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My 2 Cents: The best chipping drill ever

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If you struggle with your pitching and chipping, hitting the ever-popular chunks, skulls, and flipping at the ball at impact, then I have a simple, yet effective practice drill for you to try.

When hitting this type of short shot, your pivot should “pull” your arms, hands and club through impact, keeping the club head lagging behind your hands. But when things get out of sequence, impact becomes wildly inconsistent. In fact, when your pivot stops, the lag pressure on the club shaft is lost and the hands take over with a flip — a move that is the death of any short game.

So for this drill, all you need is astro-turf or a tight carpet in your house, a few pennies and a wedge. Set up to the two coins about two inches apart, as pictured below, and set up to hit a normal greenside pitch to the rear penny. Then, make your normal pitching motion and try to sweep both coins off the ground.

StickneyCoinDrill

If you flip at the “ball,” or in this case, the first coin, you’ll either miss the coins entirely or only hit the first one. Remember, the goal here is to hit both coins every time.

StickneyDrillCoins

This drill will subconsciously teach you the correct pivot sequence, and will certainly keep you from flipping at the coins — and eventually, at a golf ball.

After you can do this drill successfully time after time, a golf ball will look like a beachball on the course and your confidence will soar. It’s also a great drill to do in the winter winter… and by spring, you’ll be getting up and down from everywhere.

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Tom F. Stickney II, is a specialist in Biomechanics for Golf, Physiology, and 3d Motion Analysis. He has a degree in Exercise and Fitness and has been a Director of Instruction for almost 30 years at resorts and clubs such as- The Four Seasons Punta Mita, BIGHORN Golf Club, The Club at Cordillera, The Promontory Club, and the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort. His past and present instructional awards include the following: Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher, Golf Digest Top 50 International Instructor, Golf Tips Top 25 Instructor, Best in State (Florida, Colorado, and California,) Top 20 Teachers Under 40, Best Young Teachers and many more. Tom is a Trackman University Master/Partner, a distinction held by less than 25 people in the world. Tom is TPI Certified- Level 1, Golf Level 2, Level 2- Power, and Level 2- Fitness and believes that you cannot reach your maximum potential as a player with out some focus on your physiology. You can reach him at [email protected] and he welcomes any questions you may have.

13 Comments

13 Comments

  1. Nick Coleman

    Sep 17, 2016 at 10:46 pm

    This is similar to a drill with a ball and tee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EzCinK-glo

  2. Jack

    Sep 17, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    Would you grip down on the grip as clubs get longer

  3. Scooter McGavin

    Sep 16, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    Can I still do this drill in the summer summer?

  4. Steelydan

    Sep 16, 2016 at 12:09 pm

    ChuckB, sounds like ingraining proper ball-divot sequence to me! A real fundamental.

  5. Josh

    Sep 15, 2016 at 4:09 pm

    Not dinging up my Miura’s with no pennies. Thanks tho. 😛

    • Stump

      Sep 15, 2016 at 7:49 pm

      Guess you cant afford another wedge

    • larrybud

      Sep 16, 2016 at 3:01 pm

      You’re not supposed to hit them 100 yards!

    • Scooter McGavin

      Sep 16, 2016 at 4:08 pm

      I’m pretty sure zinc and copper are a lot softer than steel and chrome wedges… I don’t think you need to worry.

  6. 2cheese

    Sep 15, 2016 at 10:22 am

    Could you translate this drill to irons in order to better improve ballstriking overall?

    • tom stickney

      Sep 15, 2016 at 1:57 pm

      Yes you could 2cheese

      • Justin

        Sep 15, 2016 at 2:51 pm

        but you’d have to bring about $20.00 in pennies unless you wanted to walk out on the range and pick them up each time, haha

    • ChuckyB

      Sep 15, 2016 at 9:37 pm

      I was playing golf with someone once who told me of a drill similar to this but for full shots that may be of some help to you; so far as I know it was specific to iron shots. Basically, you would place something in front of your ball (1-2″), such as a piece of a broken tee (which can easily be found lying around everywhere on a driving range) when hitting shots on a range; when you hit the ball, you would also attempt to hit/pick/brush the object as well; from my understanding, the intent is to shallow or level out the bottom or your swing arch, so as to improve your ball striking. Hope this helps.

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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