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Impact Drill

I refer to this impact drill as the "toe up to toe up" drill. After you've mastered it, start working on the the
9 O'Clock drill.

Practice and master this impact drill and the 9 O'Clock drill and you've got 90% of the golf swing. Do it correctly and you'll compress the ball like you never have before, and it will make a tremendous difference in your ball striking.

Although it is much quicker to create new movement patterns without the distraction of hitting a ball and swinging a club, at some point you must begin transitioning to the real world and this is an extremely effective drill to guide you to a correct impact position.

Alternate this drill and its' variation noted at the end of this page, and notice the different ball flight that results. The pure "toe up to toe up" will produce a low boring filght, the "toe up to face up" will produce a softer higher flight with more backspin. The same holds true as both of these impact positions are extended to a full swing.

At address, note the red line that is drawn up from the center of the ankle. At you approach the "9 o'clock" position - it's actually just short of a pure "9 o'clock" position - you can note that the hips have shifted slightly away from the target and the body has turned away. The shaft of the club is parallel or slightly above parallel to the ground, and the toe of the club is slightly short of pointing straight up. The toe of the club should get to the correct position without any manipulation of the hands if you have turned back with your shoulders, not your arms. Two Plane swingers - your shaft should be parallel to the ground and the aimline. One Plane or Rotational Plane swingers - your shaft should be parallel to the ground and slightly inside of parallel to the aimline to allow for an inside attack angle to the ball. Takeaway checkpoints are: Pulling your right shoulder blade back to create rotation so that the upper body is turning and so that hips are staying very anchored Pushing your back heel into the ground so that we activate our right glute, and Your arms are still in front of our body, and your hands are just inside of the aimline not pulled too far around our body The absolute key point of the golf swing that should be mastered doing this drill is getting the left hip back into neutral joint alignment so the hip can rotate properly - note that most of golfing population makes the mistake of swaying their front hip forward past neutral joint alignment, which makes it hard to square up the clubface and to keep your head behind the ball at impact. Forward swing and follow-through checkpoints are: Use your left side to shift your weight so that your left hip and your left glute get centered over your left ankle As your forward rotation is started with your left oblique muscle, it pulls your hands down into impact, Your head stays behind the ball at impact Then you release to about 3 o'clock with your arms still in front of your body At impact, the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, ankle and knee on the left side align into neutral You can this position demonstrated in Tiger Woods above At the follow through position, the toe of the club points up and the club has fully released, yet the arms are still in front of the chest An excellent variation of this drill is the "toe up to face up" drill. For this drill, use a pitching wedge, place another ball two or three inches ahead of your target ball, and modify the swing so that that you hold your rotation through impact and finish with the clubface pointing up instead of the toe pointing up, as you would do with a very long chip shot. Make sure that you stay "down and through" at impact and you will hit both balls cleanly. This is a good drill for those players that tend to stand up at impact. [ Back To Drills ] [ Lessons from Thomas Tucker, USGTF Certified Class "A" Teaching Professional ]