Why You Need This: I'm sure you'd love to "Straighten Your Drives."

Are you hitting your drives inconsistently?

Do you block shots to the right, hit low drives, or lose tons of distance?

If so, I have an amazing tip that will help you to feel more powerful over the ball.

It will leave you more confident that you can hit the fairway, and more excited to get to the course than you have been in a long time.

And it all has to do with your shoulder.

Learn how in this video.

Let's get started .....

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 12:16

Video Transcription:

How would you like to just hit those laser drives right down the middle of the fairway?

I bet you may find yourself sometimes sliding a little bit in front of the golf ball. It’s very, very common. A lot of times I’ll see players that get a little bit out in front in an effort to kind of pull that club through and down the fairway.

It feels a little bit more powerful, even though in reality, it actually kills your distance. Another common thing when people are coming a little bit in front of the golf ball, is they’re doing it in order to square up the club face.

So if we stay back, we have to learn to properly release the club to get that to square up and to get a little bit of a draw.

If we’re not really comfortable with that, or we’re not familiar with how to do that, a lot of times we’ll take this right shoulder, we’ll come a little bit over the top.

This is a typical slight over the top move – not a big, huge slice over the top move, but just a little bit of an over the top to try to square up this face and get that club lining up square down the middle of the fairway.

That can also be a problem, too. When I’m coming in front and trying to square up that club face, I kind of have to slide in front to be able to square the face in that way.

The problem is, again, we’re going to lose a lot of distance, we’re not going to be able to release the club properly, and we’re going to get those low drives.

Do you ever hit those low drives that just kind of come out in the fairway?

You’ll see your players partners hit these booming drives that go way up in the air, and then yours kind of come out a little bit lower, maybe they fade off to the right a little bit as they’re leaking into the right rough or into the right side of the fairway.

The worst of all, if this sounds like you, is when you swing harder, your ball actually goes shorter. Tends to get a little bit more spin, doesn’t result in a lot more ball speed.

If that sounds like you have these problems, that sounds familiar to you, I have an awesome video that’s going to help you to get more club head speed and hit the ball a lot straighter.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

OK, so we talked about why the slide in front’s going to kill your distance. It’s going to lose accuracy. What do we need to do now?

It all comes down to this left shoulder, we actually want to stay behind the golf ball. You notice in a great golf swing how we really load up to our right side, our shoulders rotate, and then from there, my lead shoulder never gets in front of my left foot.

The way we would see this is if I took a vertical line and I drew it from the center of my left foot straight up and down, just like a vertical wall here, you wouldn’t want to see your left shoulder get in front of that vertical line.

We want to stay behind that line, that way we can really feel like we clear out of the way, if you stay behind this golf ball this way, I can release that club out in front.

I’m going to get more power and I’m going to feel like it’s just so much easier to be consistent when I do this.

If that’s the case, what do we need to do to actually ingrain this? It doesn’t help that a lot of instruction out there, tons of instruction, talks about getting to your left side, getting your weight left, hitting through the golf ball, getting on to you left side.

That can really be overdone, and I have a great step-by-step drill here that’s going to help you to kick that habit once and for all.

Let’s go ahead, get right into it. I want you to drop the club and put your arms across your shoulders.

Now the first piece of this, and if you’re sitting at your chair right now, you’re watching this video, do the drill right now with me.

We’re not going to get any better just watching it. I want you guys to stand up, do this drill, you’re going to be better in the next five minutes.

Put your arms across your shoulders here, and I want you to rotate until your shoulders get to at least a 90° turn.

Now if you’re not very flexible, that’s completely fine. You’re just going to loosen up this left leg, let that heel kind of come off the ground, let these knees start to move a little bit to loosen those up and that’s going to allow you to get that shoulder turn.

Now from there, piece number two, I’m going to get a little bit of a drop. Now the drop’s very important. As I drop down a little bit, I’m getting some flex in my knees.

I have to get my knees flexed so that I can really use my legs to rotate through this shot as I’m coming through.

If I stay high and I’m way up here, and I’m coming away from the ball, I can’t really rotate. I’m going to be all arms coming into it.

