Why You Need This:

We have all heard many things about the golf swing release. How the arms need to rotate, the club face rotates, how we let the angle of the club go. But how do we do this?

When is the release, specifically?

I have a great drill today, where we work on a specific spot to release the hips, arms, shoulders, and club in the golf swing. You won’t need any fancy computer technology, or a masters in physics to nail the release point every time.

All you nee is a club, 2 golf balls, and some practice time.

Lets get started!

What's Covered:

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 8:34

Video Transcription:

1.2 Golf Swing Release Point Drill: Golf Ball in Front

Hi guys, I’m Clay Ballard with Top Speed Golf, and today I have a great drill for you guys that’s going to help you to use your entire body to create club head speed, and do it in a way where it’s very effortless, very rhythmatic, and we’re going to synch everything up.

Our hips, shoulders, arms, club, we’re going to get it all synched up so that we can release the club consistently every time we make that good pure contact on the ball.
So let’s start out by talking about the hips.

I’m going to go through the entire body, let’s start out with the hips. Now the hips are going to create a lot of momentum in the swing.

They’re going to create some rhythm and momentum. So you can imagine as I’m going back, if my hips rotate back, and then as I’m coming through they’re going to rotate through, and that’s going to give me some momentum to swing this club and to create speed in a very easy way.
If I don’t move my hips, well now I’m just going to have to lash at the ball with my hands and arms, and I’m not going to have a lot of rhythm, and I’m not going to be consistent in the golf swing.

So as I’m coming down through contact, I have two balls here on the ground.

I have one, the ball that I’m actually going to be contacting, the ball I’m going to be hitting.

Then I have a ball four feet in front, so you can just walk this off, four feet, doesn’t have to be exact, but in the ball park is going to be fine.

That’s directly down my target line. So if I’m looking at this ball I’m going to be contacting, that ball is directly in line with the direction I’m going to be hitting the ball.

So if I do this correctly, if I use my hips correctly in the swing, as I release the club into this straight line release, my hips are going to continue to rotate and as I hit through the ball, my hips are going to be basically pointing toward that ball.

Or my belt buckle is going to be pointing to the direction of that ball as I release the club, or as I get into the straight-line release.

That’s going to allow me to add speed and momentum with my hips as I’m swinging back and through.

If I slow my hips down too much, I don’t use enough hips, and let’s imagine that now instead of being up here pointed toward this release ball, my hips are pointing more toward the ball that I just contacted as I get into my release.

Well my hips are slowing down, now I’m having to kind of push across my body with my hands and my arms, and often that will cause a chicken wing, often it will cause a flip, and I’m really just not engaging my lower body enough.

So I want to make sure that I rotate my body enough in the release, in the straight line release, that my belt buckle gets pointing toward the ball in front.

So it’s going to be lined up. I’m also going to do the same thing with my shoulders.

As I come into the release point, the release point again is going to be 45° past, so if I take a line from the center of my chest down through the club 45° past, that’s going to be my straight line release, and that’s where that ball is pointing in the ground here.

My shoulders are also going to be pointing in that direction.

So if for instance, I didn’t rotate my shoulders enough, now I’m really going to have trouble getting some forward shaft lean and getting that club to release properly, because my shoulders are jammed up and they’re blocking me in the way.

Again, I’m going to get that chicken wing, it’s really going to be tough.

A lot of you guys that are flipping out there, you’re not rotating through the shot as you’re coming through into the release.

So I want to make sure my shoulders are pointing toward that ball.

Same thing with my arms, again, coming back to the chicken wing example, if I’m not rotating on through, my arms are folding up as I’m hitting this ball, and now my arms aren’t straight.

I want to have both arms nice and straight, and pointing outward that ball at the release point, and obviously my club wants to be pointing outward that ball.

What I’m doing here is using this momentum and rotation in my body to create very effortless speed, and I’m also allowing everything to get synched up into my release.

Everything prior to the release, excuse me, let me explain this a different way.

In the downswing, I’m going to be gaining lag until about halfway down.

Everything from here is going to be releasing, and the ball just simply gets in the way.

So here’s my maximum angle, I’m fully loaded up, as I’m coming through again, I’m on my way to fully releasing but I haven’t here, that’s why I have forward shaft lean, then the club, and ball, and shoulder, and arms, my entire body releases to this point.

So I want to make sure my hips, my shoulders, my arms, my club are all releasing there.

So I’ve got a couple quick drills for you guys to do, some repetitions to get you ingrained in this.

You’re going to start synching up your swing, you’re going to feel more free and more effortless than you ever have before.

