Why You Need This: How would you like to have a go to way to have your "Driver Made Simple?"

This video is different than anything you have done before.

Right from your living room, you can follow this progression and build a great driver swing.

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Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 18:53

Video Transcription:

What if you had a surefire way to get your body moving correctly? One of the things that I found is if we get the body to move correctly, the hands, the arms, the club will follow right along.

If I try to get the ball to go where I want it to go, if I try to get my hands and arms and club to move the way I want those to move, but my body’s not moving correctly, maybe I’m swaying to the right, and swaying to the left.

Maybe I’m losing my posture. One of several things that could happen if we’re not moving our body correctly. It’s going to be almost impossible to get the ball to go the direction we want it to go, day in and day out.

Well I have a surefire way, a step-by-step system that I’m going to lead you through in this video, that’s going to make your body move perfectly and then we can just add the arms and club like we’re going to get to later in this video, and man, you’re going to hit a lot of great shots.

One thing to keep in mind, this is absolutely not a beginner video. This is the same thing that I would do if I’m practicing myself.

Now this is broke down in a way where if you’ve never even swung a golf club in your life, you could follow right along with this and get a ton out of it. But don’t mistake this for being too easy or too simple.

The best golfers in the world, scratch golfers, anybody that’s playing some great golf is going to get a lot of benefit out of this.

So let’s grab a club, stand up in your living room right now, and let’s go ahead follow a long with me, we’re going to get a lot of great work done.

All right, so let’s jump right into it, and the first thing I want to do as I mentioned, is I want to build my body working in the correct way. That all starts with golf is a rotational sport.

Go ahead and grab a club, right from your living room, put it across your shoulders. I want to put it up here on the top of my shoulders and have my finger tips kind of touching the edge of my shoulders here.

What I want to focus on is standing straight up and down, and getting used to the rotational piece of this.

Now all these drills we’re going to go through today, I want you to get in five reps of this. You’re going to work right along with me.

I’m going to give you some key checkpoints to hit, and if you follow these, you’re going to be well on your way to making some great golf swings, building that muscle memory, building your body working in the correct way.

Let’s go ahead and grab a club, put it across our shoulders. As I stand straight up and down, the first thing I want to do is get that club pointing at least 90° or 90° of rotation coming in the backswing, and in the forward swing.

Now here, I’m letting this club go ahead and rotate level with the ground. So again, we’re going to get in four or five reps here.

You’ll notice my left foot starts to lift up a little bit in the backswing. My right foot lifts up a little bit in the forward swing.

As I come on through, I’m going to get a little bit more than 90°, and I’m going to get this right side of my shoulder, this right shoulder pointing as far down the fairway as I can.

Now that can only happen if I let my hips swivel, that can only happen if I let my feet move a little bit on the ground.

So many times, I see players get locked in, they don’t want to move their feet at all, and now I get really bound up. I’ve got to go ahead and let my feet move, and let my shoulders, my hips rotate back and through.

That’s really the basis of the golf swing. If I can get that rotation, everything else is built on top of that. Now from here, we’re simply going to take that same rotation, and we’re just going to hinge forward.

If I’m coming level with the ground, imagine this being a plane of glass as I’m rotating back and through. In the golf swing all we’re doing is we’re hinging forward, so that plane of glass is tilted down toward the ground.

Imagine a window here, anywhere between from where I would be hitting the golf ball, to say two or three feet outside of that, and I want to imagine this club or this plane of glass being tilted down toward that and now as I rotate back and through I want my club to be pointing in that zone.

So again here, letting my foot lift up. As I come back I’m getting at least 90° of shoulder turn. As I come on through, I’m getting past 90°, letting my right foot come on up.

I’m staying in my posture here, I don’t want to come all the way to my complete finish, I’m just going to stay in my posture where that club is rotating on that same plane of glass back and through.

So again, I’m going to go ahead and get four or five reps as I’m doing this, rotating back and through, making sure that my club is pointing on the ground, almost imagining a line going back and through toward my target and my club is just going to trace that line as I come back and through.

That’s getting my body to stay in its posture, that’s getting me to rotate, that’s really building the foundation of what is a golf swing.

So as I really ingrain this, that’s going to make golf a lot simpler, it’s going to make it more consistent, and because I got good rotation, it’s also going to get me a lot of power.

