Ready to take your golf drives to the next level? In this video, you’ll learn how to control the ball’s curve, mastering both draws and fades. Building on week one’s focus on face control, this session emphasizes the importance of aligning your swing path with the clubface to produce consistent, accurate shots. You’ll also explore the use of a training tool, the Blue Brick, to ensure your swings are on the proper plane and path. From setting up your body position to adjusting hand placement, these drills are designed to help you hit minimal-curvature shots consistently. Don’t forget safety tips like using a pool noodle over the stick to protect your club!
What's Covered: Drill on controlling swing path using the Blue Brick to train inside-out and outside-in swings for consistent draws and fades.
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Video Transcription:
Hey, it's great to have here today. This is the video where the drives are gonna start to get pretty good. We're not only gonna be able to get the ball to curve the correct direction, like we talked about in week one. We're also gonna get a start in the right direction. So in order to hit a good draw, for example, this ball has to start to the right of my target.
I've gotta get the ball to start to the right. That way when it draws, it comes back to the target. Obviously. Now, if I'm swinging to the left or my club's coming over top of this, stick with the blue brick. I'll get to here in a second. If I'm swinging left and I close the face, it's gonna start left and draw even more.
It's not gonna be a good shot. Or if I'm playing a fade and I swing from the inside, I swing out to the right and the face is open to fade it, it's gonna start right and fade. So if you want to hit a good, successful draw or fade, or eventually we're gonna get down to where we're hitting 'em, essentially dead straight.
We've gotta match up the path with the face work that we did. So week one. As we're working on these draws, the number one thing was coming from the inside, closing the face here. When we released it, we made sure the club wasn't like this for my draws, right? We went ahead and fully released the shaft, so it's pointing more to the left.
We fully released the face, so it's pointing down to the ground, made sure the face was closed, so number one, you have to get control of the face. If my face is not closed at impact relative to the direction that I'm swinging the club, it's not gonna draw. I gotta get that face down first. That's why we spent the whole first week working on that.
Now, once I know that that face is closed, all I have to do now is swing anywhere out to the right and that ball's gonna start to the right and draw back. Same thing for the fades. Week one, we got that face open on a very regular basis. If I'm gonna hit a good fade, I gotta come a little to the left across the ball so it starts left and fades back.
And then eventually, as we get into week threes and week week three and four. We're gonna straighten all that out so it has very little curvature on it. If you're playing a draw, it's gonna be a tight draw. If you're playing a fade, it's gonna be a tight fade. I personally recommend hitting it as straight as possible and then going from there.
That's really what I found the best players do. There's very little curvature on the golf ball, so we've got the face down in week one. Now we're working on path. We gotta get the, whenever we wanna hit a draw, we have to know how to swing inside out. Whenever we wanna hit a fade, we gotta know how to swing outside in the face angle.
Was mostly to do with how we release this club. So there's my draw or hook release, there's my fate or slice release. How I release that club is gonna have a huge factor on what the ball curvature does, or if the face is open or close at impact. The path or what we do, the direction we swing, has a lot more to do with how my body's aligned.
If I can get my body lined up well, it's very difficult to not swing in the correct direction. The great news is. This is gonna pretty much guarantee you you do it correctly. So this brick pretty much required for this course. We're gonna use it a lot. You can get the same thing by putting sticks in the ground, but just make your life easy.
Get one of these bricks. We've done tons of clinics with them. I've seen it lessons that would've taken me two, three hours, several lessons to get a player to swing inside out and hit a draw. It's happening in like the first 10 or 15 swings. 'cause when you put this giant stick in the way, it just kind of guarantees that you make the correct movement.
So here today I have the brick set up in the driver setting on the top stick, and then I put two sticks in the bottom so I can go back and forth from draw to fade. I have one stick in the shallowing, one I have one stick in the alignment one. That way I can come over to this side of the stick, swing over top of it, fade it.
I can go to this side, swing underneath, shallow it and draw it. Before you do this, make sure you put a pool noodle over top of this stick. If you haven't used this a lot, put the pool noodle on there. You don't want to hit accidentally, barely nick it hit your club. Makes it a lot safer to use it, so I highly recommend.