It’s real easy to do, you can do it even in your living room. So let’s go ahead and do these drills.

All right, so I’ve got a really simple drill for you to help to practice this and to get the right feeling.

First we want to have the right feeling for when everything’s going to be releasing, then we’re going to get the rhythm for that, and then we’re going to go ahead and hit some shots.

So the first part of this, I’m going to go ahead and set up to the ball on the ground.

Again I have this ball in front, four feet in front and down my target line, and I’m simply going to move this ball out of the way.

So I’m not going to hit the ball yet. Now as I’m starting my downswing, I want to go ahead and go to the position where I have the max amount of lag.

So now I have a lot of lag, sharp angle in both wrists here, and I’m really loading everything up.

Now from here in the golf swing, all I’m thinking about doing is releasing all the way to my release point which is that ball in front.

So let me go ahead and do this again, do my backswing, half way down, there’s my lag, now I’m going to let everything rotate on through to my release point, and I’m going to pause at my release point.

I’ve paused with lag, I’ve paused at my release, and the first thing I’m going to work on, I’m going to forget about everything else, I’m just going to focus on my bel buckle facing in the direction of that ball.

I’m going to go ahead and do about 25 reps, doing exactly that.

There’s the lag, and now I’m focusing on my belt buckle. I’m going to sit down and actually check and visually look and make sure that that looks correct.

25 repetitions of that to allow me just to focus on the hips. Next I’m going to do the same thing with the shoulders.

I’m going to go ahead and do pause in the down swing, fully loading up with lag, then I’m going to release that until my shoulders are pointing in that direction.

Then I’m going to do the same thing with the arms, making sure I’m going to do about 25 reps with the shoulders, then I’m going to add the arms, 25 reps of arms, arms are nice and straight, they’re relaxed, pointing toward the ball.

The club obviously is going to be pointing toward the ball if my arms are there, but I want to let me club fold back up this way, or be loading back like this, and that’s going to allow everything to release on through.

One of the mistakes that I see people make, they get this idea that lag is something you want to hold on through impact.

Absolutely one of the worst things you can do if you hold on to lag through contact, so I get this angle of lag and I just hold on all the way through, well I’m just dragging the club through the ball and I’m really not getting any kind of release of the club.

I’m going to start blocking shots to the right, I could even shank shots, I could get all kinds of terrible shots when I’m trying to get more lag or more forward shaft lean because I’m just trying to hold it on through.

So I’ve got to get this lag point, and then from there, bam, everything’s going to be releasing to this ball in the finish. So I’m going to do hips, shoulders, arms, club.

25 reps each, it’s going to be 100 total reps, pausing to make sure I’m doing this correctly, looking down making sure it all looks good on camera.

One last thing I want to mention here as you’re doing this, let’s go ahead and make sure that as we release the club, that I’m in a pretty good angle here from my left ankle, my left hip, my left shoulder are slightly angled back away from the target, and as they’re all in a straight line.

I don’t want to see anything like this, which is me bumping my hip forward, and now you can see there’s an angle going this way, it’s not a straight line anymore.

Same thing here, if I’m going back this way, some people that may be going over the top and you’re coming out here, and now you can see this is angled the other way and not in a straight line.

I don’t want to have that, so if you’re checking this on camera, I highly recommend you take out your iPhone, you take out your iPad, make sure that’s a straight line as you’re doing this, and you’re going to be in a great position.

Once I’ve done 100 repetitions of that, now I’m just going to simply do one pause and then one swing.

So I’m going to pause halfway down, pause in the release, I’m going to get that good feeling, I’m going to hold it here for 5 or 10 seconds to really ingrain that feeling, and then I’m going to go ahead and make a swing, just recreating that same feeling.

So I don’t have to hit the ball yet, I’m going to do one pause, one swing, really get comfortable with that.

I’ll probably do another 25 reps the exact same way. Once you’re done with that, we can go ahead and hit some balls doing the same drill.

I’m simply going to do the pause again, pausing halfway down, I’m visualizing coming into the ball, coming into that release point, making that synch up.

I’ve got the good feeling, and now I’m going to go ahead and make that swing.

There we go, hit a nice solid shot. Go ahead and hit as many like that as you want to.

You can hit all day if you want to, getting the good feeling, pausing, making sure that you’re releasing, hitting a ball, and then going back again, recreating that feeling again.

Good luck to you guys. Once you get this release down, I’m telling you, you’re going to be so much more consistent on the golf course because everything is synched up, everything is powerful, you’re using your entire body and you’re just going to enjoy playing golf a lot more.

Good luck, good luck with this drill, I’ll see you guys soon.

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