Why You Need This:

“I like to feel like I’m gathering the ball… the face kind of wraps around the outside of the golf ball…”

This video breaks down a common swing problem faced by many golfers – staying in posture while releasing the club correctly. 

By following the key steps in this video, you’ll discover how to keep your posture, compress the ball properly, and eliminate slices.  

You’ll see how the “power position” can ensure the proper swing path.

Ever wonder why some golfers seem to hit laser-straight shots effortlessly?  It’s not magic.  It’s understanding the subtle mechanics covered in this video.

Hitting a great golf shot is one of the best feelings in the world… and this video will give you more of those moments. More straight shots, more power, and less time spent searching for balls in the woods!

Think of your golf swing like turning a doorknob. Keeping your posture is like maintaining a firm grip on the knob. Releasing the club correctly is like the smooth rotation of the knob that opens the door. Without the right grip and technique, the door won’t open properly – similarly, your golf ball won’t go where you want it to.

What's Covered: See: "Perfect Practice Plan" Sheet In "Practice Keys" Section of This Page

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 14:50

Video Transcription:

Clay: Okay. So as we're going through this, let's really ingrain this motion until it becomes second nature. And one of the biggest things we're going to talk about when people stay in their posture, a lot of times they're staying in their posture and they get more forward shaft lean. They tend to have the face a little bit open.

That can cause blocks to the right and cuts or even block slices. And that's not what the pros are doing. The pros are releasing the club in a certain way. That's going to allow that ball to go really straight. And we're going to go over that in this video. So to get back into the feeling again, all I want you to do is grab your sand wedge.

Any wedge will be fine. Let's go back and redo 10 reps of choking up on the shaft. Now, if you're indoors, you can do this in your living room. You can do this in your garage, wherever you have in your backyard is fine too. But let's get used to. getting the right motion while brushing the turf, which we'll get to here in a second.

If I have a mat like this, that's perfect. If you don't have a mat like this, one of these little cheap mats is perfectly fine for what we're doing here today. If you don't have either of those, just take an old piece of carpet or a door mat or anything that you can actually brush or hit. Like you're going to be taking a little bit of a divot.

We're going to need something to make some swings actually hit the ground. I don't want us to be choking up, missing the ground as they're swinging. And that allows us to kind of stay out of our posture to pop up out of it. If we're not brushing the turf. So let's go ahead and take our left hand all the way down to the end of the grip.

Right hand is on the steel, and we're going to do 10 reps here. Just focusing on staying in the posture to the release, having that 45 degree angle and keeping our head down. As this is happening. So this 10 reps and you'll see, as I'm doing this, this little half follow throughs, and I'm just getting used to brushing the turf as that's happening, if you miss the turf, that's okay.

Don't count as a successful rep. Just make sure that you're hitting what would be the ball and then the dividend front. So I don't want to be falling back here and hitting a divot back by my right foot. I want to brush the turf on the front half. So from the middle of my stance forward is where I want to be brushing the turf or brushing the mat and just going to that little half follow through or quarter follow through pausing toward that straight line release.

Get your 10 reps in. Then we're ready to move on to the next section. All right, so now let's jump to step number two. Now a common mistake that I see is when we're doing these swings, In an effort to stay down in our posture, a lot of players will start to come over the top and steepen up this club shaft.

You see the club shaft gets way over the top like this. As you swing down in your posture, you're swinging to the left. So if you imagine the direction I'm swinging is to the left or toward the left rough, my club here was pointing the direction I'm swinging. It'd be like this. What we're trying to do is swing straight, or here we're going to even exaggerate to make sure we're coming from the inside.

and be slightly inside out for a nice draw. Now, a great way to feel this is what I call the power position and making sure that the club is inside the target line on the power position. So you can take a, another club or an alignment stick, just throw it on the ground again, these are in your living room and your garage, we're not going to be hitting shots here.

If you do have a net, feel free to hit some extra shots if you want to, you know, really ingrain this, but we don't have to hit any shots doing these. I'm going to put this stick down. I'm going to line my feet up parallel to this stick. I'm going to go ahead and grab a golf ball here just for reference.

So you can see where that would be in my swing. And then I'm just going to scoot to the inside of it. So I wouldn't be hitting this golf ball, choke up on the shaft again. And then from here, I'm going to pause and what's called last parallel. So I'm going to go to my downswing when my club is parallel.

in the downswing or last parallel before impact. This would be after last parallel. So the club shaft is parallel with the ground. I want to make sure that the club shaft and the club head is pointing this direction. So the club head should be slightly inside of your hands. That should be going out to the right and helping you to hit a nice little draw.

