Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "Can Driving The Golf Ball Be This Easy? Real Student Lesson"

I’m back with my buddy and former professional golfer Casey Vancil…

…and if you’re tired of watching your drives sail out of bounds or splash into the water…

…you won’t want to miss today’s video.

I’ll introduce you to a simple drill that practically guarantees you’ll never hit it OB again!

You won’t believe how straight your drives will be after you watch this video!

 

 

 

 

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 15:12

Video Transcription:

Clay: Hey, it's great to have you back here today. I'm joined with Casey Vansel. We've been working on the driver. So if you've been following along, we know that we started out by doing a 15 shot test. We struggled a little bit. We had a few shots out of bounds. We had some good shots in there, but then we started to work on gaining awareness of the clubface.

We worked on getting fades and draws to be able to have awareness of what causes those types of shots. And then today we're going to talk about how you can eliminate all these penalty areas when you're playing golf. So there's actually a ton of room to hit your driver and stay outside the penalty areas.

And to really play some pretty daggone good golf, there's way more room than you think. But there's a wall drill that I had Casey work through and we're already having tremendous success with it. So if we're following this program, you know, I'm going to work with Casey here over the next few weeks.

We're going to track his progression, show you how he did. And then from there, if it gets better, you can try to repeat these drills. Or if I don't know what I'm talking about and they don't work at all, you'll know that I'm totally full of it. And this is a total waste of time and I wouldn't follow any more up my videos.

So I think we'll, I think we'll have some pretty good success. We've already seen some good numbers. Went out and played the other day, hit four out of five fairways and seven holes and shot a few under. So I think we're on the right track. Let's introduce them into the drill that kind of got us started with really eliminating.

Shots that are out of play on the golf course. So here's the way I would do that. Let's say I'm aiming toward this bunker straight ahead. And I don't know if you can see in the distance, there's a yellow flag. It's almost splitting the middle of that bunker on the right side of it. There is a blue flag.

And if I imagine that being a wall, so let's say I'm playing a hole and that blue flag is out of bounds to the right. So if I hit it to the right of the blue flag, even a foot, it's out of bounds. Now to the left of that, most holes have at least 80 yards before you go from out of bounds on the right side to some kind of penalty area on the left side, meaning a water hazard, another out of bounds, something like that.

There's actually a pretty good margin that you can hit it into. So the first set of drills, we talked about how if you're over accelerating your hands, so I really feel like I'm dragging my hands for impact. The face wants to get stuck behind you and be open. That ball is going to tend to start to the right and slice.

We talked about how when we release the club, if I overdo that, my hands and body slow down and the club releases past my body. So show them one more time here before we get started. What's an over acceleration block to the right? Just go kind of real slow through impact, kind of demonstrate that for them.

So you can see how he's kind of pulling his hands through here. And this face, almost never feel like it gets past the hand. So he's holding this face open, trying to hit straight. But because we're just dragging our hands through there, that's a block to the right. The opposite of that would be loose with the hands, letting it release.

And now we're getting a hook there. Demonstrate the opposite there where you go ahead and release the hands. And now you can see the forearms roll over each other versus this. The forearms roll over each other and the face turns on over. That's going to be that hook shot. Directly in the middle of those two is a perfectly straight laser straight shot.

So now that we've learned in the first video. How to get the feel for each of those exaggerations. Now we're going to try to get the correct shot on command. So if we imagine that that blue flag in the distance is out of bounds right, I can start it anywhere to the left. I can start it a hundred yards to the left of that blue flag, which is way over there.

As long as I start it anywhere on this side of the blue flag, and that ball curves any amount to the right, I'm going to be in pretty good shape. 99 percent of the time. So what he's going to work on doing here is starting it to the left. He may even start it a hundred yards left, 80 yards left, 70 yards left.

Doesn't matter, but he's going to make sure he accelerates the hands, never lets the face pass by him and gets that ball to fade. So let's try one of the shots that you've been doing there. So tell them about where, where do you normally line up on this one? I'll stand close and hear you on mic. 

Casey: Yeah, so I'm going to line up pretty much between, if you can see, the red and the yellow flags.

I'm going to line up left edge of the bunker. Okay. And I'm going to feel like I can just really accelerate as hard as I want to near the end of the swing. 

Clay: So as long as you accelerate through the ball, you know that face is not going to fly past it. 

Casey: Absolutely. 

Clay: And I almost like to feel, and we worked on this a little bit, as if you imagine setting up here toward the, toward the down the line.

Casey: Yeah. 

Clay: If you imagine the toe never passes the heel. That's guaranteed to get that ball to cut. So as long as my face is open to my path or the direction I'm swinging it, that ball will cut. And when I draw, I want to get that toe to release past or, or past the heel. So it's kind of, the fade is more this motion.

