Today I had Pat working on a drill I made up that I call the “9 O’clock Drill”. It is simple, as they all should be, but very productive for the things Pat needs immediate work on. In essence, it involves swinging the left arm to the 9 o’clock position in the backswing and then hitting the ball with full power. In order to hit the ball any distance, you must very aggressively and dynamically load the muscles in your hips and core on the way back because making such a short swing doesn’t give the time to build up a lot of momentum. This forces Pat to learn how to use his core and other big muscles to generate clubhead speed in a very explosive manner.

When doing this drill, it’s very common for the golfer to go past 9 o’clock and it takes focus and discipline to reign it in. But in the end, I’m not really concerned with that at all because the feeling of loading up and releasing the stored up energy is the point of the exercise, not the position of the arms. What generally happens is the golfer ends up swinging to about 10:30, which is perfect for a full swing and this is exactly what Pat did. To him, it feels incredibly short and compact, which is a good feeling to begin developing since his swing has always tended to be too long and lazy going back. His swing now has a much quicker pace to it overall and is much more dynamic. He hit some great shots yesterday, a 190 yard 5 iron to about 8 feet on a par three comes to mind. When doing this correctly, the ball should really hiss off the face and come out very penetrating. If you struggle with a loose, high ball flight, give this drill a try.