(air whooshing)
- Hello Adam Bazalgette here,
founder of Scratch Golf Academy,
today's subject, one I think a lot of people
will hopefully benefit from, how to turn you a slice
into a draw.
I'll show you two things you just have to do
and give you drills to help you feel those,
and at the end of the video
I'll show you a pitfall
that a lot of people fall into when they try
to make this change in their golf swing.
(dramatic instrumental music)
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(air whooshing)
So what are these two things
we're looking at?
Well most of you probably already know
it, number one is swing path, or direction of swing.
That would be out to the right,
that would be across the shot,
and of course clubface as well.
Now we'll assume solid contact
for the for the sake of this discussion,
but they're simple enough in theory,
people really struggle with this
their whole golfing lives.
Let's have a look at swing path first,
or swing direction,
start to flesh that out
then we'll give you a drill.
Okay so Justin Rose on the left
hitting a driver,
on the right hitting a short iron.
I mean more or less the same swing plane,
I wouldn't say there's any great difference there.
And certainly the club in both cases
is coming from the inside,
the driver a little more so because of its design.
But watch through impact,
watch how the driver goes up the target line
a little bit more on the short iron,
is a little bit more around his body this way.
You'll notice also the hands are lower there
and they're pushed up,
they're higher here.
And basically he's driving the club
more up the target line
because that suits a driver a little bit more,
but the moral to the story here
is if you are struggling with divots
going that way,
cutting across it, you would wanna imitate
more what he's doing in this swing.
Certainly with his body motion.
So let's have a look at that.
There he is with his driver,
there he is with a looks like a mid-iron
in that picture there.
So let's get him as he's approaching contact here,
let's get him there on both.
And what you'll notice is he has more side bend
in his body on that one,
less so in this one.
So he's, he's basically thrusting his hips up
and towards the target more,
and as I say that's causing more sideways bend
in the body,
and that thrusts the club out down the target line more.
Let's take him a little further into the follow-through,
and again no question to me
that there's more side bend,
more thrust of the hips there with the driver
than there is with the iron,
so let's see how we can incorporate that.
So here's the drill I would recommend,
this was first shown to me by Bennett and Plummer,
the founders of Stack and Tilt.
I think a lot of those guys,
they're nice guys to be around,
and I think there are pretty darn insightful.
Here's the drill,
when you get set up you've got a short iron ball position,
maybe roughly in the middle,
go ahead, pre-push your hips forward,
making sure your head stays back
so you create some of this side bend.
And as you do that the handle will go up and forward
just a little bit as well.
Once you've felt that, make just a fairly small swing,
just back to about here
and maybe through to there.
Very important as you go through,
two things, handles nice and high,
tails tucked underneath you like that.
So let's try it this way.
Get set up,
there's my preset,
hit that a little behind the ball there
as the path came from the inside.
It's exaggerated, but that's definitely the shape swing
I'm looking for as I do that.
So as we set up from this angle, as I push my hips forward,
which we showed you,
you'll notice that tilts the whole look of my shoulders
and the whole general feel of the swing path
out to the right.
And again, so important with this
that as you push your hips underneath you,
the handle of the club
stays high through there for a little while.
Don't make a big finish
when you're doing this drill initially.
I promise you,
if the handle's high and your hips are underneath you,
it is nearly impossible to swing too far to the left.
So let's have a try.
Okay there's my preset,
there we go,
that's the kind of look I'm looking for.
Definitely an in to out swing path.
So now let's look at the clubface,
how do these, how are they squaring the clubface?
This is Justin Thomas,
now I'm certainly not suggesting
he's trying to hit a big sweeping hook here,
but let's have a look at, look at the back of this hand,
that's what's gonna be the clue to me.
Look how it starts to bow under,
and as he does that he D lofts the club
and he very effectively squares that club up.
He's just hit that a couple of frames
and that club is already turning nicely.
Watch that left hand there.
Now watch say, Tiger Woods, from a diagonal view,
then we'll have a look at Phil Mickelson.
Okay here he comes,
now watch the back of that lead hand.
You see how it's starting to bow down
towards the ground?
Starting to D loft if you like.
And that is so effective at compressing the ball
and closing the face.
Look at his clubface there.
Okay Phil Mickelson,
this is when he's a lot younger here,
just as good then,
here we go.
So if you look at his glove there,
then let's maybe back him up a frame,
the tab of its maybe pointed up this way
shall we say.
Now watch as it comes through,
watch right there,
do you see how it's bowing and curling under?
And as he does that, he's able to keep the handle forward
and still turn the face.
Look at that right wrist there,
and really square the club up effectively.
Now I have a free three-part video series
on how to hit your iron shots solidly.
Just go down in the description box and pick it up.
Okay I've showed you what that clubface looks like,
you've got to experience it and feel it.
Let me come up to the camera here
before you try to do it in a drill.
So take, and I'm assuming you have a reasonable grip,
take your club in front of you like so
and turn the back of your glove towards the ground,
til the face turns down.
You don't want that to try to square the club up,
you wanna close it.
So you wanna feel that, nice and flat.
Now what I would recommend as you get started with this,
do a fairly small version of the of the preset drill,
but preset your wrists a little bit like that.
Preset the club where it's closed,
now you couldn't see that ball,
but that ball was sweeping left with a lot of curve on it.
Let's check it from here.
All right now, after a while
you wanna graduate from setting it at address
and presetting it that way,
to feeling it in your downswing.
Let me just try one here, I preset myself,
that ball had a nice little draw.
Again this is an exaggerated feel.
Here's a big key for you though,
people don't start it early enough.
You can start to bow that club,
if you have trouble slicing it, start to do it back here
so that when you time you get near the ball,
you've pretty much got it there.
If you wait till the last fraction of a second
and try to tweak the club,
it'll be too late.
Now play around with that til your getting
a little too much draw,
feel it here.
Now I said at the beginning of the video,
you know there's a pitfall
people often get into when they're trying to work
on their swing path and correct their slice,
and that pitfall, most of the time,
is the tendency to take the club too far to the inside,
to just whip it behind you.
Now if you're chipping it 40, 50, yards,
you may be able to get away
with that and kind of get the path going
the way you want to, but when you make a big swing,
if you get that club out of balance,
there's no way you can keep going that way.
It starts to rise and come up and it breeds the tendency
to loop to the outside,
so don't fall for that one.
Okay, sure if my body is set
the club may look like it's going inside
because of the shape of the setup
and I'm not taking it inside,
avoid that pitfall.
Work on these couple of things,
you'll fix that slice.
Well thanks for watching,
hope that helps you turn your slice into a draw.
If you liked the video,
would really appreciate a thumbs up,
helps us get a little momentum at the channel again,
and best of luck with your golf.
You do these drills,
I'm confident you'll see some success.
(upbeat music)