The draw is more releasing at that motion. And when the toe passes the heel, that ball's guaranteed to draw. Sounds pretty simple, but that's, that's what it is. It's pretty much what it is, you know, so let's try to start one out. Like you said, almost, you know, little left edge of the bunker, maybe even a little more left of that and just guarantee it cuts.

Don't care if it cuts 40 yards or one yard.

There we go. Now, Casey cut that ball a good, I would say 25 yards, something like that. So he pulled it over toward the red flag was not a very straight shot. Cut 25 yards. Plenty of margin for error there. Like he's basically just saying, I don't care how much the face is open. It's just got to be open. And that ball would have cut back right to the center of that bunker and been dead straight in the middle of the fairway.

If he would have cut it another 25 yards, he'd still be in bounds. Cause he's got at least that far between the yellow flag and the blue, blue flag on the right. That's trouble. If he would have pulled it another 25 yards and it hadn't cut. He'd be fine there too because he probably would have started the red flag and then had it fade two yards.

So basically you don't have to be that accurate. You're just hitting it anywhere into this zone. The only thing you have to get right is two pieces. If I'm going to fade it, I have to swing some amount left. Have to. And if I'm going to fade it, I have to have the face open or accelerate my hand so the face never passes past my hands.

If I do those two things, the odds of me starting so far left And fading and not being in good shape or like zero. The one that gets you in trouble is when you think you're going to fade it and you hook it, or you think you're going to draw it and you fade it. Those are the ones that get you in trouble.

Any amount of fade when you're trying to hit a fade, you're golden. So now let's do the opposite where let's just flip flop it around. Let's say that the blue flag, we're not worried about that one anymore. Let's say the red flag is the trouble on the left. So that's the one that's quite a bit left of the bunker here.

On this shot, he's going to make sure he doesn't care what he does. All he has to do is swing to the right. Let that face release any amount. He can, he can draw this ball one yard or 70 yards. He's going to be in play, but he's going to start to the right and make sure it fades back or draws back some amount here.

No pressure.

Perfect example there. So he starts that one toward the blue flag. It draws a little bit back inside of it. And that's a pretty big mess. That's probably 70 yards to the right of that red flag, which was the area we don't want to go past, but he's fine. Cause even though he started that far right, he got the ball to draw some amount and that's still in play.

Maybe it's in the trees a little bit. Maybe it's in the rough, but that's really not what affects your score very much. You're never going to hit, PGA Tour players are the best drivers in the world. Only hit three out of four fairways. Most guys on the PGA Tour hit half their fairways. You don't have to hit this crazy number of fairways.

What you do have to do is if I'm trying to get the ball to turn from right to left, it's got to turn from right to left. That way I can start it away from the trouble. And get it to draw back and stay out of trouble on the right. If I'm going to get a turnover left to right, it's like Dustin Johnson. If you're going to hit a fade, first thing you have to do is make sure it fades.

Right. It sounds ridiculous, but you have to train getting that fade or that slice every single time. It can be anywhere in that zone and you're going to play great golf, but it has a turnover the correct way. So he's gone two for two there and give them a couple of fields. I think most people can do the fade one.

Give them a couple feels of what helped you with the draw side because that was also your tricky side, right? 

Casey: Yeah, it was tricky a lot of it came with the grip pressure and letting the club release earlier So just like you never let the toe Pass the heel when you're hitting the fade I like to feel like the toe as well as my forearms here are all turning over Before impact.

Clay: Yeah, so 

Casey: I start the feeling of the face turning over Back here when I first start my downswing because I was coming too late. I was doing it But if you do it out here, it won't do anything. It doesn't work. 

Clay: So one of the things we worked on, go ahead and sit up there again. We worked on really light hands on all this.

So your hands have to be really light grip pressure to be able to feel the head. And great driving comes from feeling the head. So really light grip pressure. And what he would do when he feels the draw is he'd be really light, really light. And as soon as he starts down, he's going to go really smooth and transition and get this club from the inside.

Now from there, he's in a good position to when he said, like he said, in the downswing, he's going to let this face all the way from here through impact, all be closing down. And then from here, uh, past impact, they're going to, that's when you're going to see them fold over each other. So when you're doing this drill, you want to have really light grip pressure and feel like you get your body in a position to where you can come from the inside and let it fade.

A couple other tricks here. If I'm leaning more to the left, like this, now, all of a sudden that club's going to be forced outside. I'm going to tend to be steep and more of a fade type action. If I go to the draw, I'm going to, he's exaggerating here, but we're going to lean to the right. That gets my body in a position where I can get it from the inside and really make sure it's a draw.

So whenever you're hitting your draws, go ahead and set up there normal again. I'm going to have you focus on a couple key things. Make sure that you have good spine tilt to the right. Make sure this right elbow is below your left forearm. So when you're looking from this angle, look how there's a gap. If I drew a line on his elbow, it would be hitting his forearm here.

