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Unhinge Training - Pool Noodle

This is a great visual cue for golfers who tend to get steep at the bottom of the swing. Often times, this pattern can be attributed to a lack of ulnar deviation or "unhinge". If you fall into this category, a simple pool-noodle and tripod can get you to unhinge earlier and create a shallower angle of attack. However, do not be frustrated if you notice a few shots leaking to the right; you may need to train the "motorcycle" to create a more neutral clubface and take full advantage of your improved arm mechanics. Again, our goal is to avoid the flip-style release (and the open club-face that accompanied it) while focusing on creating a shallow movement of the arms that will better compliment our pivot & body-mechanics. 

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

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Cast, Release, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is unhinged training with the pool noodle.

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So if you tend to get steep down towards the bottom of the swing, so let's say, or in transition,

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but because of what's going on in the bottom of the swing, then what will happen is typically

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the club will get outside here.

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Now, we have a couple different visual ways that you can work on being aware of the path

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of the club.

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But I find that having a perpendicular pool noodle like this can be quite helpful or effective

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for helping train that spatial awareness.

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So all I've done is I took an old tripod and stuck half a pool noodle on it.

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So now I've got a nice soft barrier if I were to make contact.

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Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to get set up or I'm going to position the club

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so that I'm set up.

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Basically I'm going to bring the pool noodle so that it just gives me a very small margin

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of error from the down the line.

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I'm going to be tough here to make myself swing a little bit more from the inside.

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Now to help myself make sure that I stay at about the same distance in line with the pool

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noodle, I'm just going to put a couple of teas so that I know that the golf ball is roughly

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in between those teas.

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Now I can do 9 to 3 training or I could do full swing training and I will be able to have

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a little bit of extra spatial awareness if I were to maintain that hinge and not get the club

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down the ground through there then the club would hit into the pool noodle.

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So as long as I have a pretty good pivot and the club swings more from the inside there,

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then I know that I did a good job of owner deviating or unhinging.

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Now if I tend to do this movement and what commonly happens the first few times I'll have students try

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this, if they're used to doing more of a steep mover, a radial deviation mover it's getting

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on top more like this then what'll happen is the first few times that they get under.

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It'll go like that and the ball will go 30 yards off to the right even on a little half shot.

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So then what that's telling us is that a large reason why you are getting on top of it is to close

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the face and so then you may need to work on that combo of owner deviation and the motorcycle move.

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So you may need to work on getting the club face a little bit more square so that when you

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then owner deviate and come through the club face it or the ball goes straight even though you

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swung from the inside. So this can be a very useful tool for training your path instead of

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necessarily trying to always feel the perfect movements you can use spatial awareness like this

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to help calibrate the movements. This can be very helpful for training that owner deviation path

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and if you tend to get more of steep or poles or slices there's a good chance that you might need

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to do some owner deviation training and putting a little pool noodle right here in line is a great

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way to establish a good spatial awareness and make sure that you're doing it correctly. So now I've

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done a few nine to three's let's do a little bit more of a full swing. So pretty good there didn't

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quite get the club face around steeping it a little bit because I'm now hitting out of the

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divots from those nine to three drills. One downside with station training is unless you're using a

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tea you're going to end up hitting out of divots. That's a little bit better there. So use this

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little spatial awareness from down the line to help train the path of the club from the early part

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of the release into impact.

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