Use the forward lean drill to control the clubface an increase consistency

Ever notice all of the crazy shots at the driving range? It’s easy to stand there, see what everyone else is doing and say to yourself, “Boy I’m glad I don’t swing like that!” Some people may have a high slice on one swing, then a straight shot or low hook the next time.

Even the best players can’t get wedges close enough to make a decent amount of birdies. Maybe you find that you hit too many fat shots? High slices, inconsistent distance, inconsistent trajectory, inconsistent spin, low hooks and fat shots; at the end of the day, they’re all bad shots and they’re all caused by the same thing—failure to control the clubface. The best golfers on the tour face the same problem; no one has complete clubface control at all times.

Several of my top players complain about the same thing. They often fail to hit their wedges and short irons close enough to consistently shoot in the 60s. The forward lead drill was the answer. This drill teaches golfers how to control the ball’s trajectory and distance. It also trains golfers to get the clubface square at impact. With these skills mastered, my students were able to control the distance, the direction and curve of the ball to more frequently hit birdies.

In 2000, Tiger Woods had mastered the forward lean of the shaft; a skill that many other golfers attempted to emulate. It’s no coincidence that this mastery of the forward lean occurred during his most successful run in professional golf. Put simply, consistent forward lean results in consistent shotmaking. Consistent shotmaking depends on clubface control.

Many people don’t understand that a wedge shot for a good player is not 20 feet away. Wedges don’t expose bad shots nearly as much as drivers do because when there is lots of loft on the face of a club, the club is much more forgiving. Good players accept wedge shots of 15 feet because they know that a wedge shot that is 20 to 30 feet offline could result in 20 to 30 yards off line with a driver.

In the video above you will learn the forward lean drill. I highly recommend that you do this drill as your initial warmup with short irons and a driver with the ball teed up. In both cases, the ball should go quite low. Most of the time, when you finally get the right elbow forward enough, the ball often goes to the right. This happens because the further forward your elbow is at impact, the more rotation is required by the right arm and the more the right palm needs to face the ground to get a square clubface. Most golfers have never had enough forward lean and have learned to square the club by flipping instead of by rotation.

When you learn to control the clubface of you driver as well as your wedges, your scores will drop dramatically (that is if you can make a few easy putts).