Graham Averill turned 50 this year and he’s going crazy. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He started this project as a 13 handicap trying to get to scratch in a year. Now it’s a 7.5. Welcome to your mid-life crisis.
If you’ve been following this journey, you know that I’ve changed everything about my game, from how I hold the club to the flight of the ball I’m trying to hit. I’m still constantly working on the nuances of my swing and every time I fix one problem, another problem seems to develop. It’s like renovating an old house. You think you’re just going to replace the handles on your kitchen cabinets, but you end up tearing the whole house down to the studs. And the renovations never end. You just get to a point where you can live in chaos.
My golf game is still very much a work in progress, but it is a viable work in progress. I dropped from 13 to 7.5 in six months. I play well when I travel to new courses and I put up decent numbers at my home course. It’s funny. And I spent a lot of time on the practice field hammering through a variety of drills to address the cornucopia of flaws in my swing and game. Some of those drills have been gems; others have been complete duds.
Read on for my list of the five most impactful drills I’ve experienced over the past six months. These are the exercises that have helped me get better at golf. Although the swing is extremely personal, I think they will also help you improve.
The Stick Drill
I put this drill first because it shines a light on all kinds of movement flaws throughout the swing cycle. Some coaches have called it “The World’s Greatest Golf Exercise” for this reason. Take an alignment stick and sandwich it over the grip of a short iron so that it extends from the bottom of the club as you address the ball. Take your natural configuration to the ball and the club should rest on the outside of your lead hip.
Begin your takeaway, making sure the alignment stick slides into your lead leg which ensures you are not taking the club too far or out. Pause at the top of your backswing and look at where the bottom of the alignment stick is pointing. If it points to your feet, the angle of the wrist is too strong. If it is pointed above the ball, the wrist angle is too low. At the top of your backswing, the alignment stick should be pointing at or just inside the ball, which will give you a nice flat wrist and set you up for success on the downswing.
And the downswing is where things get interesting. Start slow, pay attention to the sequence of movements. If your shoulders turn first, he will hit you with the stick. If you flip your wrists as the club approaches the ball, you will hit the club. If you don’t swing through the ball and end up high, with your chest pointing at your target, you will hit yourself with the stick.
Take a slow practice swing with an abbreviated finish. If you manage not to hit the club, go for half-speed swings with a real ball.
Every aspect of this drill feels uncomfortable, but that’s how you know it works. I came up with bruises from the stick when I first started this drill, but now I incorporate it into the beginning of my range sessions to make sure my movement patterns are structurally sound before I take full swings.
Railway
This drill was prescribed by my coach after he saw me pitch with an extremely closed stance and then pull the ball left. My alignment was so bad it was causing fatal swing patterns.
Place two alignment sticks on the ground, one on the outside of the ball aimed just to the left of your target, the other running into your feet pointing further to the left of the target. Set up to the ball with your toes parallel to that inside stick that will give you an open position and hit the ball along the line of the outside stick with a square club face. This setup and swing path helps produce a fade. You can reverse the direction of the sticks (pointing to the right and more to the right of your target) and it will help produce a draw.
Using these alignment sticks to physically aim at my goal also helped me realize how closed my natural posture was.
This drill has been the key to helping me go from a draw/hook to a fade in the last month.
The towel
Low point control was one of my biggest problems when I started this process. I hit the ball a lot. Addressing my myriad swing flaws has greatly helped the low point issues, but this is a drill I still come out with occasionally to help strengthen the first contact of the ball.
Place a sponge on the ground a few inches behind the ball and hit the ball without hitting the sponge. Here we go. Do not beat the sponge.
I hit the crap out of the towel the first time I tried this drill, but after a bunch of swings, I started cutting the ball nicely. Progression happens quickly with this drill which is encouraging when you’re struggling with something awkward like wedges in pieces.
Just remember that the secret to getting better at golf is to never let go of your old mistakes. They will come back into your game if you ignore them, so I’ll still carry this drill on occasion, especially if I’m hitting mats at the range or in a simulator.
The Putting Tee
Confession time: I don’t have much to do with drills. I don’t even practice putting as much as I should. It shows. I played nine holes yesterday and lost 1.5 shots to a scratch golfer on the greens. I finished the round. If I sink a couple more of those six-foot putts, I’m sitting pretty.
But my putting got better as soon as my coach helped me deal with the problems in my setup. I changed my grip and stepped away from the ball. Changing my grip helped me start my shot with my shoulders instead of my hands and moving away from the ball helped me see my line better in the setup.
I know I need to work harder on this aspect of my game and this is a drill I like to do. You can also do it at home on a green lawn.
Stick a tee in front of a hole so that it closes a third of the target. Now, sink a three-foot putt without hitting the tee. Do that half a dozen times and move it to the other side of the hole. Do that half a dozen times and then move the tee directly in front of the hole and try to hit that tee square.
I like this drill because it makes practice harder than the game. Focusing on hitting a tiny miracle like the tee or just the lower half of a hole makes the standard hole on the course seem much bigger and easier to hit.
The landing area
This drill is for your short game. Place a towel on the green and grab your favorite wedge and a bunch of balls. Set up 10-15 yards from the towel and try to land your chips on the target. It doesn’t matter where the ball lands after impact. You are only concentrating on the landing place of your short chips.
Be sure to give different lies when practicing this, putting balls in the hole to see how it impacts the ball flight. When you start to hit the towel on a semi-regular basis, try to incorporate three different dance turns with the same wedge – low, medium and high – adjusting the setup and the stroke accordingly.
My approach game is still in flux so I miss a lot of greens by a few yards. Being able to hit a ball to a specific landing zone from just five yards from the green helped me get up and do it and drastically lowered my scores.
As for my golf week? It was funny. I played in a two-man team tournament with my son, competing in a Stableford format at a local course I’ve always wanted to play. I hit the ball well but it didn’t score well and I really liked the Stableford format. Team golf is fun. I also played a few rounds of nine holes at my home club, bouncing between the back tees and my normal tees. It’s nice to see how the course changes in setbacks of 15 yards or more.
I’ve been struggling with a “power fade” (I refuse to call it a slice) which is new to me since my standard miss before all these swing changes was a draw/hook. So I worked on this problem on the range and tried to trust the flight of the ball on the course. It’s fascinating to me how the slightest change in my wrist angle or shoulder turn can cause a ball to go 40 yards offline.
Enter the week and I’ve dropped my handicap from a 7.6 to a 7.5.
Dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to improve golf in middle age and read last week’s Scratch by 50 where Graham obsesses. apply the finish of his golf swing.
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