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This drill is three times closer.

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So this drill is a specifically designed for golfers who tend to shank the ball because

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golfers who are specific golfers who shank the ball when you get set up the club is contacting

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the ground further and further away from you.

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That tends to move the club from the middle of the ball to hitting it on the hazel.

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So one drill just as a kind of feeling drill or an awareness drill as I don't really

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care too much how you do it just figure out a way to do it.

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So we're going to practice hitting the ground closer to us.

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So the most common ways that golfers are going to get the club to hit the ground closer,

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it's either going to be from a weight distribution from a body position or an arm timing.

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So I've got the yoga block here just to give me a little bit of a reference because if

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I got set up here and then I hit the ground further away I would hit that yoga block.

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So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to get set up with the toe of the club up against

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the yoga block and then I'm going to do a couple kind of rhythmic swings and I'm going

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to try and move my body more towards my heels, my body away and kind of delay my arm

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timing so that I hit the ground closer to me three times in a row.

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Now the the super important thing is that I don't want my low point to start moving backward.

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Oftentimes when golfers start moving away they go earlier with the arms and they start hitting

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fat thin shots because the low point moves backward.

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I want to get the same low point position compared to the ball even though I'm moving away.

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So three times closer I'm going to start off with the exaggeration where I'm going to try to

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move my contact point a couple inches each time. As I get better with this I'm going to try to

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refine it. So now I'm going to get set up and I'm going to try to hit the ground just slightly

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slightly so on each one of those I was trying to move it maybe a half inch as I get more refined

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with my low point control I can adjust more subtly. So now when I start to put the ball in place

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I'm not going to be able to hit the ground three times or I can but I'm not going to hit the ball

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three times. So now that I have the ball in play I'm going to move the yoga block out of the way so

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we can see this a little bit more obviously. I'm going to set up with the ball on the

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puzzle and then I'm going to try and move my low point so that I make contact with the middle of the club.

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So again I'm going to set up with it on the puzzle and we'll do the kind of the full version.

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So I'm going to set up with it on the puzzle low point closer three times closer. I feel it mostly

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in my body moving more towards my heels and my body moving away from the golf ball.

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This can a lot of golfers who struggle with shanking the ball they tend to have more of this

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lunge into their toes or this lunge downward so that when they extend the arms you can see that

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one made contact on the heel and it made contact with the ground further away. So this is a really good

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drill for golfers who shank the ball to get more aware of this ground contact. And sometimes

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I'll challenge them to have it as far away as possible and now we're going to try to jump to that

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third closest. So I'm going to bring it back. Not bad. So if I can make contact more less in the

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middle of the club but starting with the ball further out there as I get more confident with it I

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can do this on a very subtle version. If the club contacts the ground closer to me than where I

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set up I'm virtually eliminating any chance of shanking the ball unless I set up really far on the heel.

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So if you're struggling with shanking ball I highly recommend recalibrating and this is one of my

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favorite kind of go-to ways to use it on the course because it's more of just a general feel

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than a super technical feel that's helping you control your low point. When you take it to the course

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if you find that you've lost it and you fall into your shank pattern again you can go to the edge of the

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T-box or go to the edge of the fairway. Like we'll put the stick here and we'll imagine that this is the cut line

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between the fairway and the rough. If I start there if I start with the club up against that cut line

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that'll give me my reference for making the proper ground contact. If I find that that first time

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I take the swing and I hit that rough line I know I'm flirting with shanking the ball and I need to

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recalibrate. So this is one of my favorite ways for getting people out of the most frustrating

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shank pattern.