In this bonus week five video, Clay walks through a complete real-world lesson with a student named David, demonstrating the week one drills from start to finish in a single session. Before any instruction begins, David hits 20 shots to establish a baseline dispersion, which is then compared against a post-drill test to measure his improvement. Clay introduces the mechanics of clubface control — explaining how hand position, shaft release, and grip position influence whether the face opens or closes at impact — then walks David through the hook and slice drills, coaching him on the proper checkpoints and positions for each. David quickly develops the feel for both releases and, after toggling between exaggerated hooks and slices, begins hitting noticeably straighter drives with tighter dispersion and added distance. The video serves as a compelling proof of concept for the week one curriculum, showing in real time how mastering face awareness through extreme drills can produce dramatic, measurable improvement in a single session.
What's Covered: A real-time, unedited lesson demonstrating the week one face control drills with a first-time student, showing how quickly exaggerated hook and slice training can produce measurable improvement in driving accuracy and distance.
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Video Transcription:
Clay: Hey, it's great to have you here, and in the lesson you're about to watch, I want to give you some of the highlights. I know it's a, it's a full lesson about an hour long, and I wanna talk about what you're gonna see in this lesson. Now, before we started this lesson, I had David hit 20 shots and got his full dispersion.
So you can see his furthest right shot was 75.3 yards to the right. His furthest left shot was 68.6 yards to the left, where a total dispersion between his furthest left and right shots. Of 143.9 yards. Now, later on in this lesson, we're gonna go over the week one drills. We basically just stuck to week one.
We didn't even get into week two and week three and week four, and really kept dialing it in. We just worked on week one. But later on, after we'd done the drills and I had him hit the crazy snap hooks and the crazy slices to the right, um, what I had him do is hit four shots where we just tested out what we'd already covered.
And I said, okay, let's go ahead. We've done all these crazy drills. Let's had try to hit four of them just as good as you could. Hit them straight down the middle, and let's see how that goes. His furthest left shot on those four was 19.6 yards to the left. His furthest right shot was 7.4 yards to the right.
Or 27 yards of dispersion. So we went from a 143.9 to start out to 27 yards of dispersion. Uh, after we went over the drills in this lesson, again, that's just week one. We didn't get into week two and week three. And I know this is just a one person sample set, but it shows you these are gonna be some crazy drills.
It's gonna feel like, I have no idea how this is gonna help me to hit it straight. How is hitting snap hooks and slices gonna help me to hit the ball straight? But this is kinda showing you how that really trains your body to get a feel for awareness of the club and finding the center, which is what this course is all about.
Now, on top of that, you'll see that his first 20, the pre-course 20 shots that we did before we ever did any instruction, those went 241.4 yards on average, and his average distance for the four shots after was 265.2 yards. So he picked up 24 yards roughly of distance. While he six Xed, his dispersion made it six times tighter, roughly.
So that's what we're gonna cover in the course. This is completely not edited. Shows the entire lesson from the beginning to end. Hope you guys enjoy it. Let's go and get started. Alright, hope you guys are doing well. I'm joining here with my, my buddy David. He's, uh, I played golf with him a few weeks ago.
I haven't really given him any lessons at all. And he said he is interested in trying out this straight driving masterclass and working on really straightening out the driver. And we're gonna have a lot of fun here. I warn him already that the drills are kind of crazy, that they may seem a little bit out there at first.
Uh, we just wrapped up his 20 shot pre-course test. I'll show you some more of the results of that, but then we're gonna retest it. 'cause what I believe is if you're working on the right things, you should be able to actually track your improvement. So if he's hitting it and they're kind of wild to begin with, or maybe there's more curvature on there than we want, then we should work on some drills and then turn around, retest him, and it should be better.
Right. Like that's, I don't think that's a lot to ask. If you're going to get a lesson, you should be able to actually measure it and see improvement, and that can do two things for you. Number one, if we're not on the right track, then it lets you know like, Hey, these ideas sound good. They're kind of fun to do, but I'm hitting it even worse than when I started.
Right? That doesn't do you any good. You don't wanna go out and pay for a lesson, no. And then hit your driver worse than when you hit it before. And number two is just as common, is if we actually measure it. We start to see those dispersions get tighter and tighter, but then it's easy to see something on TV or watch a new video and you're like, Hey, I wanna try out this new thing.
