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This series is visual training with the foam noodles.

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So on this site, I have lots of detailed field drills and frequently, golfers are able to overcome their barriers by finally feeling what a key part of their body is supposed to do during a key phase of the swing.

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But some golfers are not too in tune with their feel.

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So if you have a hard time paying attention to your feel, you've got to use a different system of feedback until you can get that feel.

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Frequently, I'll use foam noodles to use visual feedback to help ensure that a golfer is kind of doing it correctly and give them a chance to kind of

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Spatially create the image of what they think it should look like in their mind.

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Once they've done that for, let's say, a week, two weeks, typically what happens is then they'll be able to finally feel the difference between the good and the bad.

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You struggle with creating feels or you try to make changes and they don't really show up on video because you're just trying, you haven't confirmed a feel that can actually create the change.

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Then experiment with using some of the visual feedback, whether it's a foam noodle or a position checkpoint, to make sure that you're doing it correctly.

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In this foam noodle drill, we're going to look at the bottom of the swing or impact.

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So frequently what I'll do, especially early on with a student.

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I'll ask a few questions as far as what do you think the club should be doing down near the bottom of the swing?

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So basically, if you have a golf ball, should the golf club kind of have a path or less like this, where it's bottoming out right at the golf ball,

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should it hit the ground just before the golf ball, should it hit the golf ball then the ground?

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We'll try to figure out kind of what's going on.

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Well, in this format with the online learning site, I'm just going to have to show you the answers,

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but ask yourself and kind of take a second to think about what do you think is happening down at the bottom?

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Hopefully you actually took a second and kind of thought about what you think the club should be doing down at the bottom.

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There are roughly three different possible answers, right? I'm going to use this foam noodle to represent the path of the clubhead.

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So imagine that the club is following whatever path this foam noodle is following.

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So from the face on camera, there's three different options. Either I could hit the ground slightly before the ball.

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I could hit the ground in the ball roughly at the same time, where I could hit the ball then the ground.

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The key is figuring out which one you want to do.

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Also, we can use a foam noodle to imagine what it's going to look like from down the line.

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So from down the line, should it look pretty straight like this? Should it look into out like that?

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Or should it look out to in kind of like that? Again, these are for a right hand a golfer.

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Well, answer time. Ideally what we're trying to do is we're trying to create this flat spot just after the golf ball.

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So it'll have a look a little bit more like this, not a true arc.

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At least when we're talking about the longer clubs. When we're talking about the wedges, they will probably follow more of a kind of consistent arc.

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Something like this. I usually shows up in the arc with graphs under 3D.

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From the down the line, the more because I'm going to hit slightly down on my golf ball,

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that naturally moves the path a little bit more to the right.

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So to hit the ball straight with an iron, you would want a slightly left path kind of like this,

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but with the bottom of this wing ahead of the golf ball.

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If we compare that to with the driver, we might want the path going a little bit more out to the right

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because we're going to hit slightly up on it. So it would look something similar to that.

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Now what you can do is once you figure out roughly what you want it to look like,

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is you can put this in a training station or you can put this in place so that you can kind of mirror it with the golf club.

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So that's what I'll set up now and I'll show you how to do that.

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So if you're setting up a visual training station with the pool noodles,

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it's easiest to do if you impail the pool noodle with three alignment rods.

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And that way you can kind of create some of the variances in curve.

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So if we're looking at what the club head does at the bottom of the swing,

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I'm going to have the golf ball kind of right around where this is first making contact,

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and then the path of the club is being loaded around there and a little bit higher more on this side.

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So now what I can try to do is I can try to recreate that look.

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Now I'll come on this side, even though I normally wouldn't take the practice swings on this side,

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but that way you'll be able to see the path of the club.

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What many golfers do is they're used to getting the club low, so you can see how I'm underneath the path there,

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and then coming up very high on the way through.

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So practicing getting the club to feel a little bit higher,

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and then lower on the way through helps create some of that flat spot.

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Now I'm not a huge fan of taking swings where you're actually having the foam roller or the pool noodle get in the way.

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What I prefer is use this as a little visual training station, so I'm going to take some swings kind of getting a look of that nice and slow motion.

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And then I'll move the ball a few feet away so I can kind of see it out of the corner out of my eye or out of my peripheral vision,

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and I'm just going to try to recreate in slow motion.

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The look and that visual that I created when I was in that station, and you can go back and forth creating reps,

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but I find that that's better than just getting into a station,

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because you almost fall into an automatic pattern where your brain's not really having to do anything.

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It's better to work on visualizing and trying to create it,

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and then try to recreate it and check it by going back and forth.

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So this one here, where it's higher and slightly curved, kind of like this,

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is a good one for helping you visualize the path of the club down at the bottom of the swing.

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Now from the down the line, it'll have a little bit of a curve going this way.

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So again, if I take a golf ball and kind of set it up just inside here,

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now I may be used to assuming I'm hitting straight down away from the camera.

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I may be used to getting the club looking like it's going out in there,

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and I'm going to try to get it high and coming a little bit from the inside,

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and then following that slightly lower leftward path.

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I'm not going to hit that way because that's actually one of the holes here,

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but you can kind of see the down the line version of what I was just showing you.

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By creating it home, hopefully it'll help you overcome.

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Some of the club had awareness things as they relate to this impact position,

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that you may be training with some of these key movements here in the impact section.