Improve Your Club Path with the Trevino Drill

The Trevino drill is one of the best ways to train an inside-out club path without relying on path alone to square the face. It gives you a clear feel for how the club should approach the ball, how your arms should work closer to your body, and how the clubface must be controlled earlier in the downswing. If you tend to leave the face open, wipe across the ball, or use your path to “save” the shot, this drill helps you separate those pieces and build a more functional delivery.

How the Drill Works

The setup is what makes this drill effective. Instead of aiming your body square to the target, you set up with your body significantly open—roughly 30 to 40 degrees left of the target if you are a right-handed golfer. The target line remains the same, but your feet, hips, and shoulders are aligned well left of it.

From that open setup, your job is to hit the ball straight at the target or with a slight draw. That immediately changes what you must do in the downswing. Because your body is preset open, the club cannot simply move left with your body lines if you want the ball to start on target. To do the drill correctly, the club must approach more from the inside.

That promotes two important pieces:

A shallower delivery, with the arms working closer to your torso instead of throwing outward.
Earlier clubface control, often felt as the “motorcycle” move—flexing the lead wrist and rotating the face so it can square without depending on path.

This is why the drill is so useful. Many golfers square the face by swinging farther out to the right. That can work for a moment, but it creates timing issues and often leads to blocks, hooks, or weak high shots. The Trevino drill teaches you to control face and path separately, which is a much more reliable skill.

Step-by-Step

Set your target line. Pick a target and imagine a straight line from the ball to that target.
Open your stance dramatically. Align your feet, hips, and shoulders about 30 to 40 degrees left of the target line. Your body should feel noticeably open.
Keep the club aimed at the target. Even though your body is open, the clubface should still be aimed where you want the ball to start.
Make a shortened swing. Start with a controlled motion, around a 9-to-3 swing—lead arm roughly parallel going back and through. This keeps the drill manageable and lets you focus on delivery.
Feel the club approach from the inside. In transition, let your arms work down and in closer to your body rather than throwing the club out over the top.
Square the face early. Feel the lead wrist flex and the clubface rotate into a more stable position. This is the motorcycle sensation Tyler refers to. Without it, the face will stay open and the ball will tend to float right.
Extend through the strike. Keep the arms connected through impact, then let them extend down the line after contact.
Hit straight shots or slight draws. If the drill is working, the ball should not start left with your body alignment. It should launch closer to the target line.
Return to a normal setup. Once you’ve created the feel, stand square again and try to reproduce the same delivery using your normal body rotation.

What You Should Feel

When you perform the drill correctly, the motion should feel very different from a typical wipe-across swing.

Your arms stay closer to your body in the downswing rather than moving away from you.
The club feels shallower, approaching from behind you instead of steeply from above.
The lead wrist feels more flexed earlier in the downswing, helping the face square sooner.
Your body feels open, but the club still travels out toward the target through impact.
The through-swing feels extending, not cut off or pulled left immediately.

A good checkpoint is the ball flight itself. If you are set up open and still hitting the ball straight or slightly drawing it, you are almost certainly delivering the club better. If the ball floats high to the right, the face is likely still too open. If it starts too far right and hooks, you may be overdoing the inside-out path.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Leaving the face open. This is the most common error. If you do not add the motorcycle feel, the open setup will expose the problem immediately.
Swinging too hard. Start with shorter, slower swings. Speed tends to bring back your old compensation patterns.
Over-shallowing the club. The goal is not to dump the club excessively behind you. You want a functional inside approach, not a stuck delivery.
Pulling the handle left. With your body already open, dragging the handle across your body can make the path too left and the strike glancing.
Trying to square the face with path. If you push the club farther out to the right just to close the face, you miss the real purpose of the drill.
Using a full swing too soon. The 9-to-3 motion is ideal because it isolates the delivery and face control pieces.

How This Fits Your Swing

The Trevino drill is not just a specialty shot exercise. It helps you understand a bigger truth about ball striking: path and face are related, but they are not the same thing. Better players can deliver the club from the inside while also controlling the face independently. That is what creates more predictable starts, curves, and contact.

If you struggle with a steep transition, an over-the-top move, or weak fades caused by an open face, this drill gives you a practical way to train a better pattern. It also helps if you want to build a more reliable stock draw, because it teaches you how to shallow the club and square the face without simply throwing the path farther right.

Once you learn the exaggerated version, the next step is to bring that same sensation back into your normal setup. You should feel as though your body rotation supports the motion, but the real improvements come from a better arm delivery and earlier face control. In that sense, the drill acts like a bridge: it exaggerates the pieces enough for you to feel them, then helps you transfer them into a standard swing.

Used correctly, the Trevino drill can sharpen your awareness of club path, improve how you control the face, and make your shot shape far more intentional.