Now the next piece of this, I need to add a little bit of weight shift. In the golf swing, there’s a weight shift to the right, and there’s a weight shift to the left in the downswing.

I can do the same thing as I’m rotating with this club on my shoulders. Again, hinge forward, get that club pointing somewhere slightly outside of what would be the golf ball.

As I come to my backswing, I want to pause as I’m at the top of my backswing. If I had this club drop straight down, it would kind of hit on the inside of my left leg.

So imagine if I was just to drop this straight down kind of hit on the inside of my left foot here. If my leg wasn’t in the way, that club would drop down and hit the ground about right there.

What I don’t want to do, is I don’t want to sway to the right and go way over here, that club would drop down way outside my foot.

That would be too much movement laterally, I’d get inconsistent because my eyes are moving too far to the right, and I’d have to move them back to the left in the downswing.

I don’t also want to have a reverse pivot which would be something more like this, whereas if I drop that club it would be hitting more over toward my left foot.

Again, that’s going to create inconsistency, because now I’m coming back to the left in my backswing, I’m going to have to fall to the right in my downswing plus I’m going to lose a lot of power as I’m doing that.

So that’s the next piece. Let’s go ahead and grab that club again, do another four or five reps right along with me, good rotation, club over the right instep of my right foot. As I come through now, the club is going to be on the instep of my left foot.

So I’ve let my weight shift to the left. My right toe has swiveled off the ground, and now I’m getting at least that 90° of turn as I’m staying in my posture.

Again, let’s go ahead and rotate back, let your left foot lift a little bit, rotate through, let your right foot pivot or rotate on around.

Make sure you get that good turn. If you want to go a little extra, maybe you’re a little bit more flexible, go to whatever the range of flexibility you have is completely fine.

I’m going to go ahead and go a little past that if I can. As I come through, I’m going to go a little past that. As long as I keep my club pointing to the ground, then I’m completely fine.

I can go as far as my range of motion will let me. If you’re a little bit tighter, you may not go as far, but go as far as you can.

Until now what we’ve done is we’ve rotated these hips, we’ve let our legs move properly, and we let our shoulders go.

Let’s really open up our chest and the last piece of our shoulders which would be protraction and retraction of our shoulders.

Protraction means that our shoulders are coming forward, retraction means my shoulders are coming back. We really want to maximize this in the golf swing to get every ounce of club head speed we can get, making golf as easy as we can.

What I want you to do here, is let’s set up and do what I call the lawnmower drill. Let’s get our hands in front, and what I want to imagine, again, is here my hands are level, I’d be rotating level with the ground.

Let’s go ahead and tilt forward until I’ll be rotating kind of on that plane again, just like we did with the club, and I want to go ahead and grab here, imagine I’m grabbing a lawnmower.

Kind of a cord I’d start a lawnmower with, and what I’m going to do here, is I’m going to go ahead and pull this lawnmower back, and I’m going to pull it all the way back up to my chest, I’m going to go as far back as I can with my elbow going up.

So what this has done, is that’s really opened up my right shoulder. I’ve retracked my right shoulder to really help me to load up in the backswing.

So I’m going as far as I can, and then I’m going to go ahead and let my arm come all the way back. As I come down, I’ll let my arms swing down, and then from there, as I get to impact or what would be impact, I’m going to go ahead and let my hips open up.

Then I’m taking the left hand, just like the lawnmower, and I’m going to pull it coming all the way on through.

So again, we’re getting four or five reps in with this, really let that come back as far as you can, open up the chest, let the right side of the chest retract and then extend your arm as far as you can.

Maybe you can only go to here, maybe you’re not going to get as far. Maybe if you’re a little more flexible, you can open up your chest even a little bit more and get it facing the sky.

I’m not that flexible, but some of you may be. Let that open up, and then as I come down, let my arms come together, that would be impact. Then open up the left side of it.

Again, I’m staying in my posture as I’m doing this, really letting my shoulders open up. Impact, and then I’m coming through and opening up.

Now let’s make this a little bit more like a golf swing instead of lawnmower action. A lawnmower really opened us up, let’s make this a little bit more accurate now.

We talked about how I could put my arms out and rotate this way, and I’m just going to hinge forward. Let’s do the same thing here now.

So as I come to the top of the backswing, I’m going to go ahead and rotate all around, and what I’m going to do, I’m going to get my arms to stay 90° with my shoulders.

