I had been steadily losing power in my shots, so I broke down and scheduled a lesson with Joal Harding, the fine teacher at the Fox Hills Learning Center. It didn’t take her long to diagnose the major problem: I’m releasing the club way too early. The solution: develop more lag.
She gave me a couple of drills to work on:
1) The Pump Drill: Take the club back and pump downward, concentrating on maintaining the proper positions. Do this twice, then swing through on the third pump.
2) The Split Hands Drill: Make practice swings with my hands split about a foot apart on the shaft.
3) Swinging my driver with a towel tied to the hosel.
I’m gong to work diligently.
High energy Golf Channel instructor Michael Breed has his own take:
The towel on the driver seemed to work best. With the towel on, my swing looked dang near perfect when compared to a video of Bernhard Langer. But being a gadget guy, I’m wondering if there are any gadgets out there that will work to give me that feeling of lag. Any suggestions?
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I really like how simple this tip is. It seems very effective. I’ll try it.
This reminds me of something that has helped me quite a bit recently. I really wanted to make sure I wasn’t coming over-the-top on my swing. I spent a lot of time working on certain parts of my backswing, and it was really complicated.
Then I had a great aha! moment. I realized that all that mattered was coming from the inside, not how I got there. So, it simply forced my eyes to stay entirely focused on the few inches behind the ball. Suddenly, by not focusing on the mechanics, but simply the goal (come from the inside), I have regularly started coming from the inside. Something about being really focused on the area from 6” behind the ball to the ball just forces my hands to go through that area.
Drew, that’s a great tip, and actually one of my few swing thoughts. I focus on the inside back of the ball, though. I figure if I hit it there, I’ll hit inside out.