Ribbon Path Training
Many golfers, especially beginners, can have a hard time feeling the path or direction of their swing. To help with this, I will often attach a piece of ribbon to the club and have students make a few practice swings. By simply tracking the ribbon with their eyes, players can quickly see any club path tendencies, especially when the swings are then recorded and viewed from down the line. However, do not forget to use the face on view as well, as it can provide you with feedback on the overall shape of your club path as opposed to just the direction. For a wedge, we would like to see more of a circular shape, but for a driver, we would like to see more of an ellipse. Or in other words, we would like to see a longer "flat spot" with the driver, which is beneficial for a number of reasons. Overall, this is a great drill for any player who is struggling with excess curvature as it is a cheap and effective diagnostic, but just remember that if your path is fairly solid and the ball is still curving a lot, you most likely have a face control, and not a path, problem.
Many golfers, especially beginners, can have a hard time feeling the path or direction of their swing. To help with this, I will often attach a piece of ribbon to the club and have students make a few practice swings. By simply tracking the ribbon with their eyes, players can quickly see any club path tendencies, especially when the swings are then recorded and viewed from down the line. However, do not forget to use the face on view as well, as it can provide you with feedback on the overall shape of your club path as opposed to just the direction. For a wedge, we would like to see more of a circular shape, but for a driver, we would like to see more of an ellipse. Or in other words, we would like to see a longer "flat spot" with the driver, which is beneficial for a number of reasons. Overall, this is a great drill for any player who is struggling with excess curvature as it is a cheap and effective diagnostic, but just remember that if your path is fairly solid and the ball is still curving a lot, you most likely have a face control, and not a path, problem.
Video Transcript
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.880
This content video is rhythm path training.
2
00:00:03.880 --> 00:00:08.900
So many golfers, especially beginning golfers, need to have a better
3
00:00:08.900 --> 00:00:09.840
understanding of what
4
00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:12.280
the path of the club is going to look like.
5
00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:15.850
And so when I'm training them, I'll usually take one of our little safety rib
6
00:00:15.850 --> 00:00:16.320
bons and
7
00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:19.640
attach it to the club head just like so.
8
00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:25.590
And then I'll take some swings and let them see basically where the ribbon is
9
00:00:25.590 --> 00:00:26.680
moving throughout
10
00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:27.880
the swing.
11
00:00:27.880 --> 00:00:31.190
And then I might have them take some swings and we'll put it on video and you
12
00:00:31.190 --> 00:00:31.600
can get
13
00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:37.550
some pretty clear ideas as far as the overall shape of the swing a little bit
14
00:00:37.550 --> 00:00:38.600
easier when
15
00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:43.120
you have the comet tail or basically the ribbon path.
16
00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:49.340
Now it's pretty easy to see from the down the line whether it's coming too much
17
00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:49.880
from
18
00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:57.320
the inside or too much outside or pretty straight down there at the bottom kind
19
00:00:57.320 --> 00:00:58.760
of like that.
20
00:00:58.760 --> 00:01:04.270
But the view that is often missed by amateurs is looking at it more from the
21
00:01:04.270 --> 00:01:05.160
face on.
22
00:01:05.160 --> 00:01:11.260
So from the face on, I like to see a circle with the wedges and an ellipse with
23
00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:12.320
the driver
24
00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:14.360
and I'll show them what that looks like.
25
00:01:14.360 --> 00:01:18.900
If I stayed tall and just kind of swing my arms like this, you can see that I
26
00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:19.440
've got
27
00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:24.460
a pretty good path but you can see that the overall shape of the rib is very
28
00:01:24.460 --> 00:01:25.520
much circular
29
00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:30.170
and the bottom of it is right underneath me and then it starts coming up pretty
30
00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:31.000
quickly.
31
00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:36.250
What the better golfers tend to do is by having a little bit of some body
32
00:01:36.250 --> 00:01:38.120
sequencing, a little
33
00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:45.330
bit of lag and arm shallowing, they'll tend to get more of a look where it's
34
00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:46.360
flat down
35
00:01:46.360 --> 00:01:52.140
at the bottom instead of a pure circle and that flatness down at the bottom
36
00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:53.080
helps give
37
00:01:53.080 --> 00:01:57.680
you a little bit of margin of air for increased repeatability.
38
00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:00.430
So if you're not quite sure what your swing looks like and you're having a hard
39
00:02:00.430 --> 00:02:01.040
time seeing
40
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:06.580
your path, especially if you don't have let's say really high speed video, then
41
00:02:06.580 --> 00:02:07.560
tying a ribbon
42
00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:12.450
to your club can often be very helpful for understanding and visualizing
43
00:02:12.450 --> 00:02:13.400
overall path
44
00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:14.560
of the club.
