Drills To Avoid The Golf Shanks (Video) - by Pete Styles
Drills To Avoid The Golf Shanks (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now, there’s no question that a golfer hitting the ball from the heel of the golf club is one of the most frustrating things that we can do. We feel like we’ve done everything brilliantly, would feel like a good swing and the ball shoots off 90 degrees sideways because we hit the shank of the golf club. Be that with a driver, an iron or a putter, that’s never going to be a good thing.

So the gait drill is a little drill that we can utilize just to firstly establish if that is the fault if – is happening. Now, the gait drill is simply here. I’ve two tee pegs on the ground. I’ve got my putter, I’ve got the golf ball nicely lined up in the middle and I’m just going to make my swing back and through and see whether I can get the club through that gait. Now, as a putting drill, this is relatively simple, it’s something we do on a fairly regular basis with a lot of golfers. Because if they are pushing the club away, they would hit that tee and that would be the ball hitting the heel. Likewise, if they’re pulling the club in, they hit this tee peg and the ball hits the toe. But we could, as a golfer, establish exactly the same drill for an eye and we could do the same thing. So we set up the ball up, we got one tee over on this side to make sure I’m not going to shank it and one tee on this side. Now, the only difference is this tee peg might need to be further back or just slightly angled to account for the angle of the shaft. You can see how the shaft angle comes in a little bit there. So once I have that tee peg in that position, I can then go ahead and make my swing. And you can see that I managed to get through this impact gait without catching either side of the tee pegs. I didn’t catch the turf either. Quite a little low but it’s in there because I was scared of hitting the tee pegs I think but I managed to get through that gait. And that would tell me that my ball striking in terms of the lateral position on the face is actually pretty good. But if I made that swing and I pushed that and clipped that tee on the far side, that would have been the club moving too far that way, the ball would have probably hit the heel and it could’ve produced a shanking shot. So utilizing that very simple gait drill is a great way, whether you’re putting, whether you hit in your irons to establish whether you're striking the ball out to the middle of the golf club. 2016-04-21

Now, there’s no question that a golfer hitting the ball from the heel of the golf club is one of the most frustrating things that we can do. We feel like we’ve done everything brilliantly, would feel like a good swing and the ball shoots off 90 degrees sideways because we hit the shank of the golf club. Be that with a driver, an iron or a putter, that’s never going to be a good thing.

So the gait drill is a little drill that we can utilize just to firstly establish if that is the fault if – is happening. Now, the gait drill is simply here. I’ve two tee pegs on the ground. I’ve got my putter, I’ve got the golf ball nicely lined up in the middle and I’m just going to make my swing back and through and see whether I can get the club through that gait. Now, as a putting drill, this is relatively simple, it’s something we do on a fairly regular basis with a lot of golfers. Because if they are pushing the club away, they would hit that tee and that would be the ball hitting the heel. Likewise, if they’re pulling the club in, they hit this tee peg and the ball hits the toe.

But we could, as a golfer, establish exactly the same drill for an eye and we could do the same thing. So we set up the ball up, we got one tee over on this side to make sure I’m not going to shank it and one tee on this side. Now, the only difference is this tee peg might need to be further back or just slightly angled to account for the angle of the shaft. You can see how the shaft angle comes in a little bit there. So once I have that tee peg in that position, I can then go ahead and make my swing.

And you can see that I managed to get through this impact gait without catching either side of the tee pegs. I didn’t catch the turf either. Quite a little low but it’s in there because I was scared of hitting the tee pegs I think but I managed to get through that gait. And that would tell me that my ball striking in terms of the lateral position on the face is actually pretty good. But if I made that swing and I pushed that and clipped that tee on the far side, that would have been the club moving too far that way, the ball would have probably hit the heel and it could’ve produced a shanking shot.

So utilizing that very simple gait drill is a great way, whether you’re putting, whether you hit in your irons to establish whether you're striking the ball out to the middle of the golf club.