I recently ran a golf school for a great group of members at Aronimink, working alongside their assistant, Tessa Teachman. Tessa, along with my fellow Dewsweepers Morgan Hale and Connor Luke, worked together to help a great group of members make some pretty dramatic improvements to their contact in less than a day.
The changes didn’t require anything drastic from a physical perspective. They all came down to helping players associate new feels for what the club can do when you get out of the way and stop working against it. Most amateurs don’t need a swing overhaul, they just need to find the ground in the right spot to get solid contact, and do it with a good pivot. That’s the whole battle for a huge percentage of golfers.
At the school (and with my regular students) I find that handicap matters far less than the design of what you’re working on when it comes to improving. Give a player something simple they can do at home, in the gym or in the parking lot before a round, and nearly all of them will commit to doing it — and doing it well enough to make a real difference.
Take these five drills we used at the school and incorporate them into your routine this weekend and I promise you that by Sunday afternoon you’ll be hitting more solid shots. None of these drills require a bucket of balls or a trip to the course. You can run through all five in your living room or the backyard. You’ll find the ball at the bottom of your swing more consistently, make more solid contact, hit it farther, and have more control over how it curves.
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1. Find your balance
Before you can do anything else well, you need to be hinged correctly at your waist so your hips can turn and load instead of sliding. Set up in your posture and check that the base of your spine is stacked under the top of your spine — not tipped forward or hanging back. You should feel roughly 50/50 in your weight distribution, evenly balanced between your feet. Get that feeling right at address, and everything downstream gets easier.
2. Stabilize your lower body
A lot of golfers move their pressure side to side instead of rotating — sliding laterally on the way back and again on the way down. When your lower body is sliding around like that, it’s nearly impossible to find the same low point twice. Stand on two small balance discs so your base is a little unstable. Hold a club across your chest and make some slow backswings and downswings. The instability underneath you won’t let you lurch or slide; your body has no choice but to stay centered while it turns.
3. Add rotation to your forward swing
If you stay stuck on your back foot and never rotate your upper body through the ball, you’ll never get the low point of your swing out in front of it, where it needs to be. Grab a light resistance band and stretch it so your arms are fully extended out to your sides — like you’re about to give somebody a big hug. Get into your golf posture, then turn your shoulders fully going back and fully going through, all without ever letting the band go slack. That tension is what teaches your upper body to keep rotating instead of stalling out.
4. Hold your spine tilt
This one will feel strange the first time you try it, but the results show up immediately. Hold a club across your chest like you did in tip 2, and this time watch the angle it makes with the ground as you turn back and through. If you keep the same spine tilt you had at address, that club stays at a consistent angle the whole way around. Lose your posture, and it’ll move parallel with the ground. Come over the top, and it’ll go more vertical. Use the club as your mirror, and keep that angle locked in.
5. Push off the ground to rotate your hips
The last piece is learning to use the ground to rotate your hips while staying in posture, instead of standing up or leaning through the shot. Use that same stretchy exercise band and have a partner the middle of it. Grab each end in one hand, and start your backswing like you’re pulling the cord on a lawn mower with your right (trail) hand. Push off the ground, and don’t let the band pull you forward! Now initiate the downswing by pulling with your left hand. The pull from the band forces your hips to actually rotate instead of stalling at the top or through impact.