45
00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:18.760
Now there are three main priorities to swing your golf club.
46
00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:24.270
One is the path which we cover here but this single training aid doesn't
47
00:02:24.270 --> 00:02:25.520
discuss or doesn't
48
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:30.250
focus on either the face control or how you're creating speed and the face
49
00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:31.280
control could
50
00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:35.190
show up as if you could do this really good path and the ball is curving or
51
00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:35.760
flying all
52
00:02:35.760 --> 00:02:40.160
over the place then it means that you probably have more of a face control
53
00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:41.120
problem than a
54
00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:42.560
path problem.
55
00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:48.240
So this can serve as a diagnostic as well or as well as clarifying the overall
56
00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:48.920
image of
57
00:02:48.920 --> 00:02:51.800
what you want the swing to look like.
58
00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:57.480
It does become hard to hit golf balls with this but it is possible.
59
00:02:57.480 --> 00:03:01.160
So I'll try and demonstrate one for you.
60
00:03:01.160 --> 00:03:05.310
The ribbon and the tape will disrupt a little bit and oftentimes this is a one
61
00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:06.600
and done sometimes
62
00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:10.700
hitting the golf ball will cause it to go flying and sometimes the ribbon
63
00:03:10.700 --> 00:03:12.160
getting caught around
64
00:03:12.160 --> 00:03:14.040
you can be pretty disruptive.
65
00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:18.240
So be a little bit patient with yourself.
66
00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:22.100
In order to swing it you have to make sure that it kind of has a nice, that it
67
00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:22.480
's not
68
00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:25.400
tangled at the beginning as well.
69
00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:31.400
So here we'll try demonstrating one.
70
00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:35.740
So again not always easy to make the most centered contact but if you look at
71
00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:36.180
that on
72
00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:41.880
video it can often help you to see your overall path tendencies.
73
00:03:41.880 --> 00:03:47.330
So here are a couple quick examples of how I use the ribbon path and video and
74
00:03:47.330 --> 00:03:47.760
the four
75
00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:52.520
square drill to help train a junior golfer's path.
76
00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:57.300
So I usually put the four square down on the ground and do a few things just to
77
00:03:57.300 --> 00:03:57.760
kind of
78
00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:02.060
give them some visuals and then let them see on video either with the slow
79
00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:02.840
motion here
80
00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:07.690
or with the overhead camera to see where the path of the club is actually
81
00:04:07.690 --> 00:04:08.520
coming.
82
00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:14.030
And I find that most golfers are able to make the path corrections relatively
83
00:04:14.030 --> 00:04:14.960
quickly.
84
00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:17.680
So here's what you may experience when you're working through this.
85
00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:23.500
We can see that this golfer has some club face issues and so this golfer tends
86
00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:24.820
to swing
87
00:04:24.820 --> 00:04:31.060
more from box two to box four in order to get the club face pointing at the
88
00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:32.120
target.
89
00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:37.140
So we looked at it on video and decided to work on the path first and then the
90
00:04:37.140 --> 00:04:37.680
second
91
00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:40.360
half of the lesson working on the face.
92
00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:44.880
So this was him kind of going through in slow motion just kind of guiding the
93
00:04:44.880 --> 00:04:46.240
club through
94
00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:47.960
roughly where it needs to swing.
95
00:04:47.960 --> 00:04:52.200
Now he's putting a little bit more of a fluid motion through there.
96
00:04:52.200 --> 00:04:57.620
You can see it's still kind of thinking it's he's thinking his way through the
97
00:04:57.620 --> 00:04:58.640
motion.
98
00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:03.860
But then with a few more swings now we're getting a little bit more dynamic
99
00:05:03.860 --> 00:05:04.600
movement
100
00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:11.300
with a path going through the gate or through box one to box three.
101
00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:14.520
After that we did a little grip change worked on some club face and he was
102
00:05:14.520 --> 00:05:15.080
proud that he
103
00:05:15.080 --> 00:05:18.240
was able to hit some very straight shots.
104
00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:22.530
So the ribbon path training can be very helpful for golfers of all ages to
105
00:05:22.530 --> 00:05:24.000
learn path but
106
00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.080
I find it especially helpful for juniors.
Have questions?
