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Towel Drill - Finesse Wedge

When done correctly, the "classic" towel drill can work wonders for players who stall their body during "finesse" wedge shots; this inefficient pattern is usually characterized by overactive hands/forearms and can create heavy & thin misses (along with the occasional "double hit"). Ultimately, improving your "coast pattern" should eliminate these issues around the greens and leave you with a more balanced acceleration of the club.

Playlists: Finesse Wedge - Chipping and Pitching

Tags: Pitch, Chip, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is the finesse wedge towel drill.

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So this is to help you coast through the ball better.

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If you have a tendency to really stop the body and let the hands pass through.

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You may hit some occasional good shots here and there, but oftentimes if you have more

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of that stall body, like that one was okay, but I will tend to have a lot more chunk

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or bladed shots.

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The worst case scenario is I actually get some of the double hit shots because the club

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has so much acceleration from the arms very late.

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So one of the classic drills for working on keeping your chest moving on the way through

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is the good old towel drill.

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So we're going to take the towel and place it high up in your armpits.

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You don't want to, I see a lot of golfers anchor their elbows on this and the problem

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is if you anchor your elbows, then your forearms will typically be a little bit too steep.

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So even though I have my arms anchored up near the armpit, I can still have the right

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arms slightly underneath or slightly more shallow than the left arm.

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So kind of like this.

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And then this will force me to keep my chest moving on the way through.

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So having a feel and having a look like that.

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But my wrists are free.

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So if I decide I want to have a little bit more of a feeling of throwing the club like

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I did on that one.

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This is a great way for you to feel what it's like to throw and then reconnect or continue

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with your chest late.

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So I'm going to let the club drop from my arms and then I'm going to keep my chest

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turning on the way through, which I have to do in order to keep my arms connected

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for the towel.

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So like I said, a couple places where I see golfers go poor with this would be in effort

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to keep the club or to keep the towel connected.

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They'll dive down and that's one of the number one causes of chunking the ball and getting

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low point problems is coming down with the upper body.

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You can see when it does that, obviously exaggerated, but when it does that, the leading

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edge hits.

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If I then were to have more of a stand up, even if I'm really trying to hit the ground,

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the bounce side of the club is going to hit the ground in the club will tend to slide.

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One other place where I see golfers get in trouble is when you get your body slightly

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open it at set up, you don't want your shoulders to follow it too much.

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If this left shoulder gets lower than the right, that can cause the leading edge contact

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as well.

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And so some golfers when they do this at first, when you put the towel in place, when

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they're trying to stay more centered, then when they rotate that left shoulder will get

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really low.

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So just focus on keeping the arms a little bit more shallow or the shoulder slightly

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close and holding the towel up high in the armpits that will help to get the club to

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or get your body to continue turning on the way through or coasting, which will bring

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the club through with a lot less hand action than you're used to.