A Drill To Solve A Late Release In The Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
A Drill To Solve A Late Release In The Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if we now understand what a late release is and the pitfalls of a release that is too late, we've understood what the fault might be with the ball flight. Here is a cracking little drill to try and help you out to improve that Late Release. Now it involves hitting golf balls, so down the driving range, the best place to do this you don’t need to hit many, you don’t need to hit the golf ball that far, so potentially you could find the space on an open field or even in your backyard where you could practice this exercise.

So I've taken myself an 8-iron, I've got the ball teed up slightly, just so I don’t have to worry too much about the quality of the ball strike. It’s a little easier if the ball is teed up when you are doing some of these drills, so I am going to just take a view straight on first. You can see what this drill entails. As I set it to the golf ball, I normally address the position; I am now going to set the club to a back swing position that’s only here. The shaft is parallel to the ground, the shaft is pointing at my intended target line and my hands are only a couple of inches back from where they would have been at. Now this is not my normal back swing. You know, my normal back swing would be a wide arching motion, this is a very deliberate set position, and I set up to the golf ball, almost as if I’ve created a lot of lag angle that I'm then going to try and release. So effectively this is more like my down swing position than it ever would be my back swing position, but from that I am then going to try and hit the golf ball from just here. So I am not going to go back any higher, from here I am just going to hit down into the golf ball, and because my body isn’t really driving and turning, my body has no momentum here, so the only thing that can really get that club down to the ball is going to be my hand. It's going to be a quite a fast early release in my hand and I am going to try and extend down, and in that respect, I am going to try and avoid my late release, and my late release might have been here and then here, hitting it with my body, my hands. I am going to work on trying to hit it a lot more predominantly with the right hand. The ball really isn’t going to go very far. It's just going to pitch out there, maybe 20 or 30 yards more, so up to this position and then chip it forwards. So here and then chip the ball forwards and what you should notice there is actually you hit a ball that was probably higher than it might have actually looked if you’ve done your old late release swing. So your old late release would have been here and turning through, not enough loft on the club head. From here, you release the hands into it quite aggressively. And what I noticed among our ball flight there, is it went quite high and just a smidge of the left of my intended target, because my right hand was releasing nice and quickly and that’s a great feeling for you to create if you’ve been suffering with the late release and start working those hands just to pop that ball up a little bit higher. I am not advocating scooping it that would be the opposite thing that would just be the early release, but it's just avoiding the late release using the set and releasing drill. Do that in the middle, do that sorry at the start, the middle and the end of your next practice session if you’ve been struggling with a late release, then try and hit a few normal shots as well, so maybe five drills, five normal shots. Five drills, five normal shots and see if you can integrate that feeling to bring that ball flight up a little bit higher, less to the right, and maybe even add a bit of distance too. 2016-04-18

So if we now understand what a late release is and the pitfalls of a release that is too late, we've understood what the fault might be with the ball flight. Here is a cracking little drill to try and help you out to improve that Late Release. Now it involves hitting golf balls, so down the driving range, the best place to do this you don’t need to hit many, you don’t need to hit the golf ball that far, so potentially you could find the space on an open field or even in your backyard where you could practice this exercise.

So I've taken myself an 8-iron, I've got the ball teed up slightly, just so I don’t have to worry too much about the quality of the ball strike. It’s a little easier if the ball is teed up when you are doing some of these drills, so I am going to just take a view straight on first. You can see what this drill entails. As I set it to the golf ball, I normally address the position; I am now going to set the club to a back swing position that’s only here.

The shaft is parallel to the ground, the shaft is pointing at my intended target line and my hands are only a couple of inches back from where they would have been at. Now this is not my normal back swing. You know, my normal back swing would be a wide arching motion, this is a very deliberate set position, and I set up to the golf ball, almost as if I’ve created a lot of lag angle that I'm then going to try and release. So effectively this is more like my down swing position than it ever would be my back swing position, but from that I am then going to try and hit the golf ball from just here.

So I am not going to go back any higher, from here I am just going to hit down into the golf ball, and because my body isn’t really driving and turning, my body has no momentum here, so the only thing that can really get that club down to the ball is going to be my hand. It's going to be a quite a fast early release in my hand and I am going to try and extend down, and in that respect, I am going to try and avoid my late release, and my late release might have been here and then here, hitting it with my body, my hands. I am going to work on trying to hit it a lot more predominantly with the right hand. The ball really isn’t going to go very far. It's just going to pitch out there, maybe 20 or 30 yards more, so up to this position and then chip it forwards. So here and then chip the ball forwards and what you should notice there is actually you hit a ball that was probably higher than it might have actually looked if you’ve done your old late release swing.

So your old late release would have been here and turning through, not enough loft on the club head. From here, you release the hands into it quite aggressively. And what I noticed among our ball flight there, is it went quite high and just a smidge of the left of my intended target, because my right hand was releasing nice and quickly and that’s a great feeling for you to create if you’ve been suffering with the late release and start working those hands just to pop that ball up a little bit higher.

I am not advocating scooping it that would be the opposite thing that would just be the early release, but it's just avoiding the late release using the set and releasing drill. Do that in the middle, do that sorry at the start, the middle and the end of your next practice session if you’ve been struggling with a late release, then try and hit a few normal shots as well, so maybe five drills, five normal shots. Five drills, five normal shots and see if you can integrate that feeling to bring that ball flight up a little bit higher, less to the right, and maybe even add a bit of distance too.