Why You Need This: Today, you'll get "The Only Drill You Need for the Perfect Golf Swing Takeaway"

While what's happening at impact is ultimately what determines how well you hit the ball...

...a bad start to your swing can make life more difficult on you.

There'a huge mistake that's made often in the takeaway that can lead to a steep downswing...

...however, I've got an awesome drill for you today that will help eliminate this mistake.

Sometimes a great takeaway can solve other issues you may have going on in your swing...

...so be sure to check it out and get your swing off to a perfect start!!

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:10

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: All right, I’ve got a great drill here that’s going to help you perfect that takeaway. I’m going to set up with a golf ball right behind the ball I’m hitting.

I’m going to put a head cover about a club length width behind this golf ball, and the outside of the head cover should be in line with the balls that I’m hitting.

That way, when my club drags back -- and I want to start nice and slow, start with my shoulders, feel like my arms stay straight -- that’s going to roll it toward that head cover.

As I add a little bit of speed to that, you’re going to see if I make more of a full swing here, that I can hit a nice shot and still make that ball hit that head cover.

So there’s a couple ways that this can go wrong, and problems that I see a lot of times with players. Number one, when I do this drill, a lot of times players will pick the club up with their hands and arms.

That club goes to the inside, and then it wants to get steep in the downswing. So if I do that, it looks more like this, where the ball just shoots out like 100 miles an hour.

It misses that club head cover to the inside, and what’s going to happen there, is I’m just doing all arms.

If I’m looking from this angle, rather than getting that nice, wide takeaway, getting my shoulders and my body loading up, that equals power.

The more I turn my body early in the backswing, the more power I have because I’ve loaded up my body. Also, if you’re not very flexible, you even want to feel like your hips are turning right off the bat, too.

So notice as I drag this back, my hips are already rotating. I don’t want to keep those locked, those hips stay locked in, you’re cutting off a lot of the power. You’re going to feel very, very arms-y.

When I do it the wrong way again, I’m going to pick it up with just my hands and arms. You’ll see now that club, that ball shoots to the inside.

I haven’t rotated my body, I haven’t rotated my hips at all. I’m not going to have very much power at all when I do that. So that’s the right way to do it.

Now for somebody that really takes it to the inside, for a player that really wants to get it here and then gets it steep in the downswing, here’s what I’d recommend.

Do a few of these where you really exaggerate. Almost feel like the club’s staying a little shut, it’s staying outside the hands. So your hands are going to go in, but your club stays out.

When that happens, it’s going to look like that. I’m going to try to hit the outside of this head cover, or even if I wanted to exaggerate, I might even miss that head cover barely.

What I don’t want to do is I don’t want to shove my arms out like that. I still want my hands going back to the inside, it’s just letting my club stay outside my hands.

That’s going to get the momentum of the club wanting to shallow it out. So do four or five of those, making sure the hands go in, the club stays out, hitting that head cover. Then you’re going to be able to transfer that into hitting a shot.

Let me hit a couple shots here, and I’ll show you the swing speed, the distance with these, doing it the right way and the wrong way.

Now on this first one, I’m going to pick it up to the inside. That would be that ball going back way in, shooting in. I’ve Quentin Patterson, one of our Certified Top Speed Golf Instructors manning the iPad here on the FlightScope.

I want to do it the wrong way here, pick it up all hands and arms, and we’re going to see what happens to my distance here.

So there, I’m swinging hard. I’m swinging as hard as I can, its just where my arms and hands are doing all the work. I can’t get much power on it. So it’s a lot of effort and not much swing speed. What was the speed, what was the distance on that one, Q?

Quentin Patterson: The speed was 86.4 and the distance was about 165 yards.

Clay: OK. Care to throw me one more of those golf balls, and I’ll do one the, uh…

Quentin: Good times.

Clay: The right way here. So now, I’m going to feel like I slide it back. I turn my body very early. I’m getting this early shoulder turn, and now let’s see how fast it goes there.

A little chunky on that one. It is a little distracting when you have that ball there. I’d recommend doing it more as a drill, four or five of them, then get rid of the ball and hit one.

It’s not really a big deal if you have it there the whole time. But even a chunk shot like that, how far did that one go?

Quentin: That one went almost 18 yards, with 99 club head speed.

Clay: That was a 7 iron there. Almost 100 miles an hour club head speed. Let’s go ahead and get rid of the golf ball. I’m going to have the same sensation now like I want you doing in the drill, and let’s see what this final version does.

There we go. For me, even as much golf as I’ve played, as much as I talk about the golf swing, I have a tendency to pick it up just a little bit when I’m not swinging as well.

Just doing that drill where I really felt like my hips and my shoulders go early, I let the arms really extend, big turn early in the backswing, I killed that one. How far did that one go, Q?

Quentin: That one went about 189 yards with 98.7 club head speed.

Clay: Yeah, so really fast club head speed, way farther on the distance. Again, when I’m doing those ones that are slower, it’s slower but I’m swinging hard. I’m putting out the effort. I just can’t make the club move very fast with the wrong technique.

Now in this video we’ve focused so far, basically, on the first move and making sure those hips and shoulders turn. We’ve got to get the hips and shoulders turning right away or we’re dead in the water.

But we want to complete that. We want to go all the way to the top and making sure that we get that good shoulder turn up here.

But most players have trouble with this, maybe if you’re not as flexible as you used to be. Maybe you’re a little bit up in age. Maybe you’re not one of those skinny PGA Tour players with the six-pack abs that look like a string bean.

Well of course those guys can turn. I want to teach you ways that players like myself who aren’t that flexible, to be able to get that turn and finish off the swing.

I walk you through that in The Power Turn section. That’s why it’s one of the real fundamentals of the Top Speed Golf System. There’s five fundamentals, this one is one of the most important to creating effortless swing speed and easy power in your swing.

So once you’re done with this video, we get the takeaway right, let’s finish it off. Let’s make it ingrained. Let’s make it to where any time you pick up a club, you don’t even think and you make a fantastic backswing, you make a fantastic turn.

Work through The Power Turn section. Start on level one, as you move through it to level two and level three, you won’t even have to think about it, it’s just automatically going to happen.

So best of luck, get your takeaway right. Head over to The Power Turn section, and I can’t wait to see you there.