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Down The Shaft - Late Shallowing

This is a great drill for golfers who struggle with a steep path (and contact) during the bottom of the release. To begin, all you need is a simple alignment stick; we are going to set it at roughly the angle of our clubshaft at address and a few feet behind the ball. From here, we will work on tracing the angle of the shaft with a few 9-to-3s. To do this successfully (and create shallow contact), we will have to maintain proper side-bend through impact while working the "unhinge" pattern and leading with the body. If you struggle with any of these moves, this is an excellent starting point and drill to incorporate into your practice routine.

Playlists: Train Your Release, Unhinge in the release, Fix Your Flip

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Release, Drill, Advanced

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This drill is down the shaft for late-challowing.

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So some golfers tend to be okay or reasonably okay at this point in the swing and then

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as they get down more towards the release, tend to get really steep down at the bottom.

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Sometimes we lose sight of the path of where we might want the club to go.

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So what we're going to do is we're going to put a shaft in the ground and allow us to

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trace it just to kind of feel this space.

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So what I'm going to do is whatever club I'm using, I recommend a mid-dashort iron.

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It's a little harder with the longer clubs.

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But what I'm going to do is I'm basically going to match the spine angle just like this,

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but I'm going to put it back here.

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So I've got to get it at about the right angle.

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That'll take a little bit of wiggle room.

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So I'm going to or experimentation, I should say.

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So I've got that in the ground roughly at the angle of the club just like that.

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And now I have to find ball position.

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So you'll see this doesn't work for full swings, but for nine to three is I'm working on

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that bottom of the swing.

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Now I can kind of get a sense of where that would swing and I can see that's bottoming

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out right about here.

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So I'm going to make sure that when I do this I'm not just using my arms, but I'm getting

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a little bit of unhinged as my body is rotating.

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So as a decent checkpoint in this start position I want my hips pointing out in front

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of the golf ball and my chest pointing or my belly button pointing more at the golf ball.

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So even though my shoulders are kind of still back in the club feels like it's behind

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me, my body is nice and open and then I'm feeling that first move kind of slide down

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just like so.

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Now you can actually make contact on these nine to three's though trust me, you're probably

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going to bottom out behind the golf ball for the first dozen or hundred that you try.

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But allowing you to feel that shallowing happening more from the owner deviation as my

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body is rotating through.

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So there was a little late with the body that was not too bad with the arms, but a little

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late with the body so I hit it a little bit fat.

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So there's kind of that body.

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A little bit better like I said, finding low point on this drill is very challenging.

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But then what I can do is I can instead of putting it where I would slide it down the

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shaft.

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Now I'm just going to move the ball and extra couple inches.

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And so now I'm going to visually kind of feel like the club is going more down through that

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space as my body brings it through.

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This is not a drill that everyone needs, but if you have the tendency to get really

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on top of it and get steep late, this can be a really eye opener for you.

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The two main ways that you're going to get the club to go down the shaft are having a

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little bit of the Jackson 5 or side tilt or having more of that owner deviation.

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You can look at video and kind of see which one you might need to successfully execute it.

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This helps you to find the space and get used to where the path of the club is going

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to be during the the nine to three kind of coming from that delivery position down to impact.

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You can potentially put up a second stick on the outside, but it's a, I find it's a little

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bit harder to visualize that one and it's a lot harder to position it exactly correct.

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So I tend to use more of this delivery side when working on this downswing late steepening

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movement. Again, owner deviation and side bend will help you with it, but make sure you still

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have some body sequence to lead the arms. Don't just do this shallowing movement all with the arms.