You should definitely use the pool noodle in there. I've already used this thing, thousands of swings. I know I'm not gonna hit the stick. Not really a big deal now, but when you're first using it, make sure you do that. Number two, I wanna make sure that I put this ball at least a foot inside of it when I'm first starting to do this.
Now, like I said, when we're shallowing or using the the shallowing setting on this brick or swinging under the stick, it pretty much guarantees that if you're gonna miss this stick, you have to be coming from the inside. Technically, I could be swinging squarely through the ball and miss this stick.
Imagine like a plane of glass like this, my club's just riding down that plane of glass, or I have a ton of room to the inside to now overdo coming inside out and drawing it. I don't have very much room when I'm coming over the top before I hit this stick. If I'm swinging to the left, you technically can swing a little bit outside in.
You could play a fade if I'm putting this a foot inside the stick, but I recommend starting there. Video a couple on camera, make sure that you're missing this stick by a good margin. Then you can start to scoot it closer. Start out a foot away from it with your golf ball, a foot away from this inside stick.
Video one of your swings. Make sure you're missing the stick by a lot before you start to scoot it forward. If I really wanna exaggerate it, I can start to inch this forward a little bit more. I haven't found you need to get any closer than like six inches from it to get great results. So that's kind of how I'd set this up.
Opposite on the other side, I'm gonna set this ball up, you know, eight inches of foot outside the stick. I'm gonna make sure that I'm missing it by a lot when I'm doing these fades. We're gonna start out today by hitting 10 successful draws. To be a successful shot, you have to start it to the right. So if I'm gonna play this draw, I have to get it to start to the right and then draw back.
My successful fades is the opposite. I'm gonna start it to the left and have it fade back. I'll probably start with the fades today actually, because I'd like to end on the draws. More people struggle with the draw side, so I'd like to end on that. So you're ending with the good feel that you want. It doesn't really matter which way you do it, but let's go that way.
A couple keys here to get your body in position to be able to hit a fade. You remember from last week, I talked about setting up like you're gonna hit this ball, putting your hand to your side, and then dropping your fingertips down to your right knee to tilt your body away, get this body tilted more under.
Well, when I do that, if I'm trying to hit my fades, I feel like I'm gonna whack back right into this stick. It's definitely aligning my body to make more room to swing inside out. The more I tilt to the right, the more my fingertip gets down here. So if I was gonna do that, put my fingertip down there, it creates all this space and room to swing inside out.
I'm gonna hit the stick. If I do that on my fade side, so my fade side, I'm gonna put my hand at my body and I'm gonna let my hand ride up my right leg until my spine feels like it's pretty vertical. If I get this body position with my spine a little more vertical. Much easier to swing to the left. I feel like I'm creating a lot more space to go outside in and swing this direction.
So that's the first thing I would do. Set up with your left hand, like you're gonna hit a drive. Put your right hand on your right leg. Don't have it down here by your knee. Have it kind of more toward the middle of your leg. So if this is the bottom of my pant, this is my knee, my fingertips are gonna be kind of right in the middle of that.
That's how my body's gonna be positioned to hit a fade. Then I'm just gonna go ahead and put my right arm back on it. Number two, I wanna feel like I'm really working this club up this direction if I really wanna hit a massive slice and get my path way to the left. You imagine that plane of glass that I'm talking about, it's gonna have to be tilted this way and be pointing way to the left.
Well, I imagine my club kind of tracing up that plane of glass. So when it's going back, it's gonna be more out here and this way. And when it's coming down, it's gonna be more out here and then going into the left. So that's a second thing. First, I get my body aligned, right? So I'm not tilted this way so much.
I'm a little more level. Number two, I imagine my hands and my club head kinda working out this tilted plane of glass. And then when they're coming down, they're working to the left down that tilted plane of glass. So my hands are gonna exit more left. When I'm playing the fade, I'm gonna feel like my hands, if I'm just looking at those, my hands are going more this way.
