Why You Need This: Today you'll learn about the "Right Elbow in Golf Downswing Drill - Perfect Position!"

I know you've had those days where your downswing just felt out of sync...

...you step up to the ball and don't know if you're going to block it to the right...

...or duck hook the ball out of bounds.

It can be very frustrating...

...I know, because I've been there.

But there's actually a movement to begin your downswing that can help put an end to all of that frustration...

...if you make this move, it puts you in the right position...

...so you can focus on swinging with power and rotation...

...instead of having to re-route the club just to make solid contact.

And it all has to do with your trail elbow...

...this may just be the lesson you've been waiting for...

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    Quentin Patterson    

Video Duration: 8:15

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: Are you hitting the ball terrible sometimes, and you feel like your entire downswing is just totally out of whack?

Your arms are disconnected from your body, you’re coming in steep, you’re getting stuck, you’re blocking to the right, you’re hooking, you’re chunking. It’s like nothing can go right.

Well, I’m going to talk about one very precise thing with the right elbow, and if you do this correctly, you’re going to be coming down swinging in the slot, and making it very easy to hit solid shots.

But if your elbow gets out of position, it’s almost impossible to get things synched up and to hit good shots.

So I’m going to show you the right way and the wrong way to do this. Q is going to read some of the FlightScope numbers.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

Now when we’re making a downswing, one of the first moves that you want to have happen, really the key to getting in the slot, is feeling like your elbow, your right elbow, tucks in to your right side.

Now what that’s going to do, is it’s going to shallow out this club. When you’re about halfway in the downswing, you want the angle of this club pointing at the golf ball or just slightly outside the golf ball.

That’s going to get you in a position to where you can put all your energy directly into the golf ball. If you imagine that my elbow pops out and now my club starts to kick out steeper, now I have to reroute it to be able to get it in line with the golf ball.

If I can get it in this slot position, tuck that elbow in, everything is lined up for me just to hammer away at the golf ball. It really just requires a lot less timing.

So on this swing, notice how my right elbow is going to tuck at the start of the downswing, and how that club shaft is going to get on the golf ball pretty early.

All right, hit that one good. Just a little bit of a fade, kind of down the right center. You can see once that club gets in that slot, I can basically just turn on as much speed, as much power as I want to because my club head is already working toward the golf ball. I don’t have to manipulate that.

What were the numbers on that one, Q?

Quentin Patterson: Total distance was 318 yards and the club head speed was 118 miles per hour.

Clay: OK, so pretty good club head speed, and I’ll definitely take that distance off the tee. Now, what do we need to feel to make that happen? That’s the real key.

I think pretty much everybody agrees that that elbow shouldn’t pop out. What do we need to feel that’s different than the elbow popping out?

So when the elbow’s popping out, most of the time what I’m seeing, is it’s a right arm push. So if you imagine I was going to hit this golf ball, my elbow would pop out like this and I’d be pushing with my right hand down at the golf ball.

A lot of times players will have the idea that that’s going to help to be a more powerful position. But when you do that, that kind of kicks this club shaft a little bit steeper.

As you start down, if you find yourself in a position like this where the club shaft is now pointing inside the golf ball, the elbow’s popping out, you’re probably going to be somebody that’s losing a little bit of angle of lag too.

So that’s kind of the kiss of death. I really, to be honest, have a tough time doing that because when I put my elbow out in that position, I feel like I can’t swing hard at all. I feel like that is going to be so inconsistent with my contact.

I’ll give it a shot here to try to get my elbow out in the wrong way. Yeah, so I feel like I may not even be able to hit the golf ball when I do that. I lose awareness of the face.

It’s probably not even as bad as what I felt like it was on screen, but when that elbow comes out, man, it is just almost impossible to hit a good golf shot.

So what did my club head speed, it probably went down to nothing on that one, right?

Quentin: Yeah, club head speed was about 85 miles per hour.

Clay: Yeah, and it’s not that I’m swinging easy when I’m doing that, I’m trying to swing hard, it’s just my body isn’t in a position where I can do that.

Also it kind of hurts my wrists a little bit. I feel like when I get in this position, my club shaft gets steeper.

