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 Cast
Subscribe now to watch the full video.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
This drill is swing path railroad tracks.
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:09,000
So what we'll do on this is we're going to use a visual representation, we're going to
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000
get some visual feedback for your path.
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:17,000
So if you're struggling with either hooking the ball or slicing the ball, if you have
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:23,000
a lot of curve, then there's going to be a big difference between your face and path.
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:28,000
To rule out which one of those is causing the majority of the curve, is that the path is
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,000
really off and the face is just pretty square or is the face pretty square but the path
00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:33,000
is way off.
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,000
We're going to use two alignment sticks.
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:40,000
So I've got a red stick and a white stick.
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:42,000
The colors obviously don't really matter.
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:48,000
But what we'll see is you don't have to have these really close together, but the lower
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,000
your handicap, the more you can bring these close together.
00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:55,000
However, if you are curving the ball, give yourself a little bit of leeway.
00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,000
What we're really using this for is the visual.
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:04,000
So when I take a swing in my mind's eye, I can kind of see a blur of the club or after
00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:10,000
I've swung I can kind of see a rough path of where that club would be swinging.
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:14,000
So if I'm slicing the ball, I'm going to have the blur of the club going more outside
00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:17,000
to in kind of like this.
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:21,000
If I'm hooking the ball, I'm going to tend to have the blur of the club going more
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:23,000
into out.
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:24,000
And use the trusty hole of hoop.
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:31,000
If I have a fairly neutral swing path, you'll see that the club is going to come slightly
00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,000
from the inside to then slightly back to the inside.
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:43,000
If I'm hooking the ball, it will come kind of very close or it will come over the white
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000
stick relatively close to the golf ball as opposed to way back here.
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:49,000
It'll come closer to the golf ball.
00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,000
And then it'll start to kind of peel off and work just slightly out.
00:01:53,000 --> 00:02:00,000
It'll rarely see it really swing over out towards the target line or out towards the red
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:01,000
stick.
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:05,000
But a solid hook is going to look pretty much like that.
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:11,000
Now if I'm slicing the ball, the blur of the club and the club head is going to get
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:17,000
more out towards that red stick on the ground and then start swinging across just like
00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:18,000
this.
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:23,000
So you can use these two sticks to just help you get some visual feedback.
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:29,000
You can take some practice swings, trying to get the blur of the club to kind of swing
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:30,000
right down the middle.
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:40,000
And then when you take some shots, you can focus on not so much of the feedback, but what
00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:43,000
did that look like if you replayed the blur of the club?
00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:47,000
If you're unsure, you can just set up your camera right down that alleyway and you'll
00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:53,000
be able to get a rough estimate of the direction, the horizontal swing plane.
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:55,000
So the direction that you're kind of swinging in the club.
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:59,000
It doesn't give you the true path because it can't tell you how much you're hitting down
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:01,000
and how much you're hitting up.
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:03,000
And for every degree, you hit down on the ball.
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:08,000
It's going to affect the path a little less than an degree, half a degree to two thirds
00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000
of a degree depending on the club that you're swinging.
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:15,000
So you can use this to help zero in your ball flight.
00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:21,000
It's similar to the four square model, but it's a little bit easier for setup when you're
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:22,000
on the range.
00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:28,000
I think the four square model can be a little bit more specific and help you with not only
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,000
controlling direction, but looking at low point and where that is.
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:36,000
But this one, you can quickly set it up and then quickly take it away.
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:41,000
The other thing that is really useful is let's say you're using this visual feedback and
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:46,000
you get your, you find yourself hitting a pretty predictable little fade or little draw,
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,000
like a ball flight that you like.
00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:54,000
Then what you want to do is keep the training station there, but then take a few swings
00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:59,000
outside of the training station and try to recreate the same ball flight.
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:09,000
Then what you can do is you can use the edge of a T-box or the edge of the fairway where
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:15,000
the line of grass goes from fairway to rough as one of the elements that.
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,000
So it's a training device that you can kind of use on the course because I can pretend
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,000
that, alright, I'm done practicing with my two sticks.
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:27,000
Now here's the edge of the T-box.
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,000
I can imagine that that's one of those sticks and I can take some swings and try to get
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,000
that visual path figured out.
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:39,000
And then once I have that visual path in place, I can set up to my ball and try to recreate
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:40,000
that path.
00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,000
So if you're struggling with a little bit of your path control and you're more of a visual
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,000
golfer, you can't really feel too well.
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:54,000
Some of these, you know, shallowing movements or you can't feel that loss of posture,
00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:58,000
use the sticks on the ground to kind of help your brain coordinate where you want to swing
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:03,000
the club and that'll ultimately help you develop your stock tour swing.
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:04,000
So now a fairly neutral swing.
00:05:09,000 --> 00:05:20,000
Good.
00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:23,000
And then I'm going to do a little early extension.
00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:51,000
Kind of like this.
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:55,000
So you can see how you can use those visuals to help you really zero in on how you're
00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:59,000
controlling your path and what it looks like, especially if you're a visual learner.
