Click here and enter your email address to watch the full video
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 Chicken Wing (Bent Arm @ Impact)

Subscribe now to watch the full video.

Playing With Low Point

The three skills to playing your best golf are:

  1. Creating speed
  2. Controlling the path of the club
  3. Organizing the face-to-path relationship

A key component to controlling the path is controlling low point. Low point can be looked at as when the club strikes the ground. This isn't alway the widest point of the swing arc, but for wedge shots those two are often the same.

This drill can be used to work on the skill of fat/thin contact as well as heel/toe contact.

Tags: Poor Contact, Chicken Wing, Iron, Fairway Wood, Practice Strategies, Impact, Release, Drill, Intermediate

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000
The cereal is playing around with low point. Low point control is one of the key skills

00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:12,000
for making really solid contact. You frequently see golfers or tour golfers at the

00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000
US open, the British open where the grass is really bare and they tend to be on a little

00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:21,000
bit more slopes. You see them take a number of practice swings just kind of feeling how

00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:27,000
the club is going to hit the ground. I find that many amateurs are avoiding trying to hit

00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:31,000
the ground where most good golfers are trying to hit the ground and they're trying to hit

00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:37,000
the ground in a specific spot. Now what you do with your swing, how much you bump your

00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:43,000
hips or keep your posture or use the wipe or the motorcycle, that all influences both

00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:49,000
how you create speed or how you create speed, how you control the face to path relationship

00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:54,000
as well as the path. Low point control is one of the parameters of the path. So I'll bring

00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:59,000
the camera in and we'll take a closer look but I pretty much just drawn a box with the spray

00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:07,000
paint. What I normally do for students is I'll have them get in their setup posture

00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:13,000
and then I'll take a tee and I'll place lines in the ground. I'll just kind of drag and

00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:22,000
create lines so that they can see it. Roughly let's say about eight inches to a foot on both

00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,000
sides of the golf wall. So about four inches, four to six inches on one side versus the

00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:32,000
other. And then what I'll ask them to do is I'll ask them to take practice swings and just

00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:39,000
kind of see where the club hits the ground. Then here's where the drill comes in. The challenge

00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:45,000
is I'm going to ask you to move it with one of two different ways. You can either move it

00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:51,000
forward or backward using your arms or your body. If you're doing the arms I want you to

00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:57,000
try to keep your body movements the same. So I can move here and make it in contact. I can

00:01:57,000 --> 00:02:04,000
keep pretty much the same body movements and just by changing my arms I can move the

00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:12,000
low point from well back by my right foot to well out in front of my left foot. Then if I

00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:18,000
want I can challenge myself to move the low point around keeping the same arm movement and

00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:26,000
just adjusting the body. So now I'm going to make basically that release and I'm going

00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:33,000
to try to shift a little bit more so I can hit the ground back there or early extend or I

00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:38,000
can spin but now I get the low point where the path getting a little bit too much to the

00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:45,000
left. But it's a great way to kind of play around with low point. If you struggle with

00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:51,000
heel toe contact so shanks or lots of toe shanks, toe shots then I would also want you to play

00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:57,000
around with how can you move the low point away or towards. And so that way you'd want to put

00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:04,000
lines going towards the target parallel lines towards the target so that you can see where

00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:11,000
you're making contact and then what I'll find is okay I might be releasing like that and it's

00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:17,000
going out a bit and now I've been more forward keeping the same release. It starts to move

00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:23,000
more back towards me or I might find if I lead more with my body it brings it back towards

00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:29,000
me. If I really go early with my arms it gets you know good four inches out that way.

00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:35,000
So I might find that I can control and move around that low point doing different arm movements

00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,000
doing different body movements. The big body movements that are going to help you move

00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,000
the low point or either the Jackson 5 so getting a little bit of pressure shift into that

00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:52,000
front foot. The merry-go-round getting more flexion and body turn or potentially a little bit more

00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:57,000
of the side bend and this is a great way to confirm if you're getting side bend while going

00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:02,000
into extension because that'll move the low point way back or if you're getting side bend while

00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:09,000
going into flexion rotation that'll move the bottom of swing forward. So you'll see if I side

00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:16,000
bend but then rotate that hit the ground there. If I side bend but then extend that hit the

00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:22,000
ground way back here. So if you want to work on your low point skill trying to do it perfectly

00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:27,000
every time is the worst way to work on a skill. I've talked about the Goldy lock drills and trying

00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:31,000
to do too much one way too much the other way and then finding the middle. This is a great

00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:38,000
way for you to practice that skill working on low point. So now you can see from kind of the overhead view

00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:43,000
I'm just going to move the ball towards the front of that so that you can see roughly

00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:49,000
there's where my ball position would be and now here's just kind of setting a baseline trying to

00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:55,000
brush the ground right about where the ball is. Now I'm going to do body stays the same and I'm

00:04:55,000 --> 00:05:01,000
going to change it with my arms and so you'll see I can there's a little bit more outside in

00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:08,000
there's a little bit more white movement. I can really move it forward with that white movement

00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:15,000
without getting too much out the path getting too much outside in or if I cast I can really

00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:21,000
move that low point backward. Now I'm going to try and keep the same release

00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:31,000
so we're going to get that release going and I'm going to use my body rotation to move that forward

00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:38,000
and use some early extension to move that backward. I'm going to flex a little bit more to move that

00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:49,000
forward and steeper. I'm going to cover the ball but stay a little bit more back so I can just play

00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:54,000
around with different options and try and control where that's hitting the ground. You can put

00:05:54,000 --> 00:06:02,000
teasing the ground as different objects or you can just do it spatially. Now I'm going to try to move

00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:09,000
it forward backward so I'm going to set my baseline of just hitting the ground kind of like that.

00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:14,000
Now I'm going to flex more forward and turn and you see that moves the bottom of the swing closer

00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:22,000
to me. Now if I early extend and early release that right arm it moves it backward and further away

00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:31,000
for me. So now I can control where that bottom of the swing is hitting and then ultimately do it with

00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:43,000
some golf balls. So here I've got set up. There I've got the low point just ahead. Now I'm going to

00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:51,000
challenge myself. Same stance. I'm going to set up here and I'm going to try to use the wipe and

00:06:51,000 --> 00:07:02,000
staying down. So you can see I just got the grass and now same stance. If I found that I was really

00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:09,000
bottoming out here I'm going to try and control low point with a little bit more early extension

00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:13,000
now it gives me a little bit more hook.

Subscribe now for full access to our video library.