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In this discussion video, we're going to take a look at what we can learn from throwing

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a club. A lot of golf instructors have used this drill or exercise to teach sequencing

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in natural rhythm, but we're going to see what we can really learn from it.

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So, a friend of ours, Christophe Bousetk, of Progressive Golf. We've talked a bunch

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online and he actually just posted this video to show me how good his wife and his

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arm extension was. So, he's a very good player and here we can see him throwing a club

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and we'll see he gets into a very athletic position with those arms. Really good arm extension

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arms work across his chest as he said, you know, sequencing was great, arm extension was

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great and I've had a few questions about it in person, nothing formally through the

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site, but I thought it'd be a good little discussion topic. So, the thing that I want to

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help you understand is yes, when you do a throwing exercise like this, you're going to get

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a good sense of what an ideal path might be or a very athletic path. But what I want

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you to see is what most golfers struggle with is when they do this exercise, the club

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face is almost always in an extremely open position. Basically, the club is rotated

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so that the weight of the club is perpendicular to the direction that it's moving or

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the weight of the club is kind of in line with the direction that it's moving instead of

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having a club face that's square or pointed in the direction that it's moving. So, we're

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going to look at a handful of other examples and discuss some of the strategies where I think

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it's good to use this throwing drill and other times where it might not be the best thing

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for you. So, there's a number of these examples on YouTube where you can see golf instructors

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demonstrating the throwing technique. The first guy who I heard about doing it was Fred

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Shoemaker, he would have a lot of students throw clubs down the range just to get the feeling

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of kind of the natural athleticism. So, over here on the left we have an instructor who is

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throwing the club and you'll see he does a very good job of sequencing body, staying

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in posture. But if you look at that club face, again, it's almost always in this position

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where that would be pointing 40-50 degrees down off to the right compared to where his body

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is aligned. So, yeah, even though as he comes in, you can see that he's got that lead arm

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in a good tucked position, he's really maintained his posture, he hasn't solved the club

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face equation. So, then if we look at his actual swing that he did just after throwing

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the ball, you'll see that instead of rotating through here, he starts standing up to help him

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get the club face to close. So, you can see that the club face is in a very, very different

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position and his body is in a pretty good different position. You'll then see that as he approaches

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impact, he really extends that right arm to get the club face to close by using the whole

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shaft instead of just using this motorcycle mover, shaft rotation or gammer rotation or whatever you

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want to call it. So, this is going to be a very common pattern that we're going to see. I think

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that similar to like orange whip training, throwing clubs can be great for learning the path,

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but you should use a video so that you can try to incorporate a little bit of face control

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because otherwise you're just going to learn path with hands that don't aren't in a good

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alignment to actually hit a golf shot. So, now we have another example over here on the left. She is

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throwing the club and you can see you know great looking sequencing, great looking arm position,

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but club face wide open, club face wide open, club face wide open, club face wide open. So,

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that's not going to work when she actually addresses the golf ball. Even though it's probably

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more powerful, probably creating more club heads speed, she has to solve that club face equation.

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So, here we have her actually hitting a shot and we can compare a few of these different positions.

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So, you can see a very different release strategy because her method for closing the club face

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is to stop the body radial deviate or kind of re-hinge that leaderist and flip the arm

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or roll that right shoulder in order to get the club face to close, but that's using a lot more

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that's taking away a lot of her path speed because she's kind of using some of the path mechanics

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to help get the club face to close. So, when she's throwing the ball, you can see she gets very open,

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trail arm still bent, but the club face is wide open, so she uses sewing her body,

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re-hinging the wrist and rolling that right shoulder in order to actually get the club face to square

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in her real swing. She can throw as many clubs as she wants, but if she doesn't figure out how to

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solve the club face part of the equation first, it's never going to transfer into her actual swing.

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And if we go back to the original clip of Rory McRoy, it's very hard to see the club face

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because it's in a very blurry position, but oftentimes, there we go. We'll get one frame or so

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where kind of the stars align and we're able to see the club face. And we can see that the club face

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is so much in line with the path of the shaft that it is literally pointing, more than 90 degrees

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away from where the club face would be in the actual swing. He's able to create a tremendous amount

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of speed, it's a really good throw, but if he did that when he actually hit a golf ball,

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we wouldn't know who he was. So I don't want to discourage you from throwing clubs. I want to

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clarify when it's useful. It's very good for developing throwing sequencing, so you're going to get

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really good body mechanics, you're going to get really good arm positions, but if you don't address

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the club face issue, it's never going to transfer to your full swing. It's very similar to what we

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saw and what we continue to see with golfers making practice swings, where they ask, why can't I just

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do what I did in the practice swing? As we show in another video, it's very common to have lost club

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face awareness, because club face awareness, since this is a target sport, is going to be one of

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those big skills that golfers have to learn in order to maximize their ability to create speed.

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If you have any question about how to close or square the club face, check out the club face

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drills or the arm specific drills, any of the transition or the release section.