Correct Your Wipe Technique with the Hang Back Drill

The hang back drill is designed to fix a specific contact problem: when your body stays back and the club bottoms out too early, often producing a wipey release, fat shots, thin shots, or weak contact. This drill teaches you how to keep your upper body back while still moving the club’s low point forward. That matters because in a good strike, the club can brush the ground ahead of where your body appears to be hanging back. If you struggle to combine side bend with solid contact—especially with longer clubs—this is an excellent way to train the right pattern.

How the Drill Works

This drill creates a useful constraint: you intentionally set your upper body in a more “back” position, then learn to move the club’s brush point forward without lunging your chest toward the target. That is the whole point.

Many golfers who wipe across the ball also have trouble with side bend. When your upper body tilts back, the natural tendency is for the bottom of the swing to shift too far behind the ball. If you simply lean back and let the arms swing down in front of you, the club will often hit the ground near your trail foot. That leads to poor contact and inconsistent low point control.

The drill teaches the opposite relationship. You let your upper body stay back—almost like a driver-style setup—but then use your arms and release pattern to move the brush point forward. In other words, your body stays back while the clubhead still reaches the ground ahead of center.

The key move is the wipe: the arms work more across your body instead of just pushing straight out toward the target line. That across-the-body motion helps move the club’s low point forward while preserving the proper side bend. If you do it correctly, the club can still approach from the inside and brush the ground ahead of the middle of your stance.

To give yourself feedback, use either:

A line on the ground if you are practicing on grass
A towel if you are practicing indoors or on a mat

The towel works especially well because it tells you immediately whether your low point is too far back. If the club catches the towel, you know the bottom of the swing has not moved forward enough.

One caution: you do not want to solve this by throwing the club excessively out and across. Some golfers hang back, then force the club way outside-in just to make the brush happen farther forward. That is not the goal. You want the club to brush forward from the inside, using the wipe motion of the arms rather than a steep over-the-top path.

Step-by-Step

Set up your feedback station. Place a towel on the ground roughly in the middle of your stance area, or draw a line if you are on grass. Leave about two inches between the towel and the ball so the towel does not interfere too easily. That little gap gives you cleaner feedback.
Move the ball slightly forward. Put the ball a bit farther forward than you normally would for a mid-iron, such as a 7-iron. This makes the drill more demanding and encourages you to move the brush point forward.
Start with a 9-to-3 swing. Use a small motion first rather than a full swing. Think waist-high back and waist-high through. The shorter motion makes it easier to feel the release pattern and monitor the strike.
Preset your upper body back. At address, feel as if your upper body is hanging back more than normal—almost like a driver setup, with your chest and head a bit farther behind the ball. This exaggeration helps you train the relationship between side bend and low point.
Brush forward with the arms. From there, make your 9-to-3 swing and feel the arms working more across your body through impact. This is the wipe component. The goal is to get the club to brush the ground ahead of the towel, not into it.
Keep the path from getting too outside-in. You want the brush point forward, but not by throwing the club over the top. The club should still work from the inside as you brush ahead of the towel.
Check the ball flight. A good rep should strike the ball solidly, avoid the towel, and produce a reasonably straight shot. If the ball starts shooting weakly right or the club clips the towel, your release or low point control needs adjustment.
Try the more advanced version. Once the preset version feels manageable, begin from a more neutral setup. Then, during the motion, feel yourself fall into the back-tilted position while still using the arms to move the bottom of the swing forward. This is harder, but it better represents what happens in a real swing.
Gradually build toward longer swings. After you can do this in a 9-to-3 motion, lengthen the swing. The same principles should remain: upper body back, low point forward, towel untouched.

What You Should Feel

This drill can feel counterintuitive at first. Most golfers are used to trying to move the low point forward by shifting or lunging their upper body toward the target. Here, you are doing almost the opposite: your upper body stays back while the club still reaches the ground farther forward.

Upper body staying behind the ball

You should feel your chest, head, and ribcage remaining more behind the ball than normal. There is a definite sense of side bend, especially if you exaggerate the setup. It may feel as though your upper body is closer to being over your trail foot than you would normally allow with an iron.

Arms working across, not straight out

Through impact, the arms should feel as if they are moving more across your body. That is the wipe sensation. If you instead feel like you are just shoving the club straight down the line, you are less likely to move the brush point forward correctly.

Brush point ahead of center

You want the club to contact the ground ahead of the towel or line. In a good rep, the club brushes the turf—or would brush it—closer to your lead foot than to the center of your stance. That is the low-point shift you are training.

Pressure without a lunge

You may still feel pressure moving into your lead side, but it should not come from your upper body diving forward. The sensation is more that the lower body supports the motion while the upper body remains tilted back.

Solid strike with a forward brush

The ideal shot feels compressed and centered, even though your body feels as if it is hanging back. That is why this drill is so valuable: it teaches you that a back-tilted upper body does not have to mean a back low point.

Useful checkpoints include:

The club misses the towel
The ground is brushed ahead of the towel or line
The ball does not start weakly to the right
The path does not feel excessively over-the-top
Your chest does not lunge toward the target to create contact

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Lunging the upper body forward. This is the most common compensation. If you move your chest toward the target to shift the low point, you are no longer training the intended relationship between side bend and wipe.
Bottoming out into the towel. If you hit the towel, the club is still reaching the ground too early. That usually means you are not using the arms correctly through impact.
Throwing the club outside-in. Some golfers can avoid the towel by swinging steeply across the ball. That may move the brush point forward, but it is not the correct pattern.
Pushing the arms straight out. The wipe feel is across your body, not simply extending the club straight down the line.
Using too big a swing too soon. If you jump right to full swings, you may lose the feel. Start with 9-to-3 and earn the longer motion.
Playing the ball too far back. A slightly forward ball position helps challenge your low-point control. If the ball is too far back, the drill becomes easier in the wrong way.
Ignoring ball flight. The towel gives contact feedback, but ball flight still matters. A solid strike that flies far right may mean the release is not functioning well.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill is bigger than just a contact fix. It helps you understand how the body and club work together through impact.

In many swings, golfers assume that to hit the ball first and turf second, the upper body must move aggressively forward. That can work in some patterns, but it often creates its own problems: steepness, poor face control, and a loss of the side bend that helps deliver the club efficiently. The hang back drill shows you another option. You can keep the upper body back and still control low point by using the arms and release correctly.

That idea is especially useful if your pattern includes a wipe release. Rather than trying to eliminate that release entirely, you are learning how to organize it so it produces better contact. The wipe, when paired with proper side bend, can help the club brush forward while staying more from the inside.

This also has strong carryover to longer clubs. With a fairway wood, hybrid, or driver, you often need more secondary tilt and a more back-tilted upper body than you do with a short iron. Many players struggle because as soon as they add that tilt, the low point falls too far behind the ball. This drill teaches you how to keep the tilt while still controlling where the club bottoms out.

For iron play, the lesson is just as valuable. You do not want to rely on a last-second chest lunge to make ball-first contact. You want a motion where:

Your upper body position supports the delivery
Your arms and release move the club’s low point forward
Your path remains functional rather than cutting across the ball
Your contact becomes more predictable

If fat and thin shots tend to show up when you feel stuck on your back side, this drill gives you a practical way to separate two things that often get confused: where your body is, and where the club bottoms out. Once you learn that those do not have to be the same, you can strike the ball much more cleanly—even from a hang-back pattern.

Start small, use the towel honestly, and focus on one simple outcome: upper body back, brush point forward. When you can do that without hitting the towel or cutting across the ball, you are building a much more reliable impact pattern.