Now I have to reroute it and it’s kind of like the club is coming under, and that really hurts kind of the inside of my, or the bottom of my right wrist there.

That’s that steep position and then that club comes under like this later. So if I was steep and I kept going steep I would just slam the club in the ground.

When you get steep and elbows out, and then you have to reroute it back in to get in line with the golf ball, I mean, that’s just kind of got a little bit of a shooting pain just making those swings and kind of showing that.

So if you’re having some wrist pain, that could be one of the feelings, that could be one of the reasons you’re having that.

Now when I get this elbow tucked, one thing that you’ll notice is when this comes in, you’re going to see a little bit of daylight between my left arm and my right elbow.

So there’s some space in here that I’m swinging with. So I’m feeling like I’m getting my body in a position where I can now release that club out in front.

It’s like if I was going to pull something, let’s imagine I had a heavy weight on the end of this, and I’m going to pull it, I wouldn’t pull it like this. This would be me trying to push it forward.

I would get my body in this position to where now I can really pull this in that direction. So imagine I had a rope here that I was trying to pull that was attached to a car.

If I’m going to pull with any kind of force, I’m going to get in this position where my body’s opening up, this elbow’s tucked in and I’m really yanking on this.

Another great key to get this feeling is to feel like the inside of your right arm, so there’s a little bone that sticks out there, you feel your bone that’s your elbow, to the inside of that there’s a little bone like where your funny bone is.

I want to put that funny bone, feeling like it’s attached to the right side, my right shirt seam. So as I’m opening up with my body, I’m feeling like that gets glued in to my shirt seam and now I can really get this great position of lag. I can really have that release out in front.

So let me go ahead and hit another one here, and I’m going to feel this time that that funny bone is attached to my shirt seam, and that should put me in a pretty great spot to make a good swing.

There we go. Dead straight, just a little bit right-center of where I was aiming. Pretty nice swing there.

On that one, when my right arm gets in a big key distinction on this is I don’t want to close down my body. I want to keep my body rotating when this happens.

Sometimes when players do this, I’ll find them trying to keep their belt buckle in front of them so they can get their arm working more in front of their body this way.

That would be a bad position to be in, it’s never going to happen, because if I did this, my body slowed down, I would have to flip at some point.

I want to feel like it’s at the side of my body, it’s really tucked in there, and then my body is rotating to help get that club to the ball.

So now my hips are opening, my chest is opening, and that’s getting this club delivered to the golf ball.

So again there on that one Q, was a pretty good swing speed on that one?

Quentin: Yeah, so 118 club head speed and the total distance was over 300.

Clay: OK, so on the bad swing got that elbow out, lost control of the club face. On the two good swings, I had a couple things that I felt. Number one, I got the elbow tucked early in the downswing.

Number two, I’ve got my funny bone attached to my right side of my body and I kept on rotating through the shot.

If I can do both of those things, it’s going to put me in a position where I really feel powerful. Again, if I was going to pull that rope, I can really pull it with a lot of force and I’m going to be able to hit some great golf shots.

All right, hit that one well. Now, one thing that I see time and time again is when a player gets his club in the slot, they get the elbow in, but they don’t know how to square the face up.

This face will be wide open, and they’ll start hitting big blocks or slices to the right. So if you’ve tried to get in the slot before, you’ve tried to tuck that elbow, but you start hitting really bad shots, it’s probably because we’re not squaring the face up the proper way.

There’s a specific way that you want to square the face up with your hands and wrist. I’m going to teach you that in The Move section.

Once you get that elbow in, go to The Move section of the website. Click on the Instruction tab, go to the Top Speed Golf System then go to The Move. In there I’m going to walk you through piece by piece how to get that club face squaring up the correct way.

So I not only talk about shallowing the club out, but also talk about hitting those nice, tight, powerful draws by using a specific way you move your hands in there.

One of the drills is called the Tennis Racket Drill, it’s one of the best ones that you can do to square the face up the right way.

So once you’re done with this video, head on over to The Move, check out those videos. I can’t wait to see you in there and help you just to hit the best drives of your life. Let’s go ahead and get started.