Orange Whip

[OlStick]

Just wanted to throw a shout out for the ORANGE WHIP as the best training aid i've come across! If you haven't heard of it you sure will soon. The whip is a very flexible rubber shaft, with an orange weighted ball attached to the end of it, it shallows out your plane and prevents you from coming over the top, while doing a fantastic job of stretching out both your back swing, and follow through. Check' em out on Facebook, or your local shops- very inexpensive, and worth searching out.

Yep, I agree. I bought one at Demo Day at a Durham golf course two years ago and it is a GREAT tool for both smoothing out your swing and warming you up. You can also use it as a muscular exercise tool by constantly swinging the whip in both directions if you were transitioning from a right-hand to a left-hand golfer on each swing from either direction.

 

Try doing that at full tilt and you will be surprised how few it will take to tucker you out until you build up endurance. I also found that by swinging in both directions with equal effort started to help me get rid of back pain. My doctor told me later during a checkup that I was more balanced muscularly by doing so, so the backbone would align properly more of the time. Who knew?

[GolfSpy Dave]

So I just purchased one of these and felt it necessary to dig up the old thread.

 

In another thread I chronicled how I put together a DIY whip trainer from a baseball hitting stick. After owning the actual Orange Whip for a couple of weeks, please ignore the DIY version. It is not even close to the same tool.

 

I was skeptical about shelling out $109 for a swing trainer. To me that is a couple of lessons with the pro or 1/3-is of a new cool putter. However, after watching videos at the Orange Whip site and Facebook page, I was convinced that the Orange Whip could help me with my swing between lessons. As I heard from my instructor over and over, my issue lies with tempo. Nice slow takeaway and then swinging as fast as I can at the ball. I know what I should be doing, but the Orange Whip helps me feel it. My other issue, also related to tempo, is swinging over the top. The whip makes it possible for me to really feel the difference between the correct inside path and the incorrect OTT one. It also seems to help me get off of my right foot better (another cause of the OTT). This is the first time that I can actually say that I know what the swing should feel like.

 

So far, what I have been doing is swinging the whip at home (only one broken thing) while it has been raining. Basically taking very small swings, concentrating on turning my body to move the whip and not my arms. Gradually I increase swing length until I am taking full, in balance swings. If nothing else, I figured it was a good way to stretch during winter. Then I took it to the range.

 

At the range, I used the whip to warm up and then started mixing in whip swings with driver swings. The driver is the club of death for me. Basically when I can hit the fairway, I can shoot pars. When I am missing with the driver, which happens a lot, I am shooting to save double. The Golfshot iphone app was very helpful in letting me know this, BTW. What I noticed on the range that day was that I was hitting the driver more consistently, especially on the first swing after using the whip. After hitting 4 or 5 balls with the driver I would fall back to the old crappy swing again. Use the whip, hit the driver better again. I have only been a couple of times to the range with it so far, but it seems to really be making a difference. Maybe it is a honeymoon period thing, but for me it seems promising.

 

So if you have that gift card to the local golf shop and are looking for Winter golf fun (and maybe beyond) pick up an Orange Whip. For me, it seems money well spent.

 

Anyone else feel the same way? Anyone have good drills to share?

[Justin66]

 

Anyone have good drills to share?

 

 

I think there's a place for negative reinforcement, but I really don't want to be whipped for a bad swing, regardless if the whip's orange, green, or whatever...

 

LOL

 

In all seriousness, sounds like a good idea. I like sticking a shaft (or dowel rod) in the ground at about a 45* angle and making swings, being mindful not to hit the shaft. That's helped me come into impact from the inside out. If I go astray, I'll add a towel or headcover under my arms.

 

There's a drill I read in Golf magazine I like to call "The Cheek To Cheek Drill". I can't remember off the top of my head who wrote the article. The premise is, if you have a cart bag (I'm pretty sure a stand bag would work, also) stand it up and take your address with your rear a few inches away from the bag. From there, you just touch the bag with your right cheek (I'm flipping this around for you righties) on the backswing and with the left cheek on the throughswing. I get that "turning in a barrel" feel, which helped me transfer my weight more efficiently.