Sharpen your swing with practice drills

When you’re stuck for time and you need to groove a better swing, it’s much less time consuming if you can what on a few practice drills at home.
By The Newsroom
Published 28th Jun 2013, 12:07 BST

This need only take about 10-15 minutes on a daily basis, instead of 2 hours for a quick 9 holes.

DRILL 1 THE TRIANGLE - For a more connected takeaway.

It’s very important to get the arms, hands and shoulders moving away as a single unit, but although the arms do come off the body on the backswing, it’s important not to overdo this.

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Drill - Using your driver, take your grip so that both hands are on the metal of the shaft and point the grip end towards the stomach. Practice swinging back to waist high and through to waist high, keeping the grip end pointing towards your stomach.

To do this, you’ll have to turn a little bit more on the backswing and through swing, keeping the arms fairly close to the body. This will help your timing and more solid ball striking.

DRILL 2 THUMBS UP – Syncing the Arms & Body.

Getting the arms and body to work in unison is very important to be a consistently good ball striker. Try this drill below.

Grip your hands together like you’re holding a golf club and swing the arms back to a position where they are parallel to the ground. Make sure that the thumbs are pointing upwards and slightly behind you at about 45 degrees at this stage.

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From here, just practice to the same position on the through swing, again with the thumbs pointing up and slightly behind you at 45 degrees.

Repeat this motion smoothly, making sure the motion comes from your body centre and that the hands and arms are merely moving on the body motion. A definite practice to utilise the larger muscles in the body, which work better under pressure.

DRILL 3 LOADING BEHIND THE CENTRE LINE – Increasing Power.

Making a full turn and shift of body weight into the back leg on the backswing is essential to maximise distance. Try this one in the back garden.

First, drop a club on the ground, so the shaft bisects the centre of your stance. From here, make a good set-up and make a backswing, be sure to get your left shoulder back behind the centre line of your stance. (Right shoulder for any lefties). When done correctly, you’ll feel more body weight on your back leg. From here you’ll be able to hit the ball with a lot of power.

Michael Langford

Golf Performance Ireland

Roe Park Resort.