Now, a little tangent here, even players that are hitting a fade are going to have this club a little bit to the inside. and then just come more to the left. You're not going to see very many players, good players, where this club is out here, because if I do that, I'm either going to be over the top or if I swing straight, it's going to drop under like that.

I don't want to have that happen. So for this drill, I'm just going to pause, last parallel, and I'm going to check to make sure the club head is inside my hands and the club shaft is pointing to the right of my target or to the right of this alignment stick that I have on the ground. I'm going to pause and hold it there for one second.

Now from here, I'm going to go to the straight line release that we've been working on, and my club shaft is going to be pointing to the right there also. So we're just going to do a one second pause, feel that position. Big key here, I want you to ingrain this before we go to the next step. Feel like your weight is on your left foot or your left side, divot in front as we move to the next step.

So power position, I'm pausing, club head inside, weight on the left. Then I'm going to release into the straight line release. I'm in my posture. My weight is on my left. My club is pointing out to the right, just 10 reps, just like that pausing … pause it. So I'm internalizing that feeling. So I know what I'm trying to do when I move into a fluid swing without any pauses, 10 reps, pausing one second in each of those positions.

So pausing in the power position before impact pausing in the power position at the straight line release. That's one rep. Repeat that 10 times. We're ready to move on to step three. All right. So now we're ready to move to step three. Now for this step, I really like putting a piece of tape on the ground.

It's not mandatory. If you don't have a piece of duct tape, masking tape, painter's tape, whatever you can put on the ground there, don't worry about it. Just make sure the divots in front. But if you do have that, this is a great feedback tool. Now, the way I'm going to position this tape is, if you imagine I'm setting up this golf ball, like I was going to hit it here, the tape would be on the back half of the golf ball.

What's going to happen is as I swing in a good golf swing, I'm going to get my weight left. I'm going to come down, hit this golf ball. And my entire divot is going to be in front of that piece of tape. So I'm really going to focus in on brushing the ground, brushing the mat, brushing the piece of carpet, whatever you have in front of that piece of tape.

Now, again, we're not hitting golf balls here. So I'm simply going to scoot to the inside of this. Basically the sole of my club will be resting on the very front edge of that tape at address here. And then I'm going to choke up on the shaft again. I'm going to try to recreate that same feeling of the power position that we just worked on.

Inside club head, weight left, coming through to the straight line release, club shaft going out to the right. Again, maintaining that weight left. And this is what's going to help us to get that ball, then turf contact. So I'm going to brush and get that divot in front of the golf ball, but I'm going to get rid of the number one mistake.

which is coming down steep and over the top. You really can't come down steep and over the top and then also end up in the power position, right? So if my club shaft or my club head is inside my hands, that's going to guarantee that I'm coming from the inside. So here we're going to set up and I'm going to take away the pauses now.

I'm going to try to move fluidly through those two positions that we worked on. I'm just going to make a half back swing and finish in that straight line release and get the feeling of what that would be like. That's all there is to it. We're going to go ahead and now do 15 reps, recreating that same feeling.

If you hit the tape, it's an unsuccessful rep. Go ahead and do it again. If you miss the ground, it's an unsuccessful rep. If you feel like you were over the top, it's an unsuccessful rep. So 15 successful reps, inside out moving, weight left, divot in front. And again, we're staying in our posture in every single one of these.

Now let's move on to step four. Now, step four, we're going to build on what we're going to do on our next outdoor session when we're actually hitting golf balls. Again, if you can't get outdoors, it's completely fine to do this entire course indoors, as long as you have a golf ball to hit into a net or something like that.

If you don't have a net at house, you're going to want to go to the driving range in the next video to complete that. But here, what I don't want to do is I don't want to get this inside out swing, staying in my posture. So I'm swinging out to the right and then have the face open. So as I come to impact, I don't want my face to be pointing to the right like this, or to be open like that.

I want it to be square straight toward the target. And I want it to be releasing after this, after this. So to exaggerate this, what we're going to feel again is a fluid swing, but when I pause in my follow through, I'm going to make sure the toe of the club is facing roughly toward the target. Now, what I mean by that is.

If I look at this club face, if I had my hand representing where the club face is, the leading edge, or this part of the club face and the toe straight would be like this, open would be like that. So imagine there's a laser shooting out of the tip of the toe of the club, and as I go through and do these fluid reps again.

