Here at GolfGooRoo Global Headquarters I often get accused of not caring much about swing mechanics. This is not the case …
… I just think that we tend to place too much significance on the swing and not enough on actually playing the game.
Here’s a simple swing drill that ticks a lot of boxes. It’s a simple drill to understand, but it’s going to take some commitment to get full benefit.
I call it the Gear Effect. Instead of hitting golf balls at the one pace and speed, I want you to change things up a little.
Can you strike the ball with 75% power?
How about 50%?
Can you go lower, say to 20%?
Lower still, can you make a full swing but only apply 7% power?
And when you’ve gone lower you can make your way back up. If you’re really brave and ready for some fun, see if you can turn the afterburners on and bump things over 100%. What would 115% power feel like?
This is a great golf drill for a number of reasons.
- It gets you away from just hitting the same shot time after time. You’re learning all sorts of different shots.
- It requires awareness which is always a good thing. It might just help you break some bad patterns because you’re doing something else.
- You’re using your body differently. You’re learning and exploring and this should be quite fun.
- You’re learning new shots that you can certainly take to the golf course. For example, these shots absolutely helped me learn to pitch the ball better. When I took the “hit” out of my swing (which you have to do to be successful with the low-power shots) I had a breakthrough.
- Importantly, you’re hitting full shots and not breaking the golf swing down into small pieces and trying to put it back together again. If you’ve ever tried this you’ll know how frustratingly impossible it is.
My best advice is to spend 10-15 minutes hitting these shots each time you practice. When you increase awareness you can mix things up further by adding fades, hooks and high shots etc into the mix. Think about this for a second…
If you’re able to hit a draw low shot with your 7 iron at 75% power, how do you think this will help your game? Would this be a useful thing to have in your golf weaponry? Experience tells me that you probably haven’t thought about your golf swing like this because you’re stuck in the same gear.
One final thing worth considering with all of this: If you do get off the couch and apply the Gear Effect you’ll improve your golf swing without thinking about it. All sorts of things will happen at the subconscious level (like improved timing, better contact and improved clubface position) and this is HOW we should learn. It’s really not possible to read a tip in Golf Digest and then somehow magically have it integrated into your swing. Nope, that kinda stuff doesn’t work too well.
The Gear Effect works because it’s real learning. The secret as they say, is in the dirt.
If you want to learn more about better ways of improving your golf swing, check out my BioSwing materials.