An Invaluable Swing Exercie

When you go to the driving range, go there to work on something in particular. Don’t go just to hit golf balls.

The next time you go, try an exercise to learn what I believe to be the most valuable swing technique you can have: your hands lead the clubhead into the ball.

This video shows you what I mean, and gives you a drill to learn the rudiments of the motion.

Assuming you’ve learned that, here is a practical exercise for teaching yourself how to install that movement throughout your bag.

Go to the range with just two clubs, your driver and your 8-iron.

Warm up, then hit two or three balls with your 8-iron. The point is to feel the hands leading the clubhead into impact. Feel that your hands are dragging the clubhead through the ball.

I use the word drag advisedly, as it is not quite the right word, but you will get the feeling right if you regard the dragging as a movment that flows smoothly and with speed as a natural continuation of the swing movements that precede it.

Now take your your driver and hit one (1) ball with it, using the same swing feeling that you had with your 8-iron.

Maybe the swing will be bigger, but don’t put any more “hit” into it, or be concerned at all about how far the ball goes. The point here is to learn a swing detail with this club: the hands lead the clubhead into impact.

Put your driver down and hit another 8-iron shot, using an easy swing in which the hands lead the clubhead. Switch to your driver again and copy that 8-iron swing, with the same feeling. One shot.

Keep switching back and forth, one shot with each club, each swing being a copy of the other, each swing focusing solely on the hands leading the clubhead through impact.

By the middle of the bucket, you should be hitting brilliant shots with each club, seemingly without effort. That will do two things for you.

First, it will provide you with convincing evidence that this approach is right. Second, it will provide you with repetitions of a new habit in replace of an old one.

As well, it would not hurt at all to use this drill as the centerpiece of your pre-round warm-up.