Stop Sliding: Use the Touch Knees Drill for Better Balance

The touch knees drill is a simple way to clean up a common downswing fault: sliding through impact instead of bracing and rotating. When your pelvis keeps drifting toward the target too late in the swing, your balance suffers, your timing gets unreliable, and the club often has to be thrown at the ball with your hands and arms. This drill gives you a clear finish-position checkpoint that helps you replace that late lateral move with a more stable, rotary release. If you tend to get too far onto the outside of your lead foot in the downswing and follow-through, this is a useful feel to build a better finish and more consistent contact.

How the Drill Works

The idea is straightforward: in your follow-through, you want the trail knee to work toward and past the lead knee, rather than letting the lead knee keep running forward away from it. Many golfers who slide will finish with the lead knee still well ahead of the trail knee, which is a sign that the lower body kept moving laterally instead of turning and bracing.

In a better release pattern, your pelvis rotates over the lead side instead of continuing to shove toward the target. As that happens, the knees work closer together. That is why this drill is often described as “kissing the knees” or making the knees “touch.”

What makes this drill effective is that it changes the motion late in the downswing and into the release, where many sliders lose control. A lot of golfers do not slide excessively at the very start of the downswing. Instead, they shift acceptably early, then continue drifting through the strike when they should be stabilizing and turning. The touch knees drill helps you feel that difference.

You are not trying to force the knees together from the top of the swing. In transition, there is still some natural separation as the lower body starts to unwind. The key is that during the release and into the finish, the trail knee works forward while the lead knee does not keep escaping toward the target.

For many players, the sensation is an inner-thigh squeeze or adductor engagement. It may feel as if the lead leg is subtly pulling back while the trail leg moves through. That is very different from the sliding pattern, where the legs often seem to stay the same distance apart and simply pivot while the whole pelvis keeps drifting forward.

Step-by-Step

Confirm that this drill matches your pattern. This drill is best for you if your lead knee, lead hip, and pelvis tend to move too far toward the target, often getting your pressure onto the outside of the lead ankle or heel. If you are more of a hang-back player who leaves the trail side behind and keeps the trail leg back too long, this is probably not the right drill.
Start with a short 9-to-3 swing. Make a controlled waist-high backswing and a waist-high follow-through. The goal is not speed. You want a small enough motion that you can clearly monitor your finish and build the correct lower-body pattern.
Set a clear finish checkpoint. In your follow-through, feel as if your trail knee moves toward the outside of your lead knee. For a right-handed golfer, that means the right knee works toward and even slightly past the left knee.
Picture Velcro on your knees. A useful image is that your knees want to stick together as you move into the finish. You are not trying to clamp them forcefully, but you do want the gap between them to close rather than widen.
Let the lead side brace instead of continue sliding. As the trail knee moves through, feel the lead side becoming a stable post that the pelvis can rotate over. The lead knee should not keep driving farther toward the target while the trail knee lags behind.
Hold the finish and inspect it. Pause after each rehearsal or shot. Check whether your trail knee actually got up to the lead knee or whether the lead knee still stayed well ahead. The pause is important. If you do not stop and verify the position, it is easy to think you made the change when you did not.
Add an external barrier if needed. If you tend to drift badly, place a chair, range basket, or trash can just outside your lead hip or lead leg as a visual boundary. The object is not there to trap you; it is there to remind you not to keep moving your pelvis out past the lead foot.
Blend in a shallowing feel if the club gets steep. Some golfers make the knees work better but then throw the shoulders over the top. If that happens, pair this drill with a sense of side bend, a more shallow arm motion, or better shoulder blade movement so the club does not get dumped steeply down at the ball.
Gradually lengthen the swing. Once you can hit short shots and consistently finish with the knees working together, move to three-quarter swings. Only then should you test it at fuller speed.

What You Should Feel

The best drills give you a feel that is easy to recognize, and this one does exactly that. If you are doing it correctly, the motion should not feel like a hard lunge to the target. It should feel more like the lower body stabilizes and turns through the strike.

Key sensations

The trail knee moves through. It feels as though the trail knee is chasing the lead knee into the finish.
The lead knee does not run away. Instead of continuing to drive forward, the lead leg feels more braced and supportive.
The inner thighs engage. Many players feel a squeeze in the adductors as the knees work closer together.
The pelvis rotates over the lead foot. You should sense turning around the lead side, not sliding beyond it.
Your balance improves. The finish should feel stacked and controlled rather than like you are falling toward the target.

Useful checkpoints

Your trail knee is near or slightly past the lead knee in the finish.
Your pressure is not rolling out to the outside of the lead ankle or heel.
Your chest and pelvis look more rotated through the shot rather than shoved forward.
You can hold the finish without needing to step or catch yourself.

If you are used to sliding, this may initially feel exaggerated. That is normal. The old pattern usually feels “centered” only because you have repeated it so many times. A better release often feels more compact and more rotational at first.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Trying to squeeze the knees together from the top. This is primarily a release and finish feel, not something you force in transition.
Using the drill if you are a hang-back player. If your trail side stays back and your trail leg points behind you too long, this drill can make the wrong pattern worse.
Letting the shoulders tip over the ball. If you make the lower body work better but your shoulders move out toward the ball, the club can get too steep.
Forgetting the upper-body matchups. You may need some side bend, shallowing, or better arm structure so the club approaches from a playable position.
Making swings that are too big too soon. Start with 9-to-3 swings so you can actually monitor the finish and own the movement.
Only thinking about the feet. The issue is not just where your foot pressure goes. It is how the pelvis, knees, and torso work together through the strike.
Sliding into the finish and then trying to fake the knee position afterward. The knees need to arrive there because the body rotated correctly, not because you staged the pose after the ball was gone.

How This Fits Your Swing

The touch knees drill is not just about making your finish look better. It helps fix a chain reaction that often starts with too much late lower-body drive. When your pelvis slides too far forward, your upper body usually has to compensate. That often shows up as backward tilt, a throwing action with the arms, or a sagging, unstable body shape through impact. Those compensations can work occasionally, but they rely heavily on timing.

When you improve the relationship between your knees in the release, you are really improving your bracing pattern. The lead side becomes something you can rotate over instead of crash through. That gives your arms and club a more stable platform, which can help you strike the ball more solidly and control the clubface more reliably.

This drill also fits well with other anti-slide concepts. If you already use a chair, wall, or object outside your lead side to keep your pelvis from drifting, the touch knees drill gives you the motion solution to go with that visual barrier. The object tells you what not to do; the knees tell you what to do instead.

It is also useful to understand where this movement happens in the sequence of a good swing. You still want a proper shift and unwind in transition. The goal is not to freeze the lower body. The goal is to avoid the late slide that happens when the body keeps moving laterally after it should be rotating and posting up. In other words, this drill helps you replace a sloppy push through impact with a cleaner, more athletic finish.

If you tend to be a very active lower-body player, this can be especially helpful. Juniors and athletic golfers often create speed by driving hard with the lower body, but if that drive turns into uncontrolled lateral movement, the release gets messy. The touch knees drill teaches you how to keep the athleticism while giving it direction.

Ultimately, a good finish is not cosmetic. It reflects what happened before it. If your trail knee can work up to and past the lead knee while you stay balanced over the lead side, there is a good chance you turned through the ball instead of sliding under it. That is why this drill is so effective: it gives you a simple finish picture that encourages a much better downswing pattern.