I'm really excited about this idea. And then all of a sudden your dispersion starts getting bigger again 'cause it's hurting what you're doing. And it's kinda like the shiny object effect there to where like, we're on the right track, we see the dispersions getting better and better. If we have the data to show it, then we can see we're on the, we're on a good track and we don't wanna get distracted by like new shiny objects.
So we're gonna jump into the drills here. I'm gonna start right from week one. We'll do drill one and drill two, at least today. We'll kind of convince that into one session here.
David: Okay.
Clay: And then, uh, and then we'll move forward from there. So the first thing I want to kind of explain here, so if you go ahead, actually I'm gonna face the camera here.
Okay. And a big part of what squares up the club facing gets it to release or to be open is how I move the handle. So, for example, if I have some lag here and you think about the hands are in front of the right leg, actually you stand right here so you can see me. Okay, and then I'll, I'll be able to face the camera.
Beautiful. So my hands are right here in the down swing. The hands are gonna be in front of the right leg when the club is basically parallel with the ground. Okay? You're gonna see that with really all great drivers of the golf ball,
David: Uhhuh.
Clay: Then from there, if I release the club, let's say I put a ball here just on the ground for a frame of reference,
David: okay?
Clay: So as I release the club. A lot of that is gonna square up the face. So you can imagine, like at this point in the swing, the face is pointing 90 degrees to the right. Mm-hmm. And then as the shaft releases, it's gonna be square. And as it comes on through, it's gonna turn on over. It'll actually turn on over a little bit more than, than like vertical with the ground.
So when the club's parallel to the ground and the release, the club face should actually be turned over a little bit more that way, or pointing down to the ground. Usually you're gonna see right after impact, the toe of the club is facing the target. When the club's like 45 to the ground. So when it gets parallel to the ground, it's gonna be even further than that.
That's like your stock, like dead straight driver when you're looking at, at pro swings. Okay. Now, one of the biggest factors that's gonna determine if the face is square. 'cause that's, that's what we talk about here in week one, is we gotta get control of the club face. If my club face is open, it's gonna slice or block.
If my club face is slam close, it's gonna hook or be a pull to the left. But the club face, if I don't have control of that. Nothing else I work on is gonna really matter. So for example, if I have a slice and I'm trying to swing more inside out, but the face is open, it just starts to the right and goes even further to the right.
It's terrible, right? Or if I'm trying to, if I got my swing to be fairly straight, but all of a sudden the face is slamming closed, it's gonna be a snap hook. So it's like until we get control of this, all the other stuff is not really gonna work that well. Now if I take this club and you imagine I just drag it toward the target, like I just.
Yank on this shaft toward the target. So if I'm hitting this way and I pull on it,
David: yeah.
Clay: The face is gonna open up. So if I'm really yanking on this club and dragging it toward the target, the face is gonna be really open and it's gonna be almost impossible to square it up. I might have to feel like I muscle through it or like it feels like all the momentum of the club is wanting to open, and then I have to muscle past that to barely get the face square.
Mm-hmm. The opposite of that would be like if I'm making a down swing, and you imagine like my left arm is a fan blade. And I'm letting this fan bait swing and my club is just tied onto it. Well, if I stopped my arm or the fan blade and just let the club go, you would see the face would turn way on over.
So depending on how we move the hands and arms, that's gonna, and how the club shaft releases, that's gonna be a big determinant of how the face squares up. So if I drag it through, it's gonna be held open. So you'll see if I just like pull it toward the target, it's gonna be open. No matter what I try, I won't be able to get it closed.
And if I stop my hands and let the club release, then it's gonna turn on over very easily. So what I'm trying to do in the beginning is really exaggerate that. I'm gonna walk you through the steps to say, let's get the face super closed at Impact. Get them to just go straight left, like you almost wanna hit those houses over there.
We're just gonna make little half swings where you're going back to here. Kind of filling these positions going to there. So it's just little small swings like this where you're just kinda making little half swings and hitting it. At first, we're gonna snap, hook the heck out of them. Okay? We're gonna slice the heck out of them.
Okay? And then from there we'll kind of have like the feelings of the two releases, and then we're just gonna work on, as we go through the course, trying to get that closer to being dead. Dead straight. So somewhere in the middle of that is perfectly straight drives. I mentioned there to you before. If we're looking out in the range, the, the pros are curving it very little.
