by Chuck Quinton
Watch " Bucket Drill for Synchronizing Your Golf Swing" Video
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by Chuck Quinton
One of the most common struggles for golfers is learning what it "feels" like to use the big muscles rather than just the arms and hands in the golf swing. This is one of the most critical components of the modern golf swing and you can see it clearly in the likes Tiger Woods, Trevor Immelman and many others on the PGA Tour who use their body well to generate power and keep their swings in synch by minimizing excess arm swing. The "Bucket Drill" is the perfect drill for teaching you how to properly "engage" and "activate" the proper core and stabilzer muscles that are necessary in the modern golf swing. In this video, I discuss all the proper keys to performing this beautifully simple drill and how to learn the proper feelings of both the backswing and downswing.
Of secondary benefit to this drill is learning how the arms DO NOT need to swing so deep for a Rotary Golf swing in the backswing. While Jim Hardy's one-plane swing ideas advocate arms that get extremely deep behind the body, the Rotary Swinger has learned that that is simply an unnecessary and unathletic feeling move for most to grasp. Using this drill, you learn how it is only at the second half of the backswing that the arms start to move noticeably deeper across the chest in a continued natural swinging motion around the rotating body rather than ripping them back behind you early in the takeaway. This drill immediately helps you feel a more connected and in synch swing when you realize that the hands when viewed from down the line only need to cover the right bicep at the 9 o'clock position for a right handed golfer. Observe the photo below of me on the left and Tom Pernice on the right:
This video clearly demonstrates the lack of rotation early in the Jim Hardy one-plane backswing, although our hands appear to be in a similar position. It is mostly a pulling back of the right arm (the "start the lawn mower" drill to the extreme) while the upper body barely turns. If viewed from face on, you would see that Tom's arms and shoulder rotation are out of synch and that his shoulders have only turned a minimal amount. This immediately, by definition, takes the arms and body out of synch. Now, look at the Rotary Swing on the left. Note how the arms have simply swung back in synch with shoulder rotation and they look very relaxed. On the right, Tom's shoulders have barely turned and he has pulled his left arm very low and deep across his chest by moving his arms independently of his body. This sets off a chain reaction for the arms to have to fire during the downswing which as you've learned by now is very difficult to time and control for most golfers.
Using the Bucket Drill as outlined in this video will keep your golf swing in perfect synchronization and give you a feeling of hitting powerful shots with minimal effort. The video also discusses how to check for the proper amount of arm swing at the 9 o'clock position to ensure a compact backswing.
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