Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "The Hockey Stick Drill For Ball First Contact"

Does it feel like you’re battling a slice or a fade, no matter how hard you try?

Today, I’m joined by Top Speed Golf certified instructor Ronnie Snowden…

…and he’s going to show you the “hockey stick drill,” which will help you make a better shoulder turn…

…so you can achieve more consistent ball striking and more easily control your shot shape!

And don’t worry, you don’t have to have a hockey stick to do this drill.

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    Ronnie Snowden    

Video Duration: 6:28

Video Transcription:

Clay: Hey, it's great to have you here today. I got an awesome drill for you. I'm joined with certified top speed golf instructor, Ronnie Snowden, and we're going to do the hockey stick drill, which just cures so many things in your golf swing. All right, so let's jump into it first. Let's go ahead and do a split grip just like you would do with hockey.

Grip up on this hockey stick, maybe about a foot or so between your hands, something like that. And then, I don't play hockey. I didn't know what I was getting when I bought a hockey stick. I just clicked on whatever I saw on Amazon. It's a left handed hockey stick, I know. Don't have to post it in your comments.

Last time I did a video of this, I got like 400 comments on how it's a left handed hockey stick. Uh, take it to the top of the swing here. And the biggest thing, if we're going to shallow out this club, is this right hand has to be on this side of the left hand. If we start to get that club steep, now all of a sudden the right hand gets on top of the left hand, that's not where you want to be.

So we're going to be steep here, we're going to focus on rotating our shoulders to go even a little bit more with the shoulder turn in the backswing, so go ahead and go all the way to the top here. So get this good shoulder turn as you rotate to the back, that's going to get you the power. Now, now the second step here, we're going to stop last parallel.

So that's when the club, shaft, or this hockey stick in this example. is parallel with the ground in the downswing. And from here, we'd like to have somewhere around, you know, a hand width or a little bit more away from your legs is where your hands are going to be. And if you're straight with the hockey stick, meaning that if we shot a laser out of this and it's going toward the target or parallel with the target, that's going to actually be a little bit too much of a fade swing.

Most people don't know this, but if you're going to hit a fade or a power fade like they do on tour. Even when you hit a fade, this club at last parallel is going to be a little bit inside. A draw is going to be a little bit more inside. And the reason for that is that even if I'm going to hit a fade from here, this club's from the inside, as he rotates his body back up and to the left, you're going to get the path going more to the left if you want to hit a fade.

And you're going to be able to still hit a cut from the inside there. So feel like you get from here. And then what I want you to feel is everything turns out of the way and you're going to hit a fade. So basically all you're doing is turning a little extra to hit the fade. And if you want to hit a draw, the only difference you do still from the inside, but turn toward the target.

So everything still rotates back in through there, turns back up into the left. But now it's a little bit more inside out. So when that club is to the inside, as you rotate. It gets slung out with momentum. And that's the advantage of this drill is that all I have to do is open up and the club gets slung out.

I don't have to kind of manipulate it and throw it out there. If that makes sense. So step number two, let's do the exact same thing with a golf club here for this one, all you're going to do grip down on the end of the club to where your thumbs on the shaft, we'll do the exact same checkpoints. So there's, he goes to the top of the swing.

He's going to focus on this hand being on that side of his left hand, his right hand. He's going to get a fairly good shoulder turn. And I like this where he's keeping a little bit of width out away from his body. So if we start to fold this in, and let the hands fold, that's that swing where he just all arms, no shoulder turn, and way too much hands.

Keep this almost like if I kept your chest there, and I pulled this as far as I could, that's what you want to feel like. It's going to be about a three quarter backswing, but this is going to get the right. technique, the right motion. Go down to the last parallel and have the club to the inside. And then from here, again, if I wanted to hit that power fade, I'm thinking about going from here as I rotate back into the left, the club's actually going to move to the left and be a slightly left, uh, path as it's coming through here.

So he's going to be rotating more. That's a power fade. If you've always wondered how to hit the power fade, The reason people struggle with the fade is the club is out here already. And that's going to be too much of a glancing blow. If I want to hit a draw, I do the same thing. I just don't want quite as much left.

I rotate my body and clear it. And I'm going to hit a little bit more of a draw from there. Now, the last thing I want to think about is the club face. I don't want to hold it straight. So as it goes on through, I want to go ahead and let that release. And just like you did here, turn that toe over so it's not being held open like this.

So if this is a hockey stick, again, imagine this is a right handed hockey stick, it's turning on over like that. I don't want to have the face being open like this, or it's going to be a block to the right or a glancing blow. So once you get that, you just, you know, let that go ahead and release as you turn more left.

Then the final step is there. You don't have to do anything different. You just put both your hands together and have the exact same feel as you're hitting a shot. And you're going to have some really, really good technique. Anything on there, Ronnie, that you see your students that maybe struggle with? Or anything that pops out to you?

Well, 

Ronnie: the, the one thing you mentioned about the, the, you know, getting the width with your arms, okay? When, when my students, a lot of times I'll see them have a lot of bend in their elbows. And when they're doing that, they're, they're bringing the club back faster and they're not getting as much rotate, rotation with their shoulders, their hips.

You know, getting that, that width away from their body, it really helps with rotation, really helps with a lot of. 

Clay: effortless distance. Yeah. It feels like, well, I have to rotate my body more in the back, so it's going to be a lot more effort, but in reality it's less effort for the club head speed that you're going to get.

So you just don't have to feel super strained. Just go ahead and turn your entire body. A lot of times people will try to get their lower body locked. They're trying to stretch, stretch, stretch, and they can't really make it. Go ahead and let the lower body turn and you can easily get back there. And if you start to feel super tight, just stop right there.

Go a little short of that even. So if it's a half backswing for you, that's totally fine. Just stop there. That's where you should be stopping based on your flexibility. All right, so the very next step I want you to take is go, if you're a member of Top Speed Golf, go to the instruction tab at the top navigation, click on the 20 minute shallowing fix.

Now in this video, we talked about separating those hands and getting the right hand deeper than the left hand to shallow out that club. But what I didn't cover is how to find your natural grip and your natural elbow positions. A lot of players are using the wrong grip. to where when they try to shallow out, it's really difficult for them.

And once they switch that makes the things a whole heck of a lot easier. So head on over there right now. I can't wait to share with you the secrets of the shallowing fix and show you your natural grip or help you discover your natural grip and hear about your great success. I'll see you soon.