So those palm trees out there that we talked about. Mm-hmm. They're only curving it from that palm tree to those flags. Like, so say 10 or 12 yards is the average amount of curve for a 300 yard drive. Yeah. So if I'm ever gonna get to where I hit a lot of fairways, I need to eliminate most of the curve.
That ball's curving more than five or 10 yards on a good drive. Then that's too much curve and I'm gonna really lose control of it. So it doesn't matter if it's slicing. A lot of times what people do is they'll have a slice and they'll be like, I wanna get rid of my slice and I'm gonna hit a hook. Yeah.
Well then when we replace it with a hook and it's just as bad as just going in the other direction. So I've gotta figure out how to slice it. How to hook it by using some really extreme drills here. And then once we fill that, then we're gonna gradually start to get this thing straighter and straighter as we go on through the, through the drills there.
So the first thing I want you to do, go ahead and set up here where we were hitting balls. And all I want you to do is you're gonna pause where that club's parallel to the ground in the downswing, so your right hands will be in front of your leg right around there. That would be good. And then we're gonna work on the really, the hook release is what I would call it.
'cause there's two different releases I'll teach you. So first, if this is down the target line, or actually I'll get an alignment stick here.
Lemme change this. Launch monitors so we can get a different club on there. Alright, so if, if this is the target line I'm hitting toward,
so about like that, if the club is parallel with that target line, that would be kind of straight, right? So this club shaft and the, and the stick on the ground are both going toward the target. If I'm gonna hook it, I'm definitely gonna be a little bit more inside if I start to get the club outside my hands.
Now you imagine when I'm trying to square the face up, it's really awkward. Mm-hmm. It's, it's very difficult to get it to, to the face to turn on over. Once I get it to the inside, it gets much easier to let that face roll on over into release like that. Okay. So that's the first checkpoint I would do here in this position.
I'd get the club head to the inside. The second one, again, we're trying to go as much hook as possible. If my face was really wide open, I've got a lot of ground to cover. Mm-hmm. To get it squared back up again. I'm gonna have to work hard to get the face square to the target. By the time I get down here, it's probably gonna be open.
Yeah. Vice versa. If I was really closed with the club, I got less work to do to square it up, so I'm gonna try to close this face down, have the shaft slightly inside. That would be kind of the first two checkpoints. Okay. Then from here, and this would be a big time hook, like when you're visualizing these shots, we're gonna hit.
Like they'll start dead left and then go even further, further left. Okay. Now when we go to Impact, again, if I drag the hands forward, you'll see that face is still wide open. It's pointing way out to the right.
David: Yep.
Clay: I wanna get the shaft to release until the face is closed at Impact.
David: Okay.
Clay: It'd be kinda like that.
And then when I, let's actually face the camera one time and show, show 'em what you just worked on there. So there's inside and closed, and then I keep on closing it. To when I get to the golf ball, I want this face to be turned down like that. I don't want it to be square. That would be a good shot. But again, I'm training the extremes here, so it'd be very closed.
And then go ahead and turn back the way we were before. And when you release it on this one, your hands are coming from the inside. They're gonna go out like this. And if I'm dragging the shaft, the shaft is gonna be over here like that. Mm-hmm. You see the face is open. Mm-hmm. If I fully release the shaft, we're gonna keep on going.
That would be. Snap hook territory. So you see his arms are out, the club shaft is all the way past the arms, and now the face is all the way down to the ground. So we're going really extreme here to where that would be, that would be snap hook. If we wanted to go even more, I could get this face even more closed.
So basically keep this position and face the camera again, so you're not moving that that club shaft is fully released. This would be the shaft on its way to releasing. This would be the shaft lagging behind. So the more I drag this shaft and keep it back, the more face open, the more I release that shaft, you can see the face closes down.
Mm-hmm. So that's kind of the real idea of how do I get the face to release and guarantee it's gonna release. A lot of that has to do with how you, how you release the shaft there. Okay. So the whole goal of this at the end of the day is I have to get the face closed when it hits the golf ball to get the ball to draw.
