Master The Mini Swing

If you find yourself troubled with miss hits that leave you short and left of the target you may not have a clear mental image of impact. Many golfers apply their hands too early in their downswing in an attempt to square the face of the club to their target. This often leads to too steep a downswing and an outside-in swing path. To control this critical area of your swing, utilize the following two drills to gain a clear visual picture of impact that will improve your distance and accuracy. This drill also highlights the importance of the path of the club head and the face angle of the club during impact. The only tool required besides the club is a piece of board about 2 feet long.

To assure the proper mastery of the Mini-Swing it is important to be mindful of four particular variables in the set-up: aim of the clubface, alignment of the body, posture and ball position (distance from the ball). Only from a fundamentally correct set-up will the arms be free to swing naturally through impact.

DRILL #1 – Push the board and hold the finish.

This drill will allow you to acquire the feeling of swinging the club forward through impact without altering the swing path and face angle of the golf club. It is important to utilize a very small range of motion in order to isolate the proper feel and ingrain this into the muscle memory.

DRILL #2-Make your back and forward swings symmetrical.

Once the feeling of the forward swing is ingrained, remove the board and make small back and forward swings that are symmetrical. The range of motion will be very small and the path of the club should correlate to the ball to target line. As with all swings, the ending position, or finish should be held with balance.