Shank Golf Shot Problem Drill 3: Two balls hit inner ball (Video) - by Pete Styles
Shank Golf Shot Problem Drill 3: Two balls hit inner ball (Video) - by Pete Styles

So a really great drill to eradicate the shanks where you can actually start to swing the club on the inside and bring the club in and get contact on the golf ball, would be to set two balls. Of course, I have here where you set up to the outer ball and rather than pushing the golf club away from you and shanking that ball, you're actually going to swing and hit the inner ball. So you get this real good feeling that you have to keep the golf club into your body, into your legs keeping yourself balanced and strike the inside ball out of the way. Now there is just enough room for me to get good contact on the inner ball and not hit the outer ball. If these balls are too close together every time I aim for this one, I'm probably going to catch the other one as well. And I don't really want you to hit two golf balls at once just yet.

So I got these two golf balls set up this way around facing down the driving range. You set up the outer ball. Make a good confident swing and hit the inner ball. Again, you can really go to town on this and hit it quite firmly. You don't need to try and sort of baby it and stare it. That doesn't work for people, because that’s not your real golf swing anyway. So we set up to the outer ball. Normal full swing and hit the inner ball out of the way. We get nice contact on the inner ball and off she flies. And the outer ball stays there.

So you're shanking. This is a great practice drill for you to start your practice session with. There’s no point in going to the driving range, shanking the first ten balls as you're warming up because that just sets the bad mental process. That’s what I'm going to keep on doing again. You start with the club on the outer ball. You swing and hit the inner ball and you are actually encouraging yourself, really exaggerating that good correction in your swing. You're encouraging yourself to swing three or four inches inside the line of the ball. And you're dropping the hands and the arms and clipping the ball away, leaving the outer ball there. And that’s really moving the ball all a long way from the heel much more towards the center of the golf club, maybe even towards the toe of the golf club.

Now, toeing the club, you might think, well, that’s not great. I don't want to toe it. Yeah, but you definitely don't want to shank it. Toeing the ball, you want to go as far but it will go straighter shanking the ball sideways probably the most detrimental shot in golf. So if you can practice swinging and missing or swinging and clipping a ball from the inside as a practice exercise, that should really eradicate those shanks and improve your scores the next time you play.

 2012-11-29

So a really great drill to eradicate the shanks where you can actually start to swing the club on the inside and bring the club in and get contact on the golf ball, would be to set two balls. Of course, I have here where you set up to the outer ball and rather than pushing the golf club away from you and shanking that ball, you're actually going to swing and hit the inner ball. So you get this real good feeling that you have to keep the golf club into your body, into your legs keeping yourself balanced and strike the inside ball out of the way. Now there is just enough room for me to get good contact on the inner ball and not hit the outer ball. If these balls are too close together every time I aim for this one, I'm probably going to catch the other one as well. And I don't really want you to hit two golf balls at once just yet.

So I got these two golf balls set up this way around facing down the driving range. You set up the outer ball. Make a good confident swing and hit the inner ball. Again, you can really go to town on this and hit it quite firmly. You don't need to try and sort of baby it and stare it. That doesn't work for people, because that’s not your real golf swing anyway. So we set up to the outer ball. Normal full swing and hit the inner ball out of the way. We get nice contact on the inner ball and off she flies. And the outer ball stays there.

So you're shanking. This is a great practice drill for you to start your practice session with. There’s no point in going to the driving range, shanking the first ten balls as you're warming up because that just sets the bad mental process. That’s what I'm going to keep on doing again. You start with the club on the outer ball. You swing and hit the inner ball and you are actually encouraging yourself, really exaggerating that good correction in your swing. You're encouraging yourself to swing three or four inches inside the line of the ball. And you're dropping the hands and the arms and clipping the ball away, leaving the outer ball there. And that’s really moving the ball all a long way from the heel much more towards the center of the golf club, maybe even towards the toe of the golf club.

Now, toeing the club, you might think, well, that’s not great. I don't want to toe it. Yeah, but you definitely don't want to shank it. Toeing the ball, you want to go as far but it will go straighter shanking the ball sideways probably the most detrimental shot in golf. So if you can practice swinging and missing or swinging and clipping a ball from the inside as a practice exercise, that should really eradicate those shanks and improve your scores the next time you play.