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This is a great visual drill for training low-point, especially if you are struggling with heel-toe contact. And in all honesty, this is something I will prescribe to golfers who are dealing with the occasional shank. While many players would rather not talk about such an issue, it is something I encounter a few times each month. Often times, as students learn to release the club using a solid pivot of the body & through proper arm extension (as opposed to bent arms, a flip release, & early extension) they may hit a few shanks. Thankfully, this drill can heighten awareness for this dreaded miss and allow for golfers to take advantage of their improved mechanics without complicating (and dwelling) on the poor shots.
Tags: Fundamentals, Poor Contact, Impact, Drill, Beginner
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This is the low point bowling alley.
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So the low point of bowling alley is for working on low point when we're working on
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heel toe contact more than fat thin contact.
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And so the most common time when I use this is when golfer starts shaking the ball.
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And I'd say invariably it's, I end up facing golfer's battling shanks at least once or twice a month or so.
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And sometimes that's to my own doing because if you look at kind of the classic amateur pattern,
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the amateur pattern is going to have more of a stand up.
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Well when I stand up that pulls the club head away from the ball or closer to my feet.
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So that can make it more Tobias or harder to shank the ball.
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And I'm going to have more of a flip style or release.
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Oftentimes the arms are bending on the way through.
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When the flip happens and when the arms are bending on the way through, you can see that it's going to have a tendency to pull the club inside away from the line as well.
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So two of the main issues that amateur's do of stand up and flip do make it harder to shank the ball.
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So if you work on getting more down in your posture and you work on getting a little bit more, you know,
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extension through the ball instead of before the ball, it's possible that you're going to start hitting it on the heel.
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And so when you're hitting it on the heel or shanking the ball, this is a good little simple feedback station to help you get recalibrated as to where the club is bottoming out.
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If I set up here in the middle of the bowling alley, so I have two lines drawn with either paint or the doctor's hole's foot spray works really well as
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If you don't have either of those in your practicing on grass, you can always just score the ground with a T.
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So you have just a line, but basically it's just an indication of where did I start.
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So you'll see as I get set up here, the club head is basically in the middle of these lines.
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Then if I take a practice wing, I just want to see where is the divot.
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So in this case, I was able to get the divot back in the middle of the two lines.
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What you may find if you're shanking the ball is when I just take my normal practice wings.
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I don't know if you saw that, but I took out most of this far white line.
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If that's the case, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up and I'm going to practice hitting the inside line.
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And the first few times that you do this, when you try to hit the inside line, you may actually hit it more in the middle.
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You may have the divot in the middle of the two lines.
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So this helps you calibrate how am I controlling where the club is hitting the ground.
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And where am I feeling the weight?
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So when it comes to shanking the ball or hitting more the outside line, that's the bigger problem.
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Because the heel on most full swings is a lot less forgiving than the toe.
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So when I set up here and I start shifting either my weight or my body in towards the golf ball,
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or if I tend to straighten this arm kind of out away, all of that is going to cause the club to hit the ground further away from me like so.
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So if I focus on staying in my heels and keeping the right arm bent a little bit longer,
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there I'm able to hit the ground closer to the inside line.
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So what I'll basically tell them is we call this the low point bowling alley,
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I want you to hit inside gutter balls. So for a while I want you, if you're shanking the ball,
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I want you to try and hit the ball off the toe so I'm going to try and hit the ground by this inside line.
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So I'm going to set up at the golf ball, but I'm going to try and hit the ground by the inside line.
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Wasn't my greatest swing, but did hit it on the toe. You'll see from the down the line.
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Just didn't take a divot. So again I'm going to try and hit the inside line.
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Kind of like that. So you'll see I took out most of the inside line and none of the outside line hit that
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more on the toe. So if you're struggling with this heel toe contact, this is a great way to just
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figure out the feedback. Now if you work on this and you're still struggling with it,
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then check out some of our other videos on the shank, including the yoga block or feeling the weight of the clubhead.
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Because that can be another common cause for why I might have a hard time hitting the ground,
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but this will double as a good little visual station. So this just helps you get re-calibrated.
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The other benefit to this is it gets me used the seeing where the club is hitting the ground towards
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if I'm on the course and I start shanking the ball. All I have to do is walk over to the edge of the
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fairway where you've got that the rough line and take a few swings. Like if we imagine that this
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outside line here is the rough, well then I can take a swing and if I hit that outside grass,
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I know that's why I'm shanking the ball. At the very least I might find that for the rest of the
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round I just have to set up on the toe and aim at that inside line and if I do that I'm able
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to make solid contact. So use this to help calibrate low point towards in a way, especially if you're
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struggling with shanking the ball.