I almost like, remember we talked about cutting the knees outta something, taking this right hand and feel like you're slicing something out of it. The hand goes out to end when you're doing that. That's the second thing that I'd work on. And then third, what I like to feel like is almost like there's this big window over here to the left of my body.
So this would be outside my body to the right. If I'm looking from down the line, this would be to the left. I feel like there's a big gap here that I'm working my hands and my club into. So I'm really focusing on. Through the ball. My hand's working into this gap over here. I don't want my hands to work out this way, or I'm gonna have a tough time getting my path to the left.
So I'm just gonna do those three things, level out my shoulders, feel like I'm working up this point of glass, feel like I'm getting my hands exit over here to the left. If I do those three things, I should be able to hit a massive slice that starts way to the left. Let's give it a whirl.
Here we go. And I started that one, maybe 30 yards left and faded it back, almost dead straight. Remember, to be a successful shot, we have to not only start it to the left, that's gonna be dictated. My path has to be left to make that happen, but it also has to fade if you're slicing it and your ball is starting to the right in slicing.
So it's starting too far, right? But it's still cutting. I'm just overdoing how open the face is. Now the face is gonna dictate about 80% of the start line. So if I get my face super open when I go to contact, we'll see how that, that face is pointing way to the right. It will slice, but it's gonna start to the right, 'cause the face is so open.
All I'm gonna do there, so to know if you're doing this correctly, just look and see if it's slicing. If you're missing the stick, you are swinging to the left. You don't have to guess If I'm missing this stick, I'm swinging left. If I'm still getting the ball to start to the right as I'm doing that and it's going like that.
So it started way out there and then really sliced my face is just too open. So we know by using the brick, we don't have to guess about path. We know our path is in the correct correct direction. We know we're swinging the correct direction. We just have to dial in the face to get the correct amount of fade.
So if I'm doing these shots and I'm feeling like my face is wide open like this, and the ball's starting to the right and slicing. I'm gonna tone down on that a little bit. So if this is my slice release and then this is my hook release, I'm gonna find somewhere in the middle of that that gets the ball to barely fade.
So if this is my slice and it's starting to the right and really cut it, cutting, I'm gonna go a little more toward my draw, maybe like something like that. And I'm gonna test it out again. So again, I'll hit a little short shot so you can see it. And that one just barely faded. I know I've got the correct feel.
I am gonna fine tune my feel till I get the ball to do what I want. So I'm gonna swing, I'm gonna see what the ball does if it's overcut or starting too far to the far to the riding. Cutting. I'm gonna go a little more toward my draw side release. So again, this is my hook, this is my slice. I'm just finding somewhere in the middle there to of what to feel to get the ball to do what I want.
So if I'm starting to the rightness cutting, I'm gonna feel a little bit more toward my draw side. And if that ball is starting left and fading, that's the correct way to do it. And that feel will be different almost every single time. So keep on doing this again. Hands in the middle of the leg. Feel like the club is working up here, hands are working to the left, and I'm just gonna do this until I can hit 10 successful fades or slices.
They just have to start anywhere left in my target. They just have to fade or slice any amount. Don't care how much it is. So hit one more and then we'll go to the draw side and we'll do the exact opposite here.
There we go. So that one started 20 yards left, faded back. That'd been a successful shot. 10 successful ones in total. Most players won't struggle too badly getting that to happen. Now when we go to the draw side, I'm gonna do the exact opposite. One little side note, the further up in your stance the ball is, it's a little easier to fade it.
The further back the ball is, if my ball's back here, it's gonna be really tough to fade it, easy to draw it. If my ball gets way up, it's easy to fade it, a little tougher to draw it. Um, so if you're still struggling, I'd pay attention to that a little bit. I go to my draw side. Now all I'm gonna do is slide my fingertips down to my right knee, tilt my shoulders more.
So this is my fade setup. Here's my draw or my hook set up, tilting my body away from the target. Now when I'm doing that, I wanna make sure that my hips go toward the target. So if I exaggerated that and I got my arm way down here to my calf, I would be closing my body as that's happening. So watch my club angle alignment here as I do this, it's closing, my hips are going this way.
