Stop Chunking Shots with the Trail Arm Pull Drill

If you tend to chunk shots, hit pulls, or occasionally see a nasty pull-hook, there’s a good chance you’re “throwing” the clubhead too early in the downswing. That pattern usually shows up as a steep, diggy strike, an overly closed face, and a release that races past your body instead of being carried by it. The trail arm pull drill is designed to give you the opposite feel: instead of pushing the clubhead down at the ball, you learn to pull the club around you with your body. That helps move your low point forward, improve contact, and create a more organized release through impact.

How the Drill Works

The basic idea is simple: you place the club in a delivery position, then use your trail arm and body rotation to pull the club through while keeping it traveling with your pivot rather than dumping out in front of you.

This drill is especially useful if your swing has one or more of these traits:

• You feel like you throw the clubhead at the ball from the top.
• Your trail shoulder works too high and too hard through impact.
• Your arms widen early and the club passes your body too soon.
• You hit heavy shots, low pull shots, or shots that start left and hook farther left.

In a better release pattern, the club is being transported by your core rotation for longer. The club stays “behind” you a bit more instead of being flung outward. That does not mean you hold lag forever or drag the handle unnaturally. It means your body keeps moving, your arm structure stays organized, and the club is released in sequence rather than dumped early.

The trail arm pull drill exaggerates that sensation. By using only your trail hand at first, you can feel the club being pulled along its length as your body turns. This is a very different sensation from shoving the clubhead downward with your shoulder, hands, or forearms.

Another important piece is side bend. If you only spin level, the club may stay too high off the ground. But when you combine rotation with the right amount of tilt, the club can shallow, brush the ground, and bottom out in a more functional place. That is why this drill can be so effective for improving both release pattern and low-point control.

Step-by-Step

1. Start in a delivery position. Take your normal club and hold it with your trail hand only. Move into a position where the club is roughly in the delivery area of the downswing: hands in front of your trail thigh, shaft angled forward and down, clubhead still somewhat behind you rather than thrown out toward the ball.

2. Pull the club around your body. From that delivery position, turn your body and feel as if your trail arm is pulling the club through. The key is that the clubhead should not immediately pass your hands. You want the sensation that the club is being carried around by your rotation.

3. Exaggerate the motion without a ball. To really learn the feel, make a few bigger rehearsals where you continue turning and pulling until you almost feel like you could spin yourself around. This is not a normal golf swing; it is an exaggeration to help you sense continuous pull instead of an abrupt throw. If spinning makes you dizzy, keep the motion smaller and controlled.

4. Add side bend so the club can reach the ground. As you pull and turn, include enough tilt so the club brushes the turf. If you only rotate flat, you may miss the ground entirely. The goal is to feel that you can still contact the ground or ball without needing a last-second dump of the clubhead.

5. Hit short one-handed shots. Place a ball down and make small swings with your trail hand only. Start from the delivery position and feel the club being pulled through with no sudden hit at the bottom. The strike should look and feel fluid, not jabby or forced.

6. Square the face as needed. Many golfers will need to feel a bit more clubface closure while doing this drill, especially if they are so focused on pulling that the face stays open. That is normal. You are training release sequence, not trying to leave the face hanging open.

7. Add the lead hand. Once the one-handed motion makes sense, put your lead hand back on the club. Make slow rehearsal swings and preserve the same sensation: the body is still pulling the club through, and the arms are not throwing it past the pivot.

8. Move into 9-to-3 swings. Hit short shots where the club travels to about waist high in the backswing and waist high in the follow-through. Keep the same feel of the club skimming the ground through the strike, with your body continuing to move and the club staying connected to that motion.

9. Build toward fuller swings. Once you can do it in the short format, extend the motion to a 10-to-2 length and eventually to full swings. The feel should still be that the club is being pulled along by your rotation for longer than you are used to.

What You Should Feel

Because this drill is meant to counter an overly throwy release, the correct sensations may feel unusual at first. In many cases, the right feel will seem almost opposite of what you normally do.

A constant pull instead of a hit

The biggest sensation is that you are pulling the club through rather than hitting at the ball with the clubhead. That does not mean the club never releases. It means the release is happening in response to your motion, not as a panicked hand throw at the bottom.

The club staying behind you longer

You should feel the club remain behind your body for longer as you turn. This is one of the hallmark sensations of a better delivery. Golfers who chunk and pull often feel the club race out in front of them too early. This drill gives you the opposite picture.

A more packed trail shoulder

Your trail shoulder should feel more tucked or connected, not high and dominant. When the shoulder flies upward and outward, it often drives the throw pattern. When the shoulder stays more organized and your torso is the power source, the club can approach the ball more efficiently.

Brush the ground without dumping the clubhead

You want to feel that you can reach the turf through rotation plus side bend, not by flipping the club down at the last instant. This is a huge checkpoint for better low-point control. If the club can brush the ground naturally while you keep pulling, you are moving in the right direction.

Fluid contact

When you do it correctly, the strike often feels surprisingly smooth. There is less sense of a violent “hit” and more sense that the club simply arrives in the right place as your body keeps moving.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Spinning without side bend. If you only rotate level, the club may stay too high and you will miss the ground. You need enough tilt to let the club bottom out properly.
• Dragging the handle too hard. The goal is not to freeze the clubface open or hold lag forever. You are training sequence, not trying to eliminate release.
• Stopping the body and flipping anyway. Some players rehearse the pull, then stall their pivot and throw the club at impact. Keep turning through the shot.
• Letting the trail shoulder jump up. If the shoulder gets high and dominant, you are likely returning to the same throw pattern the drill is meant to fix.
• Making the drill too large too soon. Start with controlled rehearsals and short shots. If you jump straight to full speed, your old pattern usually takes over.
• Ignoring the clubface. If the face stays too open during the drill, you may hit weak blocks. Allow the face to square while preserving the pulling motion.
• Confusing “pull” with yanking the arms inward. The pull comes from an organized body-driven motion, not from collapsing your arm structure or ripping your hands across your body.

How This Fits Your Swing

This drill is not just a contact fix. It teaches a larger principle of efficient ball-striking: the body swings the arms, and the arms and club respond to that motion in sequence.

If you tend to get steep, diggy, or left-biased through impact, the root issue is often not just your hands. It is usually a mismatch between your delivery, your pivot, and your release. The trail arm pull drill helps organize all three.

It improves your delivery position

When the club is thrown early, the delivery position collapses. The shaft steepens, the clubface can shut down, and your arms get too far ahead of your body’s ability to support them. By training the club to stay behind you longer, you improve the geometry coming into impact.

It helps move low point forward

Chunked shots often come from a release that bottoms out too early. When you keep pulling with your pivot and maintain your tilt, the club can bottom out in a more forward, predictable place. That is one reason this drill can clean up both fat and thin contact.

It reduces pulls and pull-hooks

The early throw pattern often sends the path and face left together. That is why many golfers with this issue hit hard pulls or pull-hooks. A better body-driven release gives the club more room and more time, which can neutralize those left misses.

It creates a better release through the strike

Good players often have the sensation that they are still pulling through well past impact. In reality, the club is of course releasing, but the feel of continued pull helps prevent the premature dump that ruins contact and direction. This drill gives you access to that feel.

Use the trail arm pull drill first as an exaggerated rehearsal, then as a one-handed strike drill, then in short 9-to-3 swings, and finally in full motion. If your usual miss is heavy, left, or both, this can be one of the fastest ways to change how the club approaches the ball. You are not trying to hit at the ball harder. You are learning to let your body carry the club through impact in a much more efficient way.