So if I'm swinging, if this is my target line and I'm swinging down my target line, yeah. As long as the face is closed to that target line, that ball is gonna draw. And if it's open to the target line, it's gonna fade. So at first, I just have to be able to, every time I swing, I don't know if it's gonna be five yards left in my target line with a face or 50 yards, but I gotta get it closed every single time.
So I know in my mind I'm like, yes, I can close this one when I want to. Mm-hmm. Then on the other side of it, we go. The exact opposite feelings of what we did here. We learned how to keep the shaft a little more back in the face open so that you can guarantee you keep the face open to the target line.
Gotcha. So until we get this down, we gotta get 10 shots in a row and these will be really easy. We've gotta hook 'em 10 in a row before we move on. Okay. And then we go to the slice side and we gotta slice 10 in a row. Okay. So then you have something you can actually count on. You're like, I don't know if it's gonna go here or there, but I guarantee it's gonna be on this side of the course.
Got it. If you got water on the left. You can guarantee it's going somewhere to the right. If you've got water on the right, you can guarantee it's going somewhere left, but that's kind of where we're gonna start with it. Perfect. So go ahead and make a few practice swings here without a ball. Okay. And I just want you to pause in those positions and I'll just check 'em to make sure that you're hitting them correctly.
Oh yeah. And from there, if I ha if I struggle to go back to the first position there again, so hands in front of the right leg, shafts in. If I struggle to get it to hook, do five times more than that. Like really turn it down. Yeah, like that. So what you'll notice with him, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but I'm gonna skip to this.
I'm gonna fast forward in the course a little bit. He has a fairly weak grip, so see how his wrist has to extremely bow to be able to get this face closed down. Go back to your normal setup again, actually face the camera and do it.
David: Okay?
Clay: And I want you to go ahead and strengthen this right arm even more for this example,
David: okay?
Clay: And strengthen this way over there. So this will be a really turn to the right grip. And then do the same thing again. Go back to where you're facing the target and show 'em that same, same position. Yeah. Go that way again. And then pause back there. Where we just, where we just went. Yeah. So now if you feel like you bow that wrist the same way you did before, so really turn it down, you could get it almost backwards.
So how strong your grip is is gonna determine how much you can close the face. Ideally what we would do is if we're struggling to hook it, we would make it a little stronger and really exaggerate it to hook it. And then if we struggled to fade it, we'd go the other way with our grip. But somewhere in the middle there is gonna be a grip that we could hit a draw or a fade with.
And that's what you wanna find. And everybody's a little bit different. Like if you look at Matt Fitzpatrick, his grip is gonna be really strong. Mm-hmm. You look at like being Ben Hogan, his grip's gonna be really weak. So they're doing a combination of things that, from that one grip, they could fade it or draw it.
David: Okay.
Clay: And that's what we're looking for is something that's neutral for your individual swing, not just like a blanket.
David: Yeah.
Clay: Like, you know. Cookie cutter type approach to it. Cool. So let's hit that position one more time. Again.
David: You want me to strong grip?
Clay: Uh, let's use whatever you can. Just, let's start out, we'll see if you have trouble hooking it, we'll go to the strong grip.
Okay. But just do your normal grip. For now, I'm just kinda letting people know if they're struggling, they gotta get it more closed. And now from here, go ahead and release that club. So it would be closed as impact. And pause for me. You see already how when you first did that, the face wanted to be open,
David: right?
It wanted to be
Clay: open. Yeah. You could feel that. It's
like,
David: like, oh wait, hold on. Lemme change it.
Clay: Yeah. So that's the big thing is like this is the only piece that matters.
David: Yeah.
Clay: So what it probably feels like to you is you were probably getting the club face strong there, and then you just drug it forward.
Right? If I want to get it closed with impact, I have to release the shaft. If I went really extreme and I said, get the face where it's pointing to your left shin. You're gonna have to be back here like this. So this would be opening it?
David: Yeah.
Clay: That would be closing it. And we're going super extreme here.
David: Sure.
Clay: But that's what I wanna do at first.
David: Okay.
Clay: So go ahead and do that one more time, just so you can get the feel of it. Yep. And we'll do, we'll do less of that, right? That's that's way, way extreme
David: here.
Clay: And then There you go. That's it. And now go to the release again where your arms come out here so your arms would be out.
David: All right.
Clay: And then these forearms are gonna be completely rolled over each other. The shaft is gonna be pointing.
