Improve Your Impact Position with the Tic Tac Toe Drill

The Tic Tac Toe drill is a simple way to train two things that have to work together in a good golf swing: proper sequencing and a better impact position. Instead of thinking about the entire swing at once, you narrow your focus to the move from the delivery area into impact and on to the early follow-through. That is where many golfers either stall the body, throw the arms too early, or arrive at impact with the clubface and body out of sync. This drill gives you a clear visual reference so you can organize how your lower body, chest, and arms should move in order.

How the Drill Works

The drill uses an alignment stick on the ground as a visual guide for where your body and hands should feel like they are moving through impact. The stick is not placed on your target line. Instead, it sits at roughly a 30-degree angle relative to that line, starting from a point roughly even with your lead foot.

To set that up correctly, first place a club on the ground to represent your target line. Then place the alignment stick so it angles slightly left of the target line for a right-handed golfer. This angled line represents the direction your body segments should be organizing toward as you move into impact.

Why is this useful? Because at impact, good players are not simply square and frozen over the ball. Their lower body is opening, the sternum is moving through, and the hands are delivering with the body leading the motion. The Tic Tac Toe drill exaggerates that sequence so you can feel it more clearly.

The “tic-tac-toe” idea is the order of motion:

• Tic: lower body begins to open
• Tac: chest and core follow
• Toe: arms and hands are delivered through

In other words, the body swings the arms. You are not trying to hit from the top with your hands. You are learning how the body organizes the club into the strike.

This drill is usually done as a 9-to-3 motion, meaning from waist-high in the backswing to waist-high in the follow-through. That shorter motion makes it easier to isolate the delivery and impact pieces without the complexity of a full swing.

Step-by-Step

1. Create your reference lines. Lay one club on the ground along your target line. Then place an alignment stick at about a 30-degree angle from a point roughly even with your lead foot. This angled stick is your visual checkpoint for impact organization.

2. Set up normally. Address the ball with your usual posture and balance. The alignment stick should be visible enough that you can sense where your body and hands are meant to move through impact.

3. Make a 9-position backswing. Swing the club back until the shaft is roughly parallel to the ground. This is your shortened starting point and keeps the drill focused on transition and delivery rather than a full backswing.

4. Start down with the lower body. From that 9 position, feel your hips and lower body begin moving and opening toward the angled stick. This is the first part of the sequence. You are not yanking the handle or throwing the clubhead.

5. Let the chest follow. As the lower body opens, allow the sternum and chest to move through next. At impact, it should feel as though the bottom of your sternum is also oriented toward that angled line.

6. Deliver the hands and arms last. After the body starts unwinding, the arms and hands can move through. The key is that they are responding to the body’s motion, not racing ahead of it.

7. Swing through to the 3 position. Continue into a waist-high follow-through. Keep the motion flowing so the club exits naturally rather than stopping at impact.

8. Try the continuous version. Once you understand the pattern, hit small shots in one smooth 9-to-3 motion. This version helps you blend the sequence together with rhythm.

9. Try the stop-motion version. Make the same motion, but pause and organize each segment more deliberately. For example, rehearse the 9 position, then feel lower body, chest, arms into impact and through. This is harder, but it exposes whether your sequencing is actually improving.

10. Add the clubface piece if needed. If the ball starts flying right, make sure your motorcycle move—the lead-wrist flexion and clubface organization—has already begun by the time you reach the 9 position. Then repeat the drill with the same body sequence.

What You Should Feel

The best drills give you clear sensations, and this one should create several important ones.

The lower body leads

You should feel that your hips and lower body start the move down. This does not mean a violent spin. It means the body begins organizing toward the target side before the arms fire. If your arms dominate from the top, the drill loses its purpose.

Your chest keeps moving through

Many golfers either hang back or leave the chest behind while the arms throw the club. In this drill, you want to feel the sternum moving through impact. The chest is not stuck facing the ball. It is rotating and helping carry the swing forward.

The arms are being delivered, not cast

Your hands and arms should feel as if they are responding to the body’s motion. That is very different from an early throw from the top. If you sequence it correctly, the strike often feels more compressed and less handsy.

Impact feels more open than you expect

For many players, a good impact position feels surprisingly open. The lower body may feel pointed toward the angled stick, the chest may feel more open than normal, and the hands may feel like they are traveling outward rather than straight at the ball. That is often a sign that you are moving away from a stalled, square-looking impact and toward a more functional one.

The clubface must already be organized

If your body opens better but the face is still too open, the ball will tend to start or curve to the right. That is why this drill also teaches an important checkpoint: by the time you are in the delivery area, the clubface conditions need to be in place. The motorcycle feel should not happen late at the ball. It should already be there as you begin down.

Solid contact gets easier when the order is right

Even though stop-motion reps can make center contact harder at first, well-sequenced swings usually produce a strike that feels crisper. The body is leading, the loft and face are better organized, and the club is not being dumped into the ball.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Starting down with the arms. If your first move is to throw the club from the top, you miss the whole point of the drill.
• Spinning the hips without the chest following. The sequence is not just hips opening wildly. The chest must continue through as part of the chain.
• Leaving the clubface open. If your body gets more open but the face is not organized, the ball often shoots right.
• Trying to hit at the ball. This drill works best when you are swinging through to the 3 position, not stabbing at impact.
• Making the motion too big too soon. Stay in the 9-to-3 range until the sequence is clear. Full swings can hide poor mechanics.
• Ignoring the visual reference. The angled stick is there to give you a direction for your body and hands. Use it.
• Expecting perfect contact in stop-motion reps. Those rehearsals are harder by nature. Focus on the movement pattern first.
• Keeping impact straight in front of you. If you are used to a square, stalled impact, the correct motion may initially feel like everything is moving more left and open.

How This Fits Your Swing

The Tic Tac Toe drill is more than a contact drill. It teaches an important piece of the swing’s transition and delivery pattern. From the top, good players do not simply throw the clubhead at the ball. They sequence the downswing so the lower body leads, the core supports and rotates, and the arms are delivered into an organized impact.

That matters because impact is not an isolated position. It is the result of what happened just before it. If your transition is poor, your delivery position will be poor. If your delivery position is poor, impact becomes a compensation. This drill helps connect those pieces.

It is especially useful if you tend to:

• stall your body through impact
• flip or throw the club with your hands
• hang back and leave pressure on your trail side
• strike the ball inconsistently with short and mid-irons
• hit weak pushes when trying to rotate more

It also blends well with work on the delivery position. The move from 9 o’clock into impact is where your body motion and clubface control have to match up. If you already understand how to organize the club in transition, this drill gives you the next step: learning how the body carries that organization into the strike.

Start with slow rehearsals at home without a ball. Then use short shots on the range. Once the sequence begins to feel natural, gradually lengthen the swing while keeping the same order: lower body, chest, arms. That progression helps you take a better impact pattern and build it into your normal swing rather than leaving it as a stand-alone drill.

Used correctly, the Tic Tac Toe drill gives you a clearer picture of what good impact should feel like. Instead of trying to force the club into the ball with your hands, you learn how to move through the strike with the body leading and the club being delivered in sequence. That is the bigger payoff: not just a prettier impact position, but a more functional motion that produces better contact.