Improve Your Driver Swing Timing with Pull and Push Drill

The pull and push drill teaches you how to sequence the downswing with a driver so the club speeds up at the right time. Many golfers either throw the club from the top or keep pulling too long and never release it properly. This drill helps you feel the correct pattern: your body pulls the club early in the downswing, then your arms extend and release through the strike. When you learn that timing, you can create more speed, better contact, and a more reliable driver motion.

How the Drill Works

The idea is simple. From the top of the backswing, you use your pivot to pull on the handle until you reach roughly delivery position—the point where the club is approaching the ball and the downswing is well underway. Up to that point, your body is the main engine. You are not trying to throw the clubhead early with your hands.

A useful image is pulling something heavy, like a stubborn dog on a leash or a large object that takes effort to get moving. At first, you create motion by pulling. Once that object gains momentum, you do not keep yanking on it forever. Instead, you manage and redirect that energy. The golf swing works the same way.

In the driver swing, you want to build speed into the handle during the transition and early downswing. Then, as you approach delivery position, you transfer that speed into the clubhead. That transfer is the release. Rather than actively shoving the club with your hands, you allow your arms to move into a more extended, braced condition as your body continues to rotate.

With the driver, this “push” phase works a little differently than it does with an iron. Because your stance is wider and your upper body stays farther behind the ball, the extension pattern is more out toward the target line. With an iron, your setup is narrower and more centered over the ball, so the extension tends to work more downward through impact. That is why the release with a driver should feel slightly later and more outward than with an iron.

Step-by-Step

Set up with your normal driver posture. Use your standard driver stance width and ball position. Feel that your upper body is slightly behind the ball, as it should be with the driver.
Make a backswing to the top. You do not need to swing full speed at first. A three-quarter motion is enough to learn the sequence.
Start down by pulling with your body. From the top, feel your lower body and torso begin the downswing while the arms and club respond. The sensation is that your pivot is pulling the handle down and forward.
Keep pulling until delivery position. As the club approaches waist-high on the way down, continue to feel that your body is leading and the club is trailing. This is the “pull” phase.
Shift into the push phase. Around delivery position, stop trying to drag the handle. Let the speed you built in the handle transfer into the clubhead. Your arms can now extend more naturally as your body keeps turning.
Feel the arms extend out through the shot. With the driver, that extension should feel more outward, almost as if you are bracing and sending the club down the line rather than steeply down into the ground.
Hit soft shots first. Start with slow rehearsal swings, then progress to half-speed shots. Once the sequence feels natural, build toward full speed.

What You Should Feel

The most important sensation is that the downswing has two distinct phases:

Pull: Your body starts the downswing and moves the handle.
Push: Your arms extend and the club releases through the ball.

During the pull phase, you should feel as if the club is still heavy and trailing behind you. Your hands are not throwing the clubhead from the top. Your body is organizing the motion and building momentum.

During the push phase, you should feel more bracing and extension than flipping. The arms are not wildly firing past the body. Instead, they are lengthening into the strike as the clubhead catches up and releases.

For the driver specifically, check for these sensations:

Your upper body stays behind the lower body into impact.
Your arms extend more outward toward the target line.
The release feels later than it would with an iron.
The clubhead speeds up through the ball rather than from the top.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Throwing the club from the top. If you immediately fire your hands and clubhead, you lose the pull phase and the sequence breaks down.
Pulling too long. If you keep dragging the handle deep into impact, the club never gets the chance to release properly.
Using an iron-style release with the driver. The driver needs a more outward extension pattern, not the same downward strike you use with irons.
Forcing the push. This is not a hard shove with the arms. It is a natural extension that happens as speed transfers into the club.
Losing posture and backing up excessively. Staying behind the ball does not mean hanging back with no rotation. Your body still needs to turn and brace.
Trying to do it at full speed too soon. This drill works best when you learn the rhythm slowly before adding speed.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill reinforces a key principle in a good golf swing: the body swings the arms in the early downswing, and then the club is released at the proper time. That is especially important in the transition, where so many timing errors begin.

If you struggle with casting, hitting weak high drives, or feeling like the club gets “stuck” behind you, this drill gives you a clearer picture of what should happen. You are not trying to manufacture speed with your hands from the top. You are creating order first, then release.

It also helps you understand the difference between iron and driver biased swings. With irons, the release tends to happen a bit earlier and more downward because of your setup and impact conditions. With the driver, the wider stance and more tilted setup change the direction of extension. You are still using the same overall sequence, but the release shape is different.

In other words, this is not just a drill for rhythm. It is a drill for matching your release pattern to the club in your hands. Learn to pull the driver into delivery, then let the club release with the proper outward extension, and your timing will become much more efficient.