David: Gotcha.
Clay: That way.
David: Okay.
Clay: Because every, every degree, I get it. This way, the face wants to go more open. Yeah. Which would means it would be more open back here.
David: Gotcha.
Clay: Every bit I do that. Now the face is super, super closed.
So if you really did what we're talking about here, the ball would just shoot into the ground. 'cause every degree you close the face, it also takes a degree loft off. So a typical pro has about 15 degrees of loft to impact. If we close it. 20 degrees.
David: Yeah,
Clay: it's negative five degrees. This is gonna shoot off into the woods over there, which is kind of what I wanna have in the beginning, to be honest.
David: Okay.
Clay: Let's do, let's do two or three of those just kind of pausing here. At first, I wanna make sure that's good
David: right here.
Clay: Looks perfect. Yep. Perfect. Now go ahead and gimme the release. And then the release it is the releases. This, the more that does that, the more it releases. So what I'm doing there is I'm keeping his arms out toward me and I'm letting the shaft pass him.
The more it goes this way, the more it wants to stay open. So feel more handy, I guess. So typical. So typically when you, yeah, so like you're gonna feel like these wrists, like the forearms almost be touching and it's really going over there. It'd be a little bit lower like that, but you can see like right here between those forearms, they've completely rolled over to where they're touching each other, almost like making an X.
And if I did the opposite of that and drug it like a chicken wing, I would have a little bit of this where the forearms are really, that's me holding the shaft off and not letting it go. Okay. Yeah,
David: that's more
Clay: So all I'm doing right here is I'm making sure that he understands the concepts and can do them slowly and until he can do them slowly and hit all the right positions, then there's no point in speeding up.
If we go really slow here, when he goes to the speeding up part, it will, you'll be able to move right through it. But if he doesn't have the concepts right here then, and we skip this, then we're gonna have to come back and go back and forth. It takes forever. Gotcha. So go ahead and do it one more time, just kind of pausing.
I'll make sure you got 'em all. So if it was still slicing, what would you feel from that position? This, if it was still slicing and you wanted to close it more.
David: Oh, bend it down there.
Clay: Yeah, there you go. Perfect. All right.
David: And then,
Clay: yep. And now you can see the face is super closed here. So he is Got that. Yep.
And then go ahead and let the, the shaft release. And now this is down to the ground. That would be just that way that wouldn't even get in the air. Yeah. So now that you got that down, that looks, that all looks great. Okay. And again, like he just learned, I've never told him any of this stuff before, like he's never heard any of this.
Like it doesn't take five or 10 minutes to kind of get it. Pretty good. Yeah. Let's do a few practice swings now to where you're feeling those positions, but you're just moving through 'em without any pauses. Just trying to get, you know, kind of halfway back, halfway through, almost like you're gonna hit one.
Like if I was gonna hit a ball. Yeah. I'll show you what I would, how I would do it. You can stand right over here on this side.
David: Alright.
Clay: Don't stand left of me. I'll hit you. So I'm just kind of filling this and then releasing it and then going to here and really release it. So you see how the shaft is almost like, yeah.
Way over there. I wouldn't want it to be that way. Right. I'm gonna go really extreme. Okay. And then when I hit these shots, I'm gonna do little small ones like this. Right. And it's just going dead. Left worm burner. Yeah. Which is like, why the heck would I, why are we doing this again? But once you feel the extreme, then it's easy to like.
If you hit a little bit of a slice, uhhuh, it's so easy to tap into like a little bit of that, like a little goes a long way, you know? Okay. So let's do a few fuel fluid ones. Take, take 20 or 30 seconds, a couple minutes or whatever, and just make some practice swings and just fill those without any pauses.
Yeah.
Yep. Do it one more time. Pause in the finish for me
David: right here is kind of,
Clay: yeah. So see how, what it looks like to me. That's perfect. I could even go, I could even let that wrist hinge back up and go that way. That's really extreme. Okay. But what it looks like to me is you're wanting to drag it a little bit.
The face is open and it's like almost square, and then right here you're kind of doing that.
David: Okay.
Clay: So I feel like it goes ahead and starts the, the shaft starts to release.
David: That's
Clay: almost
David: like I'm doing
Clay: Yeah, that's exactly what it's like
David: less, yeah. I guess I'm so used to dragging it that I need to just. If the, I'm just stalling.
