Improve Your Follow Through with the Push Ball Drill

The push ball drill teaches you how to move correctly from impact into the follow through. That stretch of the swing is where many golfers either flip the club with their hands, scoop the ball, or let the lead arm collapse into a chicken wing. This drill gives you a simple way to train the proper release: your body keeps rotating, your arms extend, and the club stays moving low through the strike instead of immediately lifting. If you want a cleaner release and a more connected follow through, this is an excellent place to start.

How the Drill Works

The drill begins by helping you organize a solid impact position. At impact, most of your pressure should be on your lead foot. Your chest and shoulders are open relative to address, with some tilt still in place. Your trail arm is slightly bent, your lead arm is fairly straight, your lead wrist is neutral, and your trail wrist still has some bend.

From there, the goal is not to “hit” with your hands. Instead, you let your pivot continue turning while your arms extend away from you. In the drill, you place a ball on the clubface and then move from impact toward the follow through by pushing or tossing the ball off the face. That action trains the correct relationship between the club, arms, and body through the release.

One of the key visuals is that the clubhead stays low to the ground for a while as your arms extend. That low, extending motion is a hallmark of a good release. It means you are not abruptly lifting the handle, stalling your body, or flipping the club upward with your wrists.

A shorter iron such as a 9-iron works well for this drill. More loft makes it harder because the ball wants to slide up the face if your motion is off. That challenge is actually useful, because it quickly tells you whether you are releasing the club correctly.

Step-by-Step

Start with a short iron. A 9-iron is a good choice because it gives you enough loft to perform the drill, but not so much that it becomes unmanageable.
Set up normally. Take your regular posture and grip. You do not need a full swing for this drill.
Move into a model impact position. Shift pressure into your lead foot, open your body, keep your lead arm fairly straight, and maintain some bend in your trail arm and trail wrist.
Place the ball on the clubface. Make sure the club is actually supporting the ball. If the ball is not seated on the face properly, it will simply slide rather than respond to the motion you are trying to train.
Rotate and extend through. From impact, keep your body turning while your arms extend out in front of you. Your intention is to gently push or throw the ball forward off the clubface.
Watch the club’s path. As you extend, the club should stay low to the ground for a moment instead of immediately working sharply upward.
Check the finish of the release. You are not trying to hold the impact alignments forever. You are allowing the arms to lengthen and the club to release naturally because your body is still moving.
Repeat in small motions first. Begin with slow rehearsals from setup to impact to follow through. Then blend it into small 9-to-3 swings before taking it into fuller motion.

What You Should Feel

When you do this drill well, you should feel that your torso is pulling the motion through rather than your hands throwing the clubhead past you. The release happens because the body keeps going and the arms respond by extending.

Here are the main sensations to look for:

Pressure staying forward into your lead side through impact and beyond
Your chest continuing to rotate instead of stalling at the strike
Your arms lengthening after impact rather than folding immediately
The club staying low as it moves through the ball area
A smooth push of the ball off the face, not a flick with the wrists

A useful checkpoint is what the ball does on the clubface. If your motion is correct, the ball will come off in a controlled push or toss. If your release is dominated by your hands, the ball will often slide up the face instead. That is a clear sign that you are adding too much independent hand action and not enough body-driven extension.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Trying to release only with your hands — this usually causes the ball to slide up the face and encourages a flip
Letting the body stop rotating — when your pivot stalls, your arms and wrists have to take over
Lifting the club too quickly — the club should work low through the release before it rises
Starting from a poor impact position — if your weight is not forward and your alignments are off, the drill will train the wrong pattern
Not keeping the ball in contact with the face at the start of the push — without proper contact, you lose the feedback the drill is supposed to provide
Using too much speed too soon — this drill works best when you begin slowly and build control first
Collapsing the lead arm after impact — that can feed a chicken wing pattern instead of extension

How This Fits Your Swing

The push ball drill is more than a follow-through exercise. It helps connect several important pieces of the swing into one motion. First, it reinforces a sound impact position. You cannot perform the drill well unless you arrive at impact with forward pressure, proper wrist structure, and the body beginning to open.

Second, it teaches the correct release pattern. Many golfers think releasing the club means throwing the head with the hands. In reality, a quality release is largely the result of continued body rotation paired with arm extension. The club is not being manipulated so much as it is being delivered and carried through by the motion of the body.

Third, it helps clean up common faults such as scooping, flipping, and the chicken wing. If you scoop, the ball will not come off the face properly. If you flip, the face interaction becomes inconsistent. If you chicken wing, you lose the extension this drill is designed to train.

As you improve, use the drill in progression. Start by rehearsing the movement from setup to impact to follow through. Then blend it into short swings. From there, take the same feel into fuller shots. The goal is to make your actual swing feel like the drill: body turning, arms extending, club moving low through the strike, and the follow through unfolding naturally from a solid impact position.