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Windmill Drill - Body Pivot

Whether you are a novice or high-level player, it can be useful to refine some of the fundamentals involved in making a reliable & powerful pivot. As this motion requires coordination from multiple segments of the body and both mobile/stable actions, it doesn't take much for things to get out of whack. With that said, this is a great way to recalibrate this movement as it relies on just one external cue and it can be performed at home or on the range.

Tags: Fundamentals, Early Extension, Standing Up, Sway, Follow Through, Backswing, Drill, Intermediate

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Stirl is the windmill drill for your body pivot.

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So often times golfers, whether novice or if you've been playing for a while, you can

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lose the identity or you can lose the direction of your pivot.

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So what we're going to do here is we're going to work on the body motion without a club.

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So I'm going to put a golf ball in my normal ball position and then I'm going to drop

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my club and I'm going to bring my arms out to my sides just like this.

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Now the windmill in this case is going to involve my body pivoting so that my arms when

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they stay out to my sides, my left arm is going to point at the golf ball and then my

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right arm is going to point at the golf ball.

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And if you, if you were to look at the keys here, the keys here are that my arms stay

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in line with my body.

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So I'm not just going like this.

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This would be just moving my shoulders.

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I want my shoulders to kind of get locked in place and then I'm going to use the angle

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of my pivot so that my shoulder and hand are pointing down to the golf ball and then my

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shoulder and hand are pointing down at the golf ball.

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Just like if I was going like this up here, but I'm going to be angled down at the golf

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ball.

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And because I'm angled down at the golf ball, the magic of how to do this correctly is I'm

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not just going to rotate a lot of golfers rotate around.

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Even though you get bent over into a good position, a lot of golfers rotate around a vertical

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axis.

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So that looks like if I had my arms out to my sides and I rotate around a vertical axis,

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you'll see that my belt stays parallel to the ground and my body is actually moving a

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lot off the ball and then a lot through the ball on the way through.

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So there's a lot of upper body variability.

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That's going to give me contact issues and take away some power.

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Instead, if I do this correctly, when I make a backswing, the right hip is going to come

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up.

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The right shoulder is going to come up.

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The left shoulder and left hip are going to go down.

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So I'm basically turning around this angle just like so.

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And then I can get used to the rhythm of it, of feeling like the hips, lead the arms

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and kind of make the arms swing.

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So working on the backswing, right hip goes up, right shoulder goes up, working on the

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way through, left hip goes up, left shoulder goes up, right hip goes down, right shoulder goes

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down.

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Just me into this really good follow through position where it looks like I just turned

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right around my spine angle.

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So this is a great drill for dialing in your body pivot or working on kind of simplifying

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your body pivot at home.

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Once you have a good idea of this feeling of a body pivot, then I want you to try and apply

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that to a 93.

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So now I'm just going to make a triangle with my arms where they're connected on my chest.

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Now I'm going to raise my right hip and right shoulder in the backswing and then on the

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way through, I'm going to raise my left hip and left shoulder.

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Now that one I hit a little bit thin.

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I could feel on the way through.

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I didn't quite get that right shoulder down and that left hip up.

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So I'm going to do my windmill again.

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That was a little bit better follow through.

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If I drop the club and put the arms outside, that's pretty close to pointing at the

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golf ball.

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Anywhere between pointing at the golf ball and let's say one to two feet out for mid-iron,

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that's a pretty good model.

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Just make sure if you change clubs that you get set up so that as the clubs get longer,

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this windmill gets just a little bit flatter.

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So for the driver, it might look like this and with your wedge, it might look like that.

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But overall, this is going to help you train that centered pivot in an easy way at home.