That second piece of a little bit of a drop, I’m going to feel like my shoulders drop down about an inch or two inches. That’s all we have to do, that really is helpful.

Now from there, I’m going to imagine that wall or that vertical line here. What I want to do, is as I start to shift to the left, even when my body opens up, I’m going to keep my left shoulder behind that wall.

I’m going to imagine that my shoulder slides up and away from that wall as I come on through this shot. So there, piece number one, big turn. Little bit of a drop.

As I open up, I’m going to go ahead and open up, shoulder behind that wall and then I’m coming all the way to a good, full finish. I’m going to feel like my shoulder slides up that wall.

You can see how I’m using my legs to turn all the way on through. As I finish my swing, my shoulder’s coming even farther away from that, and behind my body.

Now why is this so important? Why would this lead to consistency? There’s two reasons for this.

Number one, it’s going to allow your club to do a lot more of the work. If I’m sliding in front, I have to take my arms and club and push across my body to get club head speed. Notice how my left wrist breaks down, might get a little bit of chicken wing in there.

If I stay behind this and I get some lag, as my left shoulder turns out of the way, now my club can really extend and it can whip through contact and get a lot of club head speed that way.

So it’s going to help you to get more effortless club head speed, and it also helps the club head to release.

If I stay behind this golf ball and I keep on rotating, the momentum of that club face is going to want to release as my body continue to rotate on through.

If I slide in front, very difficult to keep on rotating. I’m going to have to be all arms, and again, you get that low shot tends to fade a little bit, and we lose a lot of distance.

So let’s go ahead, finish up now, we’re going to bring it to the second piece of this drill. We’ve done it with the shoulders, so let’s do it with our arms out from our side.

Now if I was to take my arms and kind of rotate them level with the ground, that’s exactly what’s happening in the golf swing.

The only difference in the golf swing is that now instead of rotating level with the ground, all you’re going to do is hinge forward to where you can imagine it’s at an angle pointing down to this golf ball.

So that would be a swing plane, or basically the overall motion of the golf swing.

Same thing here. The only this is if we want to hit a little bit of a draw, instead of having that be square to my target out in the distance, I’m going to go ahead and tilt that a little bit to the right.

Imagine this plane of glass now, has been tilted to the right side, almost into the right rough or the right edge of the fairway. I’m going to let my arms and shoulders swing that way.

Now that makes it a lot easier to stay behind the golf ball. The more I tilt this to the right, the easier it’s going to be to get a draw, the more behind the ball I’ll be.

If I tilt this to the left, all of a sudden, I’m getting in front of the golf ball, I’m coming over the top, caused a lot of problems.

Go ahead and tilt your shoulders to the right, get that same feeling, that left shoulder goes down and then it clears up and out of the way of this vertical wall that would be out here.

Do about 10 reps of that to really get comfortable with moving out to the right. Now keep in mind, I’m not saying not to open up.

You go ahead and use your legs to open up your body, we just want to have our shoulders a little bit more tilted to the right if we’re going to hit a bit more of a draw.

The third piece here, let’s go ahead and grab a golf club, and really focus on, the first key checkpoint here should be I actually want to hit balls down the right side of the fairway.

If I tilt my swing plane a little bit to the right there, I make sure that I swing toward the right side of the fairway, or even a little bit in the right rough.

I want to see that ball go slightly to the right at first. There we go, and that one was right down the right-center of the fairway, almost the right edge of the fairway.

Hit it really hard, but don’t be alarmed if you’re typically used to falling in front, don’t be alarmed if that ball goes a little bit farther right than what you’d want.

This is the first step of this drill. Once you work through these, we’ve corrected your swing path, but now we’ve got to fix the release of the club like I talked about earlier.

So now let’s walk through exactly what you’re going to do with your wrist. If I take out my left wrist here, and I put it right in front of my body, this would be what I call a neutral wrist position.

Meaning that from my forearm all the way down through my hand, that’s all one straight line. There’s no flexing of my wrist, this would be called wrist flexion where my palm’s towards my body.

There’s no extending in my wrist which would be my knuckles back toward my body. My wrists would be completely neutral.

