Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

This is a great swing drill to help you improve any golf shot where you are seeing you are experiencing a pull. So a pulled golf shot would be a ball that flies left of the target. It will fly quite straight but it will fly left of the target. So let’s look at why you are achieving a ball flight which we classify as a pull. As you are swinging the club back on the down swing the club head is getting thrown onto the outside that’s the far side of our target line which is represented by the yellow pole.

So the club head is going onto the outside of the target line so that then as you go to hit your golf shot you have to pull the club head from the outside from the far side of that target line into the ball and the action will be that you will pull it straight across the target line and then onto the inside. The club face is pointing in that direction then you will hit a pull so the ball will fly straight but it will go straight left of the target. So what we’ve got to work on doing is helping you to swing the club head much straighter along the target line through impact.

So really easy way to do that is take a head cover off one of your woods and place an alignment pole or place your golf club on the floor to show you the direction you want the ball to fly in, so to show yourself the target line. Then place the head cover just inside that target line but to the left of the ball. So only by about an inch to two inches so that you would be able to swing the club through without hitting that head cover but you don’t have a lot of room there to be able to do it. So what you now need to do is start to swing and make practice swings and start to hit golf shots where you swing you hit the ball and you swing past the head cover on the far side of it. That will encourage you to swing the club much straighter along the target line.

Now if you find that you are constantly hitting the head cover that would again demonstrate that you are still pulling the club head onto the inside of the target line too quickly, you are not allowing the club head to travel straight along the target. Then do the same on the opposite side. So this time we are going to use the range basket and we are just going to place the range basket to the far side, but to the right of the ball.

So basically we are blocking this area on the far side of the target line which is on the right of the ball and this area on the inside so that we are stopping that action that comes, that creates the pull shot from going from the outside of the club head and pulling it across to the inside of the target line. So again work on making golf shots and this time really focus on pulling the club head inside the range basket. So rather than allowing the club head to go out and to clip the range basket, just swing it down till it comes inside the range basket.

You should now as your approach is in this direction you’ll have no problem now swinging past the wood cover and you won’t clip it at all. So initially pull the left hand wood cover in on the inside of the target line by about an inch or two. If you find that you are still hitting that head cover all the time, you’re finding it difficult to swing past it on the far side of it, place an object but I’d use something quite tall like a range basket just to the right of the ball by about a foot and a couple of inches outside the target line so you can swing the club back and then work on pulling the club back down so the club head swings inside the range basket and then it will travel straighter along the target line and if you have got your club face pointing at the target you are going to hit a really straight shot.