So my shoulders rotate, my arms rotate, and from there, I’m going to try to get my left arm pointing as far behind the golf ball as I can, or the imaginary golf ball there.

My right arm’s going to go as far behind as I can. Now from there, as I start my downswing, I want to go ahead and turn that hand down. This would be what we call covering the golf ball.

Getting some forward shaft lean, getting some lag, this is really important to square the face up earlier. I’ll get to that later in this video, but I want to go ahead and go to the top and then square up my hands.

So my left hand, my logo of my glove points down to the ground. If this was what’s called flexion, meaning that I’m taking the palm of my hand, putting it back toward my body.

That’s what I would feel there. So that’s flexion. As I turn that hand down, the palm of my hand is facing toward my chest. If I’m doing my right hand, instead of having it open here, I’m going to have the palm bent back and facing away from me.

So again, it’s that what would be extension of the right hand or the knuckles of my right hand facing back toward me.

I go to the top of the swing, I do my squaring of the club face. Palm of my left hand toward my chest, knuckles of my right hand going back. I’m coming down to impact, so if I meet those two hands up here, that would be what would be forward shaft lean in the golf swing.

The driver, behind that driver, that actually still has a little bit of forward shaft lean, because we’re behind it releasing in front, that’s going to make it pretty much straight up and down.

We’ll get to that here in a second when we add the club. But I’m coming down to impact, and from there, I’m rotating all the way around.

Again, my hand is facing my chest, my knuckles of my right hand are kind of facing back at me and I’m rotating all the way on through. So again, starting out with my hands kind of 90°, full backswing.

Before I start my downswing, I’m going to get my hands in a position where it’s early squaring of the club face. That’s what we call The Move in the Top Speed Golf System.

I’m coming down to impact, and then I’m letting that extend on through. Arms out, square the face, come down to impact, come all the way on through.

Again, my hands are doing this motion as I’m squaring that face. What I don’t want to do, is I don’t want to do this motion which would be the opposite direction.

That would be the flip or the cast that’s early from the top. I want to have my hands back. So rotate to the top, hands back, come to impact, hands all the way on through.

Do a good 5 to 10 reps of those, get comfortable with that, then let’s add the club. Now I’ve built how my body wants to move, I’ve built how my arms and hands want to move. Let’s just add the club and this gets very simple now.

As I added this golf club, let’s go ahead and put a tee in the ground here. As I go to the top of the swing, I’m going to do the same thing.

I’m going to let those hands and arms rotate, my chest rotate, and I’m going to pull that club to the top of the swing.

As I start down, I’m going to square that club face up. That would be the bowing of the left wrist. The palm coming back toward my chest.

My right hand kind of extended where the knuckles are back, and that’s going to square the club face up early.

So let me show you what this looks like. I go to the top, I square that club face early, and you’ll see how my club head starts to turn down where it’s facing the golf ball.

That’s what the pros are doing to square that face up, hit that nice draw, and really compress the golf ball.

The opposite of that would be instead of squaring this face up here, I have my wrist the other way and now my face is wide open. That’s going to be that over the top slice.

From there, I’d want to come this way. My face is open, the ball’s going to go up in the air, it’s going to slice over into the woods on the right side of the fairway.

I want to make sure, make that big turn, square the face, come down to contact, and then all the way on through, this is the first time you’re going to come to your finish.

So as we do this again, good full turn going back, square the face, come all the way on through to the good full finish, now my right shoulder’s coming around to the fairway as far as I can get it to go.

I’m balanced over my left foot. So you’ll see here, I could pick up my right foot and I’d still be facing the fairway. My belt buckle is facing the fairway. My chest, as I do this, is nice and high.

So good turn back, square the face, come all the way on through, and now my chest is facing up toward the sky. I can really rotate on around, my chin is nice and high, and that ensures that I’m completing my swing.

What I don’t want to do is square the face, come down, and then stay down here. I’ve stopped my swing. I’m just all hands and arms coming on through.

I want to get my body rotating all the way on around, completing that good, full finish. That can only happen if my right foot comes completely off the ground.

I have to be all the way up on the toe, to get that rotate all the way around there. I really want to feel like I’m balanced on my left foot, so as you do this, feel like you hold that finish for a good three seconds.

I’m all the way rotated around. Again, balance on my left leg, you’ll notice how here if I was to go ahead and stay on this left foot, I could stay here all day.

