000
impact.
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:55,000
So then what you can do is you can set up a little circuit so I've got the ball there
00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:01,000
here's my station right so I'm set up to a golf ball right in line with the camera
00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:02,000
right about here.
00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:09,000
I do a few hit that impact bag get it close but make sure it's not coming outside and
00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:15,000
then use body rotation to get it to there and then I step forward with that same timing
00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:23,000
so I'm trying to kind of close it early to there and then that feeling of getting it close
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:30,000
through there I'm just going to use the body movements so that that happens at impact so
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:38,000
we'll do that again so we get there so now I'm trying to hit there but watch my body makes
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:45,000
it so now if I took my body away but if I add my body back in the body moves the contact
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:51,000
from there to there the example would be okay there's just throwing a ball with my arm but
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:55,000
now I've got a time it so that that movement matches what my body is doing that's what I'm
00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:06,000
trying to do here so I get that closing the club face that motorcycle and owner and then
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:12,000
let my body kind of bring that through pull that just the touch but overall pattern pretty close
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:17,000
so if you're struggling with getting the club face or closed early enough you're not getting
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,000
penetrating ball flight or you're not getting it to turn over a little bit this is a good way
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:27,000
to check and make sure that you're getting that club face to close early enough and that usually
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:32,000
transfers to that stronger ball flight or a little bit more of a draw once you sink it up with
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:33,000
what's going on with the body.