Ask Mulligan for helpRibbon Path Training
Many golfers, especially beginners, can have a hard time feeling the path or direction of their swing. To help with this, I will often attach a piece of ribbon to the club and have students make a few practice swings. By simply tracking the ribbon with their eyes, players can quickly see any club path tendencies, especially when the swings are then recorded and viewed from down the line. However, do not forget to use the face on view as well, as it can provide you with feedback on the overall shape of your club path as opposed to just the direction. For a wedge, we would like to see more of a circular shape, but for a driver, we would like to see more of an ellipse. Or in other words, we would like to see a longer "flat spot" with the driver, which is beneficial for a number of reasons. Overall, this is a great drill for any player who is struggling with excess curvature as it is a cheap and effective diagnostic, but just remember that if your path is fairly solid and the ball is still curving a lot, you most likely have a face control, and not a path, problem.
Many golfers, especially beginners, can have a hard time feeling the path or direction of their swing. To help with this, I will often attach a piece of ribbon to the club and have students make a few practice swings. By simply tracking the ribbon with their eyes, players can quickly see any club path tendencies, especially when the swings are then recorded and viewed from down the line. However, do not forget to use the face on view as well, as it can provide you with feedback on the overall shape of your club path as opposed to just the direction. For a wedge, we would like to see more of a circular shape, but for a driver, we would like to see more of an ellipse. Or in other words, we would like to see a longer "flat spot" with the driver, which is beneficial for a number of reasons. Overall, this is a great drill for any player who is struggling with excess curvature as it is a cheap and effective diagnostic, but just remember that if your path is fairly solid and the ball is still curving a lot, you most likely have a face control, and not a path, problem.
Video Transcript
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.880
This content video is rhythm path training.
2
00:00:03.880 --> 00:00:08.900
So many golfers, especially beginning golfers, need to have a better
3
00:00:08.900 --> 00:00:09.840
understanding of what
4
00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:12.280
the path of the club is going to look like.
5
00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:15.850
And so when I'm training them, I'll usually take one of our little safety rib
6
00:00:15.850 --> 00:00:16.320
bons and
7
00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:19.640
attach it to the club head just like so.
8
00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:25.590
And then I'll take some swings and let them see basically where the ribbon is
9
00:00:25.590 --> 00:00:26.680
moving throughout
10
00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:27.880
the swing.
11
00:00:27.880 --> 00:00:31.190
And then I might have them take some swings and we'll put it on video and you
12
00:00:31.190 --> 00:00:31.600
can get
13
00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:37.550
some pretty clear ideas as far as the overall shape of the swing a little bit
14
00:00:37.550 --> 00:00:38.600
easier when
15
00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:43.120
you have the comet tail or basically the ribbon path.
16
00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:49.340
Now it's pretty easy to see from the down the line whether it's coming too much
17
00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:49.880
from
18
00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:57.320
the inside or too much outside or pretty straight down there at the bottom kind
19
00:00:57.320 --> 00:00:58.760
of like that.
20
00:00:58.760 --> 00:01:04.270
But the view that is often missed by amateurs is looking at it more from the
21
00:01:04.270 --> 00:01:05.160
face on.
22
00:01:05.160 --> 00:01:11.260
So from the face on, I like to see a circle with the wedges and an ellipse with
23
00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:12.320
the driver
24
00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:14.360
and I'll show them what that looks like.
25
00:01:14.360 --> 00:01:18.900
If I stayed tall and just kind of swing my arms like this, you can see that I
26
00:01:18.900 --> 00:01:19.440
've got
27
00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:24.460
a pretty good path but you can see that the overall shape of the rib is very
28
00:01:24.460 --> 00:01:25.520
much circular
29
00:01:25.520 --> 00:01:30.170
and the bottom of it is right underneath me and then it starts coming up pretty
30
00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:31.000
quickly.
31
00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:36.250
What the better golfers tend to do is by having a little bit of some body
32
00:01:36.250 --> 00:01:38.120
sequencing, a little
33
00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:45.330
bit of lag and arm shallowing, they'll tend to get more of a look where it's
34
00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:46.360
flat down
35
00:01:46.360 --> 00:01:52.140
at the bottom instead of a pure circle and that flatness down at the bottom
36
00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:53.080
helps give
37
00:01:53.080 --> 00:01:57.680
you a little bit of margin of air for increased repeatability.
38
00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:00.430
So if you're not quite sure what your swing looks like and you're having a hard
39
00:02:00.430 --> 00:02:01.040
time seeing
40
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:06.580
your path, especially if you don't have let's say really high speed video, then
41
00:02:06.580 --> 00:02:07.560
tying a ribbon
42
00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:12.450
to your club can often be very helpful for understanding and visualizing
43
00:02:12.450 --> 00:02:13.400
overall path
44
00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:14.560
of the club.