It’s almost like I’m facing the target, the only difference is my feet are pointing in a different direction. Do a few more reps of that, full turn back, square the face, full finish, hold your finish for a good three seconds.

When I say hold your finish, it doesn’t mean you have to hold the club in your finish, you can let the club relax, it’s I’m holding my feet, my hips, my chest, my body watching that ball go down the middle of the fairway.

Now let’s make this a little bit more fluid. Same key checkpoints. Hinging forward, I’m going to rotate back and through, this time I’m not going to pause.

I’m not going to the top and pausing, I’m not squaring up the face and pausing, and then I’m not coming all the way on through and pausing. Well actually at the finish I am pausing, but as I come on back, I’m just going to make this all one fluid motion.

Let’s see what that looks like, getting good full shoulder turn. As I come on through, I’m going to hold that finish for three seconds.

I want to put a tee in the ground, and I’m actually going to clip that tee. If you’re in your living room, that’s completely fine. Just imagine there’s a tee in the way.

You don’t have to actually hit the tee out of the ground. If I’m out on the driving range, don’t add a ball yet. Get used to making the swing without hitting a golf ball, just feel like you clip the tee out of the ground.

Turn back, turn through, hold my finish. I don’t want to lose my finish for at least there seconds, and I’m going to repeat this a good four or five times.

Again, I’ll without the tee, again, making a big full turn, squaring the hands, and then coming on through. I put that all together, nice swing, hold the finish for there seconds.

Let my feet rotate, both on the backswing. So as my left heel may lift a little bit, my hips are rotating, my shoulders are rotating.

As I come on through, this is a big key, let that right foot come all the way on around. So again, without any pauses, hold that finish for three seconds and you’re well on your way to building that muscle memory. Now let’s go ahead and add the golf ball.

All right, so now we’re going to hit a golf ball with this. I’m going to hit a few on my FlightScope, and I’m just going to talk about the same key checkpoints. So again, as I’m hitting the golf ball now, I’m just running through exactly what we’ve done.

I’m hinging forward, I’m making sure I’ve got a good turn going back and through and really finishing my swing, hold for three seconds.

All right, so that was a nice shot. We see that I held my follow through. On this one, instead of focusing on the turn back and through, now I’m going to focus on squaring up that club face.

So again, I go to the top, I square the face, and then I rotate on through. If I square that face early, it’s going to help me to compress the golf ball, hit a bit of a better draw and really get some compression on this golf ball.

Again, hold your finish, one, two, three seconds. Then finally, I’m going to focus on my follow through. So for here, I’m really going to work on holding that finish with my chest nice and high.

Completing my swing staying completely in balance for that there seconds. So when I finish my swing here, I want to be able to pick up my left foot, stay completely in balance until that ball lands.

That’s going to help me to stay really centered in my body, be much more consistent when I’m doing this, I’ll still get a lot of power because I’m finishing my backswing, and I’m finishing my follow through.

If you’re a member, I don’t want you to stop here. It’s easy to say OK, this is a lot of new information, Clay.

I’m going to take this, I’m going to master this and get right out to the golf course. But what about ingraining that?

One of the main things we talked about here today was really making sure you get that good turn going back, and that turn coming all the way on through.

Well that’s exactly what we talk about in the Power Turn in the Top Speed Golf System. What I want you to do is go ahead and complete these drills today, play some great golf.

I know this is going to help you to feel like you get in a rhythm, you get in balance, you hit your driver great, but then don’t stop there.

Go to the Power Turn section after this, and let’s really build some long-lasting muscle memory. Let’s make it to where you make that good, full turn coming back and through without even having to think about it.

Let’s make it to where you get to the driver, you get a lot of club head speed, you don’t even feel like you’re swinging that hard, and it just happens naturally.

You don’t even have to think about it, you just step up to the golf ball, you make a swing, and you just crank it out there farther than you have before. 10, 15, 20 yards farther than what you normally do.

That’s only going to happen if we work through these drills and we work through this progression. Start with the video we did here today, then go to the Power Turn section. Start from level 1, start going through those videos.

Work through the level 1 videos, then level 2, then level 3, that’s going to make it completely automatic to where you just step to the tee on the very first swing.

You make a great golf swing, you complete your backswing, you complete your follow through, and you’re going to hit some awesome drives.

So finish this video, and I’ll see you in the Power Turn Section.