Shape the Ball - Hit A Golf Draw, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles
Shape the Ball - Hit A Golf Draw, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles

So the previous tip in this series was about fading the golf ball and now we’re going to look at how to draw the golf ball. So imagine I’m standing on the golf course, I’ve got my ball with something in the way of my target is over there where the camera is. And I want to get my golf ball to go around this tour stick here, be that tree or a patch of water that I don’t want the ball to carry over, I want to turn it around. I’ve got to imaging the ball is shaping and using the tour stick here on the practice ground is a great way of helping with the visual aspect of hitting this shot.

So I set up now, I point my body, my feet, my knees, my hips, my shoulders, everything down the right hand side away from the stick. I then want to be able to shape the ball back in around the stick and the way I do that is I point the club face marginally more left than my swing path where my body would be pointing. So my body points quite a long way right and I turn the club face in slightly so it’s effectively closing the face a little bit. I would then go a head and hit a few shots and just watch how the ball would hopefully miss the stick down the right side and turn back in and I would experiment with hitting a bit of a draw shot.

Draw is often considered the most powerful golf shot in golf, a lot of good players like to hit the draw shot. But it’s not essential, you don’t have to hit it, but it could be useful at times to shape the ball around a stick or a tree or an area of water. Just consider when you do this, how far the ball flies, often when you’re drawing the golf ball will actually go further than if you were fading the golf ball. One other word of warning when we’re hitting the shot is make sure you don’t simply point your feet right and point the club head straight at the tree or the stick. A lot of people would consider if you did this, that the ball would start where your feet are pointing and it would draw back into the target. I don’t think that would happen, modern teaching methods, track man, flight scope, all those sorts of radar tracking devices allow us to understand that the club face has far more influence over the initial starting direction of the ball than the alignment of the feet.

The club face is about 85% representing where the ball would start so if I was to point my feet to the right and point the club to the left, it would not start on my feet and bend, it would start much nearer to my face angle, therefore much nearer to my tree and then bend. And the risk is it would actually over bend in miss too far on the left side. So my feet can point right, my club face can point right of target just not quite as far right as my swing path and this ball should have some nice draw shape. Don’t be afraid to experiment, this is a great practice drill to do on the golf course more so on the practice ground. Step back make sure your tour stick is back in line with your target and practice shaping the ball round it to the right with a draw, round it to the left with a fade. That should improve your imagination and your ability to hit those nice shots when you’re actually on the golf course playing.

 2013-06-27

So the previous tip in this series was about fading the golf ball and now we’re going to look at how to draw the golf ball. So imagine I’m standing on the golf course, I’ve got my ball with something in the way of my target is over there where the camera is. And I want to get my golf ball to go around this tour stick here, be that tree or a patch of water that I don’t want the ball to carry over, I want to turn it around. I’ve got to imaging the ball is shaping and using the tour stick here on the practice ground is a great way of helping with the visual aspect of hitting this shot.

So I set up now, I point my body, my feet, my knees, my hips, my shoulders, everything down the right hand side away from the stick. I then want to be able to shape the ball back in around the stick and the way I do that is I point the club face marginally more left than my swing path where my body would be pointing. So my body points quite a long way right and I turn the club face in slightly so it’s effectively closing the face a little bit. I would then go a head and hit a few shots and just watch how the ball would hopefully miss the stick down the right side and turn back in and I would experiment with hitting a bit of a draw shot.

Draw is often considered the most powerful golf shot in golf, a lot of good players like to hit the draw shot. But it’s not essential, you don’t have to hit it, but it could be useful at times to shape the ball around a stick or a tree or an area of water. Just consider when you do this, how far the ball flies, often when you’re drawing the golf ball will actually go further than if you were fading the golf ball. One other word of warning when we’re hitting the shot is make sure you don’t simply point your feet right and point the club head straight at the tree or the stick. A lot of people would consider if you did this, that the ball would start where your feet are pointing and it would draw back into the target. I don’t think that would happen, modern teaching methods, track man, flight scope, all those sorts of radar tracking devices allow us to understand that the club face has far more influence over the initial starting direction of the ball than the alignment of the feet.

The club face is about 85% representing where the ball would start so if I was to point my feet to the right and point the club to the left, it would not start on my feet and bend, it would start much nearer to my face angle, therefore much nearer to my tree and then bend. And the risk is it would actually over bend in miss too far on the left side. So my feet can point right, my club face can point right of target just not quite as far right as my swing path and this ball should have some nice draw shape. Don’t be afraid to experiment, this is a great practice drill to do on the golf course more so on the practice ground. Step back make sure your tour stick is back in line with your target and practice shaping the ball round it to the right with a draw, round it to the left with a fade. That should improve your imagination and your ability to hit those nice shots when you’re actually on the golf course playing.