Your best drills and swing thoughts

Description: The Kinematic Sequence Drill helps make sure you are firing your body parts in the proper sequence in your golf swing to maximize power.

Summary:

In slow motion, practice firing your body parts in the correct order. This means that you should go to the top of your swing and then start down with your hips first. As they start to slow or come to a stop, you should then feel your shoulders fire. As your shoulders then start to slow or come to a stop (this is where they get back to square to your target line), you should then feel your arms, hands and club follow.

Practicing the correct kinematic sequence will not only help you build power and acceleration into your swing as you approach the ball, it will also prevent you from getting into bad positions such as over the top of the swing plane or an early release of the club head.

Practice the Kinematic Sequence Drill to get your body parts moving in correct order. when your body gets out of whack, especially with a long shafted and low lofted club like a driver, your swing will end up in some pretty poor positions and loss of power and accuracy will result so the Kinematic Sequence Drill can help address this.


Description: The Baseball Bat Drill is a great drill to help you increase your power and strength on your drives and to also address problems with coming in too steeply when using your driver.

Summary:

Simply swing a baseball bat to build strength and endurance with a driver. A heavy wood bat weighs much more than your golf club so try 50 swings a day to build up strength and increase your distance.

To also improve your hand eye coordination and timing, you can practice tossing a ball up and hitting it or have a friend toss it to you.

Practicing using a bat with a baseball swing will also help you develop that nice level angle of attack with which you need to approach a driver. This will start your drives out with the correct launch angle and help eliminate pop ups or smothered drives.



Description: The Swing Path Drill helps teach you to attack the ball from the inside to launch the ball nice and high which will help you if you are struggling with your drives due to a steep angle of attack.

Summary:

To perform the drill you will need a swing plane stick (driveway pole) or broken shaft. If you use a broken shaft it is recommended that you cover it with a swim noodle for safety. Simply take your set up and then take your plane pole and put it at the outside of the toe of your club and a foot or so back away from the target.

Tee up your ball and practice swinging underneath the pole attacking the ball on a more shallow inside-out angle of approach.

Practice the Swing Path Drill to help you add power by making a more direct hit with the ball as opposed to a glancing blow. This drill will also help you to achieve a better trajectory by improving your angle of attack and achieve a more desired straight or draw ball flight by improving your swing plane.

Description: The Stability Ball Drill helps you develop tension and a tight coil which will allow you to maximize the distance on your drives.

Summary:

Use a stability ball that forces you into a fairly wide stance. Straddle the ball giving it a good squeeze with your knees to resist hip turn.

Maintain the squeeze and see how far back you can coil your shoulders. The resistance or tightness you feel is power! Like anything else, you may have to start small, but with consistent practice and stretching you should increase your flexibility.

Practicing the Stability Ball Drill will help you think of your body as a rubber band. The tighter you can get yourself to wind up, the faster you are going to release or "snap" through the ball. A tight coil is achieved by maximizing the difference between the amount of your shoulder turn and hip turn.


Description: The Whoosh Drill helps train you to build acceleration gradually in your downswing and increasing your club speed through the ball and up into your finish to maximize your distance.

Summary:

Start by gripping your club upside down and listening to the grip end make a whoosh sound right after impact.

Keep swinging until you are hearing it whoosh and accelerate at the right time. If you are hearing it before impact you are accelerating too early and thus decelerating into the ball.

After a few practice swings and becoming confident with this try it with the club turned around. The head end of the club won't make as much noise, but you should still be able to hear the sound.

Finally start hitting balls and trying to make your club "whoosh" at the correct acceleration point. This will not only help maximize your distance, but it will keep the swing from breaking down and releasing early.

Practice the Whoosh Drill to make sure that you are accelerating through the ball and up into your finish. Your downswing should build acceleration gradually not fire from the top. As your club starts down and begins increasing it's speed through the ball you should be able to hear and feel your club moving it's fastest right after impact on the target side of your body.

The only drills I do now, after properly warming up, is to hit balls at a target. Sometimes it chips, other times it might be pitches from various distances. I also do a lot of work on 150 yard approach shots.

My favorite drill, if I had one, is the "brushing the grass" drill. I do use this sometimes as part of my pre-shot routine.

My primary swing thought when golfing is to get to the proper position at the top before starting my down swing.