I don't wanna do that by going like this and getting my hips in the way. If my hips are back here, it really, they block me swinging inside out. I'm gonna have a tough time missing this stick if my hips go forward and everything gets closed. Now it positioned my whole body where it's super easy to swing out that way.
So again, if I go more left, you'll notice how my club goes a little more left, my shoulders go left. Or if I go right, right arm up the leg. If I go right arm down the leg, my hip should be going forward. My shoulders should be closed. I'm really obviously exaggerating a ton here, but that's the feeling we wanna have.
I wanna feel like my club goes a little more to the inside. In the downswing, I'm closing the face, and then here I'm gonna do my big hook release. Look at my forearms. I'm not doing this and chicken winging it and trying to close the face. Both arms are straight. The but of my club is facing away from the target.
My club head is facing almost left of the target. My face is all the way down to the ground, so I'm really exaggerating that hook kind of feeling. Again, I'm gonna hit this and make sure it starts to the right draws back. Let's give it a whirl here.
Here we go. That one's perfect. Start a little right of the target, drew back. If I needed to draw more, I go back to what we worked on week one. I'm just releasing that face. More feeling like it's more closed at impact. The good news is if you have the brick here, you know your path is in the correct direction.
I don't have to worry about swinging to the right. All I gotta worry about is releasing that face to get it to draw. If I have balls that start to the left and then hook. So for example, same thing we talked about in our fade side. If I have a ball that starts left and then still really hooks like this, right?
So it started left and drew more nose dived almost. I'm just over closing the face. Getting the ball starts 80% of the direction of the face. If I get the face so closed, there's no way to start to the right and draw it back. It's all gonna start left and then hook. Again, I'm gonna do the same process that I did on my fade side to get it to fade less.
If I felt like I was releasing like this, the face is really slammed over the, the shaft is fully released. That's my hook release. This is my slice release. I'm gonna find somewhere in the middle there to where I can get that ball to start to the right and draw back. It'll be slightly different for all players.
These are the feelings that you're developing. And you're just fine tuning your feelings to get the ball to do whatever you want it to do. These will change. You may feel like on day one you have to do this to get a little draw in. A couple months from now when you feel that same thing, it's gonna be a 30 yard hook.
That's one thing that the pros, they're always tweaking their feeling a little bit. I wanna watch the ball and adjust what release I'm feeling to get the ball to do what I want. And as I train that more and more I'll get more consistent and be able to be very accurate off the tee. For me, when I played my best driving it every day when I hit balls, I was fine tuning it, getting it to draw a little more, a little less until it went dead straight.
And the more I repeated that process, I eventually felt like I could make a completely normal swing and the ball basically went dead straight. So I'm training my natural swing to be straight. For now, we're gonna train overdoing it a little bit until we really get a handle on it. Set. One more draw here.
Oh, kill that ball. But it went a little to the right and didn't move at all. Didn't turn over. It would've been in the right side of the fairway. I hammered it. Great shot, but it didn't draw. That doesn't count. So in my very next swing, I felt like for me personally, I was doing this. I'm gonna turn it over a little bit more when I release it until that ball starts to curve a bit more.
Let's give it one more shot here.
Oh geez. That was not good. That was a bad one, and that's a mistake that I have from years of blocking 'em. Sometimes when I go extreme draw, that was an ugly one. I'll tend to tug on the shaft and pull it too far forward. I've gotta get that shaft to release, so I've gotta give it time to roll on over rather than there.
I rushed it and I held it open. That was what I missed. I used to have, I hate those 'cause I've hit a lot of those early in my career. So this one, I'm feeling like I'm letting it close or release a little bit more at contact. I'm gonna really commit to it. Get a big draw on here.
There we go. Big sling and draw on that one again. If you're trying to hit a draw and it's not drawing. Exaggerate, exaggerate, exaggerate. If you've tried to release as much up here and it's still not working, like we talked about last time, close it at Impact, close it back here, get that thing closing more through impact and you will get it to draw.
Best of luck and I'll see you in the next video.