Again, power position, weight on the left, brushing the turf. As I pause in my straight line release, I want the toe to be facing the target. That's releasing the golf club. If I'm holding the golf club open, that's going to be a block slice. If I'm releasing the golf club and letting it turn on over, that's going to be a nice straight shot or a little bit of exaggerated, a little bit of a draw type shot.

So again, do 15 reps, little fluid swing, and make sure on each of those, I'm feeling the power position. I'm brushing the turf in front of this piece of tape. And my toe is toward the target. Now take your time with this. If it takes you a few extra reps in 15, go slow. If your face is just constantly open, slow down and exaggerate.

So if I struggled to get that toe to turn on over, I would actually exaggerate to where, when I do these little swings, I would pause in the straight line release, and I'd actually feel the club face closed like this, or the laser that's shooting out of the toe would be more to the left. So if I'm doing these swings, and it's like every time I pause, the face is open like that, I'm gonna really exaggerate it being way closed.

You may notice when I do that, my hands and my forearms are rolling over each other in the finish to make that happen. If my hands are this way. Forearms kind of like this, the face is going to be open. I've got to let those hands be loose. I've got to let the momentum of the club release and those forearms roll over like that.

That's the fourth step. Once we get this down, we're getting pretty daggone close to staying in our posture, hitting some phenomenally compressed shots. Now the fifth step, once we felt those, we're just simply going to finish the swing. So here, choke up again. All those good feelings that you've just had, recreate those.

But now I'm going to finish my swing. Just like we saw Tiger Woods, Bernhardt Longer, kind of Bernhardt is the one I like to use, but stacked over the left foot. My head would be just on the right side of my leg. So if I'm looking from this down the line view, I want to be here. I don't want to be straight up and down.

I'm slightly tilted to the right and I'm finishing balanced over my lead leg. I shouldn't be able to pick up my right toe. and balance for about a second before I fall back. That's how we know we're doing it right. So I'm going to go ahead, do the same thing. Brush the turf, full finish there. I'm going to hold that for two seconds of the full finish.

You'll be amazed. It's so simple. Just doing 10 reps of this where you can hold your finish for two seconds. It'll be a shocker on how easy it is to get that turf being brushed in front of the piece of tape. If I'm doing this, and I'm feeling like I'm falling back on my right foot. I'm not stacked on my front foot.

If I lifted up my left foot, I'd fall right back. That's going to get us falling back and hitting the tape. I want you to feel like everything is nice and stacked over that front foot and that's going to pull the divot forward. The power position and the releasing the face is going to make sure that we don't slice when we're doing that and it's going to be a nice tight draw.

So 10 reps, hold that finish for two seconds. This is one of the simplest drills. It's going to give the biggest dividends in your swing. All right. So one final little bonus tip here that I really like. I like the feeling of when you're hitting this shot in your mind. So in each one of these, I want to be feeling what it would be like to hit a golf ball and that ball to fly really nice and straight for it to feel solid.

So I'm doing the mental reps as I'm practicing this. And when we go back out to the driving range, It's going to be that much easier to transfer, transfer to when you're actually hitting a golf ball. But I like to feel like when you're doing this again, I'm way choked up on the shaft as I come to impact that ball sticks against the face and stays on the face the whole way through.

So the face is going to wrap around the outside of the golf ball as I release the face, but I don't want it to be a glancing blow. If I'm coming over the top, it's like the face is sliding outside the golf ball. If I'm coming way inside and, and really flipping it. Then it's going to feel like the face is just leaving the golf ball really quick.

I like to feel like I'm gathering the golf ball. I like how Trevino said it. He said he felt like after he finished the swing, he had to shake his club to get the golf ball off of it. I want to feel like that golf ball melts into the face, stays on the face all the way through there as the face kind of wraps around the outside of the golf ball.

So if you can visualize that while you're doing these drills, you'll be shocked on how much easier it is. to hit the divot in front of the tape, to visualize a solid shot, and best of all, to feel like as you come through to your finish, it's easier to stay on this front leg. So again, if we're doing this correctly, now, as I go back to hitting a golf ball, it's really easy to hit it nice and solid and not to whack into that tape.

There we go. Get this down, take your time with these reps. Remember you have all the time in the world to rewind the video. If you missed a piece, go back, feel those feelings, do the reps. And this little bit of practice right here, let's say it takes a half hour, maybe 45 minutes, it'll save you hundreds of hours hitting bad shots on the course.

So go slow, take a little extra time with this. I didn't give too many reps here. I want to give a short enough number of reps or a small enough number of reps that anyone can do it. But take your time with it, do them right, and it'll be one of the best things you can ever do for your golf game.