Your favorite drills

[ballplayer002003]

As some of you may know...or not know, I am a teacher and golf coach.  We just started our new season yesterday and I have a lot of new golfers that came out.  This is a great thing because we are growing the game.  (I coach at a high poverty/high needs school).  I have a few seniors on the team but mainly freshman and sophmores.  My big question to any of you is simply what are some of your favorite golf drills?  They can be anything from putting drills to bunker drills to driver drills...I don't care, let me have 'em.  I love the ladder drill for distance control on the putting green.   

[cnosil]

For putting I like gate drills, 3 footers, and anything to work on distance control (get inside 3 feet).  Setup spots on the green and have them 2 putt from those spots; keep score.  
for short/finesse game, setup tee areas and have them work on getting up and down from those spots .  Make 9 holes and keep score.

 Track the scores and have them compete against each other and themselves. 

[russtopherb]

L to L is my go-to, both with feet together and feet apart. Always start a range session with it to help feel connected. 

[YourKillingMeSmalls]

Not so much a drill but maybe more a practice method, I go to an empty hole on the course and hit a ball from 150, 125, 100, 75, 50 and 25 yards.

[Ed S]

Great topic - will follow and will mention two of my favorites:

1. Full swing with feet together. This drill helps a lot with upper body issues. As for many golfers my muscles get pretty tense and I don’t get enough separation in my arms from my torso as well as shoulder turn both on the backswing and the finish. This drill helps me

2. Very slow and increase-as-you-go full swing. Very helpful with sequencing and tempo. I use it with wedges for additional benefit to learn more ways to get certain distances. For example my PW goes about 130. I start by trying to hit it about 90 with a full swing and regular LA. Then I try to go +10 yards etc. 

Both of these drills could be difficult to execute but benefits are excellent!

[Dware]

On 4/10/2022 at 7:02 PM, Ed S said:

Great topic - will follow and will mention two of my favorites:

1. Full swing with feet together. This drill helps a lot with upper body issues. As for many golfers my muscles get pretty tense and I don’t get enough separation in my arms from my torso as well as shoulder turn both on the backswing and the finish. This drill helps me

2. Very slow and increase-as-you-go full swing. Very helpful with sequencing and tempo. I use it with wedges for additional benefit to learn more ways to get certain distances. For example my PW goes about 130. I start by trying to hit it about 90 with a full swing and regular LA. Then I try to go +10 yards etc. 

Both of these drills could be difficult to execute but benefits are excellent!

Any thoughts or drills on how to get my hands starting down before my shoulders want to turn? 
 

When struggling with chunking or thinning shots I use the feet together drill to find the bottom of the swing. My first instructor taught me this and it always helps with finding that happy medium with contact and proper ball placement. 

[alfriday101]

To the OP:

You should read the book “Evidence Based Golf” by Christina and Alpenfels.  The authors did a number of controlled experiments comparing the results different drills and methods of doing drills to to test learning and retention of skills.  Highly recommended.  You can get on Kindle from Amazon.

[Ed S]

19 hours ago, Dware said:

Any thoughts or drills on how to get my hands starting down before my shoulders want to turn? 
 

When struggling with chunking or thinning shots I use the feet together drill to find the bottom of the swing. My first instructor taught me this and it always helps with finding that happy medium with contact and proper ball placement. 

I’ve dealt with the same issue myself. I keep a thought in my head to exaggerate keeping my shoulders closed as long as possible so then my arms are moving down along the side of my torso and through the strike area and the “drag” the shoulders with them (as opposed to letting the torso rotation drag arms). Similarly, you can try keeping your head down looking at the back of the ball (the spot on the ground) even after your arms passed through the strike zone. 
 

During practice - always exaggerate!!!!

Good luck!

[Dware]

1 hour ago, Ed S said:

I’ve dealt with the same issue myself. I keep a thought in my head to exaggerate keeping my shoulders closed as long as possible so then my arms are moving down along the side of my torso and through the strike area and the “drag” the shoulders with them (as opposed to letting the torso rotation drag arms). Similarly, you can try keeping your head down looking at the back of the ball (the spot on the ground) even after your arms passed through the strike zone. 
 

During practice - always exaggerate!!!!

Good luck!

Thanks I’ll give this a shot during the next range session and give some feed back. 

[BMart519]

On 3/2/2022 at 5:39 AM, ballplayer002003 said:

As some of you may know...or not know, I am a teacher and golf coach.  We just started our new season yesterday and I have a lot of new golfers that came out.  This is a great thing because we are growing the game.  (I coach at a high poverty/high needs school).  I have a few seniors on the team but mainly freshman and sophmores.  My big question to any of you is simply what are some of your favorite golf drills?  They can be anything from putting drills to bunker drills to driver drills...I don't care, let me have 'em.  I love the ladder drill for distance control on the putting green.   

For driver/full swing: look up the Rope drill by Dr. Kwon on youtube. Similar to the idea of Orange Whip for tempo and transition. I've used an electrical extension cord instead of braided rope that also works. He has a video showing how to make the ropes at home (7' lengths, around 1 lb total weight based on a specific diameter - 3/4" I believe.)