45
00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:18.760
Now there are three main priorities to swing your golf club.
46
00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:24.270
One is the path which we cover here but this single training aid doesn't
47
00:02:24.270 --> 00:02:25.520
discuss or doesn't
48
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:30.250
focus on either the face control or how you're creating speed and the face
49
00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:31.280
control could
50
00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:35.190
show up as if you could do this really good path and the ball is curving or
51
00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:35.760
flying all
52
00:02:35.760 --> 00:02:40.160
over the place then it means that you probably have more of a face control
53
00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:41.120
problem than a
54
00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:42.560
path problem.
55
00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:48.240
So this can serve as a diagnostic as well or as well as clarifying the overall
56
00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:48.920
image of
57
00:02:48.920 --> 00:02:51.800
what you want the swing to look like.
58
00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:57.480
It does become hard to hit golf balls with this but it is possible.
59
00:02:57.480 --> 00:03:01.160
So I'll try and demonstrate one for you.
60
00:03:01.160 --> 00:03:05.310
The ribbon and the tape will disrupt a little bit and oftentimes this is a one
61
00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:06.600
and done sometimes
62
00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:10.700
hitting the golf ball will cause it to go flying and sometimes the ribbon
63
00:03:10.700 --> 00:03:12.160
getting caught around
64
00:03:12.160 --> 00:03:14.040
you can be pretty disruptive.
65
00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:18.240
So be a little bit patient with yourself.
66
00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:22.100
In order to swing it you have to make sure that it kind of has a nice, that it
67
00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:22.480
's not
68
00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:25.400
tangled at the beginning as well.
69
00:03:25.400 --> 00:03:31.400
So here we'll try demonstrating one.
70
00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:35.740
So again not always easy to make the most centered contact but if you look at
71
00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:36.180
that on
72
00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:41.880
video it can often help you to see your overall path tendencies.
73
00:03:41.880 --> 00:03:47.330
So here are a couple quick examples of how I use the ribbon path and video and
74
00:03:47.330 --> 00:03:47.760
the four
75
00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:52.520
square drill to help train a junior golfer's path.
76
00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:57.300
So I usually put the four square down on the ground and do a few things just to
77
00:03:57.300 --> 00:03:57.760
kind of
78
00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:02.060
give them some visuals and then let them see on video either with the slow
79
00:04:02.060 --> 00:04:02.840
motion here
80
00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:07.690
or with the overhead camera to see where the path of the club is actually
81
00:04:07.690 --> 00:04:08.520
coming.
82
00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:14.030
And I find that most golfers are able to make the path corrections relatively
83
00:04:14.030 --> 00:04:14.960
quickly.
84
00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:17.680
So here's what you may experience when you're working through this.
85
00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:23.500
We can see that this golfer has some club face issues and so this golfer tends
86
00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:24.820
to swing
87
00:04:24.820 --> 00:04:31.060
more from box two to box four in order to get the club face pointing at the
88
00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:32.120
target.
89
00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:37.140
So we looked at it on video and decided to work on the path first and then the
90
00:04:37.140 --> 00:04:37.680
second
91
00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:40.360
half of the lesson working on the face.
92
00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:44.880
So this was him kind of going through in slow motion just kind of guiding the
93
00:04:44.880 --> 00:04:46.240
club through
94
00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:47.960
roughly where it needs to swing.
95
00:04:47.960 --> 00:04:52.200
Now he's putting a little bit more of a fluid motion through there.
96
00:04:52.200 --> 00:04:57.620
You can see it's still kind of thinking it's he's thinking his way through the
97
00:04:57.620 --> 00:04:58.640
motion.
98
00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:03.860
But then with a few more swings now we're getting a little bit more dynamic
99
00:05:03.860 --> 00:05:04.600
movement
100
00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:11.300
with a path going through the gate or through box one to box three.
101
00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:14.520
After that we did a little grip change worked on some club face and he was
102
00:05:14.520 --> 00:05:15.080
proud that he
103
00:05:15.080 --> 00:05:18.240
was able to hit some very straight shots.
104
00:05:18.240 --> 00:05:22.530
So the ribbon path training can be very helpful for golfers of all ages to
105
00:05:22.530 --> 00:05:24.000
learn path but
106
00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.080
I find it especially helpful for juniors.
Have questions about this video?
Ask Mulligan for personalized guidance on technique, drills, or how to apply what you've learned.
Ask Mulligan