Clay: What really happens is with pros. That's exactly right. 'cause what people don't realize is like if you measure the hand speed on a tour player, at this point in the downswing, their hands are moving like 25 miles an hour. I go this way. Hands are moving 25 miles an hour at impact. They slow down to anywhere between like five to 10 miles an hour.
Oh wow. So the hands slow down to let the shaft release. If I keep my hands dragging toward the target for too long, there's no way I can square the face up. That's why you had a lot of those that you feel like you try to draw 'em. And they just keep on going to the right. Yeah. And then you have to really muscle through it and then all of a sudden it snap hooks.
Okay. So it's like the timing of me letting, letting me release this shaft is what allows me to get that ball to turn on over. Okay. And draw. So it feels like some of it may say like, oh, like I'm stalling, or I'm stopping my hands. And the club's like flipping way past. Mm-hmm. That's kind of what's going on with really good players to a certain degree.
We're going way exaggerated here. Yeah. But like 10% of that. Would be what's going on. And most people get way too fast with the hands. Yeah. And then they can't square up the face.
David: Okay.
Clay: So let's give it a few more.
David: So
Clay: that's exactly right. Face the camera and do that one.
David: Uh,
Clay: yeah. So it seems insane 'cause you're like, that's so handsy.
David: It's like I just stop here and let it go. Yeah.
Clay: This is exactly right. And you watch a lot of pros, you know, you'll see 'em where they hit these shots and it's like, you know, and everything's like done by here. Yeah. And they hit it like 200 yards with the five iron or a six iron or something.
It's the efficiency of letting the club shaft go and get the speed from that. Now he's exaggerating it there. We're not gonna be that handsy when we're really hit one, but that would be the extreme to where I could really, really hook it. And you'll notice like when he did that, he had a ton of lag. Tons of lag and then he was able to release it still.
So if I'm struggling with casting it a lot, well then I drag my hands through. I can't ever get the the shaft to get a bunch of lag and release. Like if you want a lot of lag, if I have a lot of lag here, my hand's dagg on, better slow down to let that shaft release. 'cause like LA, the more lag you have, the faster the club shaft has to release.
So if I start casting it out, well, I have no other choice but to just drag it on through and now the face stays open. It feels like it's really tough to time it. Okay, so let's do, uh, we may not do the full 10, but I wanna get to where when you hit this little mini shot, try to make it look like I did on mine, where it's just the face is gonna feel like it's dead closed.
And then if you mess it up, we'll go slow again and Okay. So you can get a few in a row.
David: I'm still going about here.
Clay: Yeah, just little half swings. I mean, you may feel like you're only gonna hit 60, 70 yards or whatever. Okay. I just wanna make it go way left. That's all I care about.
David: Gotcha.
Clay: There you go. So big time hook on that.
If you would've swung full speed, that would've snap hooked. Like Yeah. 90 yards, right? You notice how it went super low. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, when people are doing these drills, they're like, this is the point where you're like, this is kind of silly. I'm gonna look like a fool. In the range, it is just hitting warm burners.
But if I skip this and I try to, uh, if I try to make this look like a good shot, then I really don't know how to do more of it when things speed up. Mm-hmm. If I really go slow and get these to really turn over when things get going faster and I'm swinging faster, I'll kind of have a little bit more of the feel of a timing of like what the extreme is.
I can feel it a lot easier. Yeah. So like the slower you go with this, the more you really own it and really snap, hook it. Okay. Then as we progress to other things, they'll go really quickly as you go through there.
David: Same thing.
Clay: Yep, same thing. Gimme like, I just wanna know that you can do it every time. So like three or four shots.
We won't do the whole 10 here.
David: Where
Clay: did, yeah, that went almost dead straight. A little bit to the left. I had like two yards of draw on it.
David: I felt like a little bit of drag.
Clay: Yeah. So then I would go, go back to Impact again.
David: Okay.
Clay: So pause right at Impact for me. So I would say, okay, we don't wanna get the hands behind the golf ball necessarily.
David: Okay.
Clay: They're gonna be like that. But how would you close that face? Another 30 degrees
David: more wrist.
Clay: Yeah. Like that. So fill this position.
David: Okay.
Clay: And like internalize it for a