Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

If you’ve managed to move from a golfer who hits a pull to someone who hits the ball with a little bit more of a straighter swing path through the shot, then you may have to start making adjustments to your technique to compensate. Often when people start to hit pull shots, the club face will try and weaken to fade the ball back to target. So whereas you will be normally swinging with an out to in swing path, clubs travelling off to the left hand side with that club face matching path and hitting those pulls and then slowly starting to get that club face creeping open to try and get that fade back to target.

If all of a sudden that club face now moves a lot straighter into impact or even a little bit more from the inside, that club face is going to be a little bit too open. Now this will need adjustments, is it going to be the case that your grip may have changed that weaken the club face or is it just the fact that the hands have got used to holding off the club face? Both these things need to be addressed, this one very quick drills and some very easy drills that you can use to get yourself acquainted and to actually practice all at the same time a new swing path rather than an out to in swing path.

All you need to be doing is taking half swings and really over exaggerating certain positions that you want to be getting in to.

So for example I have got myself a seven iron here and I am going to get myself set up, ball position pretty much in the middle of my stance, just a little bit away on my left side because I am acting like this is almost a little bit of a punt shot. But I am going to take the club back, I am going to hinge my wrists outwards and this transition period where my weight goes left and my hands drop down inside, I am going to really exaggerate that part of my swing. And then as I move to impact I am going to try and rotate that club face so it gets in to a nice close position and then try and hit a little bit of a draw.

Now a draw shape to come from the pull shape that is a very contrasting type of ball flight, but using these drills and using these little half swings should give you the idea and the feeling of where you have to be. So that set up, that little bit of weight forward, that back swing and then that transition and then you should try to get that club face into that slightly close position to hit that draw. And it is by using these little semi-drills, these little small drills that you can get to grips with changes in path and changes in ball flight much, much easier.