Improve Ballstriking with Miller’s Top Golf Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles
Improve Ballstriking with Miller’s Top Golf Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles

When you watch golf in the UK as I do you don’t often hear or see much about Johnny Miller. I’m aware of the guy. I know who he is. I know what he does, but we don’t get to see a lot of him commentating on the golf. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I’ll let you decide that, but Johnny Miller certainly had a great playing record. So when I share with you his top tip for great ball striking it could be something you would incorporate into your practice routine to try and improve your ball striking too – very simple exercise that Johnny Miller credits his clean ball striking to; simply drawing a line in the sand or a line in the dirt, starting at one end of that line and just trying to consistently brush the top of that line forward. Now this was all about the depth of the swing. He wasn’t talking about hitting over the top of it. He wasn’t talking about taking a big gouging piece of turf; it was just brushing it to the right level.

So I’ve got my line and my teaching mat here and I can set that line up to my correct ball position for any given club; so I have an eighter in here. So I can play the ball just half an inch ahead of sands it would be nice – nice grip and set up. I’m just going to try and brush the front of that line there. And it’s just a nice feeling and it’s a nice sound. Now if I hit down too much there’s a big gouge there. I can feel I’ve dropped into that and taken away too much of a divot and likewise if I lift up there’s no sound at all. So Miller’s tip was to dry a line in the dirt there and just consistently hit that line nicely at the right depth and the right height. He then also advocates trying that on a slope. So you could do the same thing but this time on maybe the side of a tee back or the side of the slope where you just get used to just catching the ground at the right level. We could try downhill slope, we try an uphill slope, side hill slope. So when you’re on the golf course your balance and your focus of just catching the ground at the right level becomes a lot clearer – your body weight, sort of awareness of whether you’re uphill, downhill, left or right becomes better and you can always get a nice strike on the turf. So if Johnny Miller can help you improve your ball striking let’s go ahead and practice that drill.

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 2014-01-20

When you watch golf in the UK as I do you don’t often hear or see much about Johnny Miller. I’m aware of the guy. I know who he is. I know what he does, but we don’t get to see a lot of him commentating on the golf. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I’ll let you decide that, but Johnny Miller certainly had a great playing record. So when I share with you his top tip for great ball striking it could be something you would incorporate into your practice routine to try and improve your ball striking too – very simple exercise that Johnny Miller credits his clean ball striking to; simply drawing a line in the sand or a line in the dirt, starting at one end of that line and just trying to consistently brush the top of that line forward. Now this was all about the depth of the swing. He wasn’t talking about hitting over the top of it. He wasn’t talking about taking a big gouging piece of turf; it was just brushing it to the right level.

So I’ve got my line and my teaching mat here and I can set that line up to my correct ball position for any given club; so I have an eighter in here. So I can play the ball just half an inch ahead of sands it would be nice – nice grip and set up. I’m just going to try and brush the front of that line there. And it’s just a nice feeling and it’s a nice sound. Now if I hit down too much there’s a big gouge there. I can feel I’ve dropped into that and taken away too much of a divot and likewise if I lift up there’s no sound at all.

So Miller’s tip was to dry a line in the dirt there and just consistently hit that line nicely at the right depth and the right height. He then also advocates trying that on a slope. So you could do the same thing but this time on maybe the side of a tee back or the side of the slope where you just get used to just catching the ground at the right level. We could try downhill slope, we try an uphill slope, side hill slope. So when you’re on the golf course your balance and your focus of just catching the ground at the right level becomes a lot clearer – your body weight, sort of awareness of whether you’re uphill, downhill, left or right becomes better and you can always get a nice strike on the turf. So if Johnny Miller can help you improve your ball striking let’s go ahead and practice that drill.

Player Profile