Drills and fundamentals

I’ve got three tips for you this week from three of the best coaches on YouTube. But one of them caught my imagination and sent me to the driving range. Let’s start there.

In this issue

• One leg golf swing drill

• Driver setup fundamentals

• Leading with your hips

One leg golf swing drill

“Did you know that you can hit the ball 101% on one leg?”

So begins this lesson from Canada’s own Shawn Clement on his Wisdom in Golf Lessons channel on YouTube.

In this video, Shawn shows us how to do the drill and, in so doing, how we can get tight control over the low point in our golf swing while swinging irons, hybrids, fairway woods and driver.

He shows us how to do the one-leg drill and how it creates the tightest possible radius in your golf swing. This gives you power and accuracy and very precise control of the low point in your golf swing.

Shawn demonstrates the one leg drill with a 7-iron and manages to hit it 180 yards, when his stock 7-iron on the golf course is 175 yards.

Make note of how Shawn uses vertical ground forces as he swings to the top of his backswing, then down and through the golf ball:

• Both legs extend in the backswing

• Both legs squat in the downswing

• Both legs extend again to the finish

During the course of the video, Shawn demonstrates the one leg drill with not only 7-iron, but also with driver, pitching wedge, sand wedge and fairway woods.

I just came back from the driving range and this drill really works. It’s helping me swing faster and generate a lot more distance with my irons, hybrids and fairway woods.

It’s still a work in progress with my driver, but I’ve only invested one bucket of balls. Stay tuned to future editions of Finding the Tips for updates.

Driver setup fundamentals

Speaking of the driver, the Aussie Golf Pros channel on YouTube asks three rhetorical questions with their video:

1. Want to hit your driver into the fairway more often?

2. Do you want to hit it longer?

3. Would you like to hit driver past your golf buddies?

Of course we do!

In this video, they give us the driver setup fundamentals that will help us reach those driver goals.

Click here and you can watch the whole video. Later you can refer back to the time stamps shown below (displayed in minutes:seconds) when you want to review each of the five fundamentals:

1. Tee height at 00:43

2. Clubhead position at 2:05

3. Ball position at 3:32

4. Shoulder alignment at 4:31

5. Spine Angle at 5:32

These are great reminders we should all review regularly to ensure we don’t fall into bad habits.

Leading with your hips

JT Thomas and Eric Cogorno from the Performance Golf channel tell us that a key move to solid, consistent contact is leading with your hips on the downswing.

Eric uses a race analogy, saying we should want the hips to win the downswing race ahead of the arms, the club and the rest of the body. To help make sure that happens, the drill they show us gives the hips the advantage of starting the race just a little sooner.

This drill will help you let your hips start the downswing while your arms and hands are still taking the club to the end of the backswing. That is a trait that the best players all demonstrate.

In fact, it’s also demonstrated by football quarterbacks and baseball pitchers. When they want to throw the ball, the throwing arm goes back and the lower body goes forward before the throw. They don’t have to think about it — it’s just a natural athletic motion.

Do this drill for a couple minutes before you play. No need to hit balls with the drill. Just feel the athletic motion.

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