Improve Clubface Rotation With a Sharpie Drill

This drill gives you a simple way to see and feel clubface rotation, which is one of the biggest keys to fixing a slice or a push. Many golfers struggle with face control because the clubface itself is hard to track during the swing. By attaching two Sharpies or pens to the shaft, you create an easy visual reference that makes the face’s motion much more obvious. If you tend to leave the face open, this drill helps you train the club to rotate earlier and more completely so the ball can start online and curve less.

How the Drill Works

The setup is straightforward. You attach two pens or Sharpies to the shaft with rubber bands so they sit parallel to each other and roughly perpendicular to the clubface. The exact placement does not need to be perfect. What matters is that the pens give you a clear reference for where the face is oriented during the swing.

Once the pens are attached, you stop trying to read the clubface itself and instead watch the direction of the pens. That makes face rotation much easier to understand.

At address, the pens should appear neutral and aligned together. As you swing back and through, the pens show you how the club is rotating:

• If the clubface is rotating naturally, the pens will gradually change orientation rather than staying fixed.
• In the downswing, a golfer with better face control will see the pens begin to point more downward toward the ground.
• If you slice, the pens often stay too “open” for too long, meaning the clubface is not rotating soon enough.

For many slicers, the goal is to feel the pens pointing much more down toward the ground in the downswing than they expect. This is the same general pattern many golfers describe as the motorcycle move or screwdriver move. If you perform that motion correctly, it becomes very difficult to leave the face wide open through impact.

Step-by-Step

1. Attach the pens to the shaft. Use rubber bands to secure two Sharpies or pens to the shaft. Position them so they run parallel to each other and roughly at a right angle to the clubface.
2. Check the reference at address. Set up to the ball and notice where the pens point. This is your starting orientation.
3. Make slow practice backswings. Move the club back slowly and watch how the pens change. This helps you understand what the face is doing without guessing.
4. Rehearse the downswing rotation. From the top, begin rotating the club so the pens start to point more downward. If you fight a slice, exaggerate this feeling.
5. Match the feel to your body motion. Let your pivot continue while the clubface rotates. You do not want to flip with your hands at the last second; you want the rotation to happen earlier.
6. Hit short shots if the pens are secure. With the rubber bands tight enough, you can hit small shots and then check where the pens were moving through impact.
7. Build toward full swings. Once the visual makes sense, begin blending the face rotation into fuller motions without losing the same pattern.

What You Should Feel

The biggest sensation is that the clubface is rotating sooner than you thought. Most golfers who slice believe they are already closing the face, but in reality they are not doing nearly enough, early enough.

As you rehearse this drill, look for these checkpoints:

• The pens stay parallel to each other, giving you a clean visual reference.
• The club does not remain “held open” in transition. The pens should begin changing orientation as the club moves down.
• The pens point more toward the ground in the downswing than your normal motion would produce.
• The rotation feels intentional, not accidental. You should sense that you are actively organizing the face, not waiting until impact to save it.

If you are used to an open clubface, the correct motion may feel exaggerated, even uncomfortable at first. That is normal. In many cases, what feels dramatically shut is actually just getting the club back to square.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Assuming you are rotating the face enough without feedback. This is exactly why the drill is useful. Feel alone is often misleading.
• Trying to make the setup perfect. The pens do not have to be aligned with engineering precision. They just need to give you a visible reference.
• Waiting too late to rotate the face. If the face only closes near impact, you will still tend to leave it open or rely on a flip.
• Confusing shaft motion with face motion. The club can be moving down correctly while the face is still too open. The pens help separate those two ideas.
• Overdoing hand action without body support. You still want your pivot and overall swing motion working with the clubface rotation.
• Ignoring what happens through the strike. Even if the pens shift slightly from shaft torque, they still provide useful feedback about whether the face is rotating in the right direction.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill is not just about a training aid trick. It teaches you a core ball-flight law: the clubface largely controls starting direction and curvature. If the face is too open, you are likely to hit pushes and slices. If you can learn to rotate the face properly, you can dramatically improve both direction and curve.

It also helps you connect backswing and downswing face conditions. A lot of face problems do not suddenly appear at impact; they begin earlier, when the clubface gets out of position and forces compensation later. The Sharpie drill gives you a way to monitor that pattern from takeaway to transition to release.

For the slicer, this drill is especially useful because it creates honest feedback. Many golfers believe they are making the motorcycle move when they are really just thinking about it. The pens tell the truth. If they are not rotating enough, the face is not rotating enough.

Used regularly, this drill can help you build a more reliable sense of where the clubface is throughout the swing. That awareness makes it easier to square the face, start the ball on line, and eliminate the weak open-face patterns that produce pushes and slices.