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This drill is armpit connection, so armpit connection is a drill that's kind of

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stood the test of time. The current most popular teaching method that uses this

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a lot is the stack and tilt, so Mike and Andy have a good version of it where

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they use tees, but Jimmy Ballard has and Ben Hogan would put a towel underneath

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their arms, Vijay Singh was famous for putting the glove under his left hand.

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A lot of guys have used this basically keeping the connection between your

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armpit and your body, so I like the stack and tilt version which is basically

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taking two tees, one under each armpit. So by putting the tees on the armpits I

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basically can't use my shoulders and extend away like this because if I do

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I'm gonna drop the tees. So this is very helpful for working on a cast pattern

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and

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can also be helpful for working on an early extension pattern. If I was to

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summarize what it does is basically it forces you to use your trunk as more of

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a power source than your shoulders, so if you're very upper body dominant and

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you

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use your shoulders a lot this can be a great drill. I like to start by doing

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kind of nine to three type swings and focusing on keeping that connection with

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as little effort as possible, so I don't want you kind of gearing down and

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really

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squeezing as hard as you can. I'll tell my students just imagine there's kind

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of

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a baby's finger in your armpit and you just want to hold it there and then you

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can do, I'll lose that T for a second, you can do nine to three and you can

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work up to full swings, you can do any club whether you're doing driver, half

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wedges, full iron shots, everything works pretty well with this. I will say

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when

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you get to the full swing, so when you go past that kind of nine position in

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the

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backswing, you're gonna have a tendency to lose that right arm. In fact I think

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it's okay if you lose the right arm T, but your preference as Vijay Singh

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demonstrated it is to make sure that you keep that left arm T, because what'll

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happen is if you lose that right arm T, what most good players who have kind of

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a little bit more of the shoulder load, like say Fred couples or Jack Nicholas,

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is they will just kind of reconnect it on the downswing. The problem is a lot

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of

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amateurs, I'll drop that, a lot of amateurs will get up to the top of the

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swing and they'll completely disconnect like so and use just those arms to

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create speed as opposed to letting the trunk continue through. So this is a

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great

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drill for helping you feel the power coming more from the ribcage and you'll

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feel like your arms basically act as ropes that more or less transfer that

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power. So you can do it in a nine to three version, kind of like so where the

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body is controlling the turn, or you can go all the way up to a full swing. And

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the

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T's may fall out in the follow through, but you should be able to make a

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relatively full swing and just power it with the ribcage. This will help you

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change the power source from your shoulders, which is going to be common in

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either the cast pattern or the early extension pattern. So one last little

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piece

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of advice. A lot of players when they go from doing this arm dominant swing and

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kind of having those shoulders disconnect from the body, when they do

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this, they will feel like they kind of saw off or they will feel like their

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upper body is turning a lot through the shot. Use video and use ball flight to

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make sure that that's not actually the case. What most people will do and what

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you'll see, I can keep that connection and still have the club coming through

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well from the inside. And if I add the little Zorro move, I can definitely hit

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little draw shots doing this movement. So don't think that just because the

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body

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is turning the path is going to the left. Oftentimes that's a barrier that you

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're

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going to have to get over, but I've seen this really help with consistency of

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contact, especially consistency of turf contact, and I think it'll help you

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with

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your game.