Hi Everyone!
Baleaf Ambassador Shawn Lux here. For those that don’t know me I’m a golfer based out of Virginia. Along with content creating with various golf courses and brands I also play on the Amateur Players Tour. You may know me for my years on the St Jude/Operation Enduring Warrior Race team.
So today I would like to give a couple tips and drills I do on the range and on the course to hopefully help fellow golfers or people potentially thinking about getting into the sport develop their swings.
Your swing should feel natural. I can’t emphasis this enough. One major issue I see with golfers is attempting to conform their swing to a certain golfer. There’s a few issues with that.
First, These players literally hit thousands of balls a day to practice then spend the rest of their time working out or playing rounds. Likely you won’t swing at the same speed or sheer power of a tour pro. Trying to mimic their swing will likely lead to injury and frustration.
Second, watch how different pros swing. Matthew Wolf and Tiger Woods couldn’t be more different. John Rahm and Collin Morikawa are completely different.
There is reasons they swing or move a certain way. Your swing will be unique to you. It’s important to develop YOUR swing.
Your set up - For a driver you want your feet just outside your shoulder blades. For longer irons(3-6) your feet will narrow a bit. For short irons(7-9)/wedges your stance will be feet will be level with your shoulders.
Ball position- This is very important. For driver you should have the ball just inside of your forward foot. 3 wood you want to move it slightly back. 3-6 irons will be just slightly back from 3 wood. 7-9 will be just forward of the center of your stance. Wedges will be center or even just slightly back. These positions help you compress the ball. Having correct ball positioning also eliminates coming under(Hitting it heavy) and coming over the ball (Topping).
DRILLS
So let’s talk about improving your swing. Some very simply drills.
1) Take a towel and wrap it in front of you under your arms. When you swing the towel should not drop out through your back swing. You can also put a glove under your armpit of your leading arm.
This drill is used by Collin Morikawa who is the best irons player on tour (Best iron ball statistically since Tiger Woods.) and a incredible ball striker. This drill is to keep your arms connected to your body.
When your arms get away from you your ball strikes are unpredictable. The most likely result is probably slicing your shot horribly though as you are likely to swing inward badly into the ball.
2) Your divot should be pass where the ball was struck.
Why? Because your club is moving downward into the ball (Compressing the ball.). So the divot should be after.
So how can you make sure that happens?
Place your ball down to hit then place a tee on the other side right next to the ball. When you strike you will be able to see if the divot is after where the ball was based on the tee. Just simply move the tee each time and you can see if you are creating a divot after, on, or before the ball by looking at the tee. I
f you want a true visual of how the club should move imagine a half hula hoop sticking up diagonally toward you from the ball. If your hula hoop turns inward too much you will slice your shot. If it gets too far outward you will hook your shot. You want the ball strike in the middle of the half hula hoop.