What I want you to do is go ahead and get in what’s called wrist flexion, where my palm’s facing back towards my body.

Then from here, I want you to get used to feeling like if you had this on a table top, you were going to take your logo and you were going to twist it in a circle.

So I’m going to go ahead, almost like you’re going to throw a frisbee. If I’m going this way, and then I’m going to release it by doing that, that’s exactly what I want you to feel.

This is the opposite of what most players that are sliding in front are doing. If I slide in front, and get that kind of a release, I’m going to be chopping straight down into the golf ball.

If I stay behind it, I’m going to be like Dustin Johnson where I’m bowing that wrist, releasing on out in front.

So get that flexion and then feel this motion, like I’m going to throw a frisbee. That’s going to release that club head.

If I grab this club, what I’m demonstrating there, is a very exaggerated feeling of releasing that club and getting that face to turn on over.

If we look at this club face now, look how it’s really turning on over toward the ground. Again, that’s an exaggeration, but that’s the difference in what the pros are doing.

If you watch when the pros release, their club isn’t like this and open, their club is turning on around and releasing to help that ball get a little bit of a draw, or at least hold straight. That’s the right wrist.

Get in a good 15-20 reps of doing that with the right hand only. Now let’s take the left wrist, let’s take it to the right hand.

Opposite with the right hand, the knuckles are back toward your body, the palm is down toward the ground, and the same thing. I’m going to get this feeling where my wrist stays angled back, and I’m going to go ahead and turning that hand over.

Now in reality, I’m giving an exaggeration here, in reality those wrists will be releasing and flattening out to neutral again, but I want to go extreme for those of you who are getting a little bit too much of a fade on the ball.

Feel like that right wrist stays back, and you’re going to go ahead almost like you’re bowling, and you’re going to get some side-spin on it to get it to curve back in. I’m really going to let that club turn on over.

If I can pair that up now with the golf club, that’s going to look like this. Coming from the inside, my swing path is to the right, and now I’m releasing that club head.

I’m going to go really slow, look how that face turns on over. Again, this is extreme, this is exaggerated, but it’s the feeling that you need to have to get the correct type of release if you’re typically a slide in front type player.

So once we’ve done those two things together, now we’re ready to put them both together in a swing. We’ve got the path or my shoulder angle, my swing plane to the right.

Now we’re getting the wrist, or what I feel like I’m doing to release the club, turning that ball back over. Now I can feel with confidence I can hit it toward the right side of the fairway and still have that ball draw back to the center of the fairway.

Let’s go ahead and give it a whirl. All right, perfect. I started that one right down the right-center of the fairway, drew back in to the middle of the fairway, couldn’t have done any better than that.

Now we don’t want to stop here. This is great to have this video here where we take this straight to the range, we start staying behind the golf ball, releasing those wrists.

But in reality, this is the same thing that we’re talking about in the Top Speed Golf System. Now the staying behind the golf ball, or feeling like your left shoulder stays back, that’s what we call the Compression Line.

As I go to impact or contact in the Compression Line, I want to feel like my left ankle, my left hip, and my left shoulder are in a straight line and tilted slightly away from the target.

If I start getting in front of that, and that line’s tilted toward the target, man, I’m really, really going to struggle. I’m going to lose a ton of distance with my drives.

So what I recommend doing, don’t stop here with this video. Even if you go to the range today and work on these drills, keep that momentum going so that you get that compression line nailed down and you never have to think about it again.

Start from level 1, start building through those drills. Number 1, number 2, number 3 in the videos. Then move on to level 2, level 3, it’s going to become absolutely automatic.

Now if you want to pair that up with the proper wrist action that we talked about, that’s what we call The Move. That’s the shallowing out of the club and then squaring that face up early to help you hit a nice, well-compressed draw.

Again, go to The Move section. Start working through the first video there, work through the system, and it’s going to become so automatic you don’t even have to think about it.

So that’s the way you really build this long-term, long-lasting improvement. Just chip away, one video a day, keep on going through it.

Once you work through the System, man, your swing’s going to be a lot better, you’re going to have a lot more fun, you’re going to be driving it past your friends.