If he's going to hit a fade, it would almost be the opposite. So A little more on top of it vertical and look how that forearm now gets high. You can't see his left forearm cause it's kind of this way. That's going to help you to get that more left path and holding it more open. So essentially, if you want to hit a draw a little more tilt, tuck the right elbow really light with the hands and feel like that club is releasing and turning over all the way then the downswing.

If I wait for the very last second to try to fling the hands closed, It's way too timing dependent. It's way too hands dependent. I'm getting my body in a position to where I feel like he can close the entire downswing and that's going to guarantee that I get that draw. So feel that a couple more practice swings until you feel like you have the right feeling.

And let's go ahead and hit another draw.

There we go. And I love that because he overdid it and he did those exaggerated drills and guaranteed he almost overhooked it there. That's okay. When we're at this phase of it, I don't care how much you get it to hook. Okay. I just want to know it's turning over from right to left. I don't care how much you get to fade.

I want to know it's turning over from left to right. So to recap on there, let me give you a couple of tips set up to it again. Typically, if you're struggling hitting the draw a little stronger grip, meaning that I can go a little more this way with my hands, if I'm really struggling hitting a draw, shoulders are tilted to the right, right elbow under the left elbow.

Now Casey was already doing well. I over exaggerated him and almost got him to hook it too much. The exact opposite is true when we're in a little more neutral grip or a little more to the left, shoulders a little more vertical, right forearm over the left forearm. He's exaggerating here, but you get it.

If I was going to hit a big fade, this is how I would do it. Now when you get better at this, you're going to find somewhere there in the middle of those to where you feel like you can hit a more, a draw and a fade. So it feels pretty neutral. You feel like you get a straight shot, a draw or a fade all from fairly similar setup.

So when I'm. Got my normal grip. I'm basically keeping it on every thing. I'm not changing my grip every single time, but I'm adjusting it until I feel like I can hit either shot from that shape. When I want to hit a draw, just a little more tilt and I swing to the right. Let the face release. When I want to hit a fade, a little less tilt, swing to the left.

I feel like the face is a little more open. And as you do more and more of these, you know, the dispersion of the shots, it's amazing because you're figuring out how to find straight. The amount that your straight shots will curve when we start to straighten that out here in these next videos is pretty crazy.

They get a lot tighter. A lot. So let's go ahead and try to hit one fairly straight one here, kind of a standard shot. So again, you're going to hit a fade or a draw here. I'm 

Casey: going to hit a draw here. 

Clay: Okay. So imagine anything left of that red flag is out of bounds. All he's got to do is hit any amount to the right and draw it back.

Absolutely hammered. So that would be a hair to the left, but still inside of that landed inside of that red steak. So that's one of those shots that it's not going to be out of bounds. It's not going to give you a huge penalty. It's not the prettiest shot in the world, but we're not going to have like in our pre test six out of 15 out of bounds, we're going to have zero out of 15 out of bounds.

So in the next videos, what we'll do is we'll keep on adding to these drills. We'll progress along and we'll show you the real results. So we're going to have him repeat the test that he did in the beginning. See how much better he gets at that. Um, you also share some rounds that you have and how you hit it with a driver in those rounds.

All right. So if you're a member of Top Speed Golf, here's what I want you to do next. And this is really important. It's what I call a stable fluid spine. So, you know, we talked here, a big part of what gets you to fade or draw more or less is your spine tilt. And when we look at every single shot from a great player, Whether it's fade or draw, they're all going to be tilted away.

A little more tilted away with a draw, a little less tilted away with a fade, but you have to get your body tilted away from the target. If you're going to have lag, if you're going to release the club, if you're going to take the hands out of the golf swing. Now this is a big piece of the top speed golf system.

So if you click on the instruction tab, if you're a member of top speed golf, click on the top speed golf system and go to the stable fluid spine. I'm going to introduce you to that in level one. I'm going to get your spine tilt. To be the correct amount. I'm going to show you how to measure it with a club, what those angles should be.

So, you know, if you're doing it the right way to hit nice, neutral, straight shots, and then from there, we're going to go to level two, where we start to ingrain it. You'll still have to think about it a little bit, you know, as you work through these drills in the beginning, you'll be thinking about your spine tilt.

As you go through the level two, it becomes a little more natural. And as you complete level three, you don't even have to think about it anymore. So you just say, Hey, set up to a golf ball. And automatically you're set up in a way that looks just like the pros are. But that only happens if you work through a very structured progression, you get through level one, level two, level three.

Now you can write that off your list. You never have to think about it again. That's just going to be how you naturally set up to the golf ball. And that's where I want to get you to. So you don't have to keep on working on the same things. Let's knock this thing out once and for all. It all starts by starting with one video from level one right now.

Let's 1. 1 in the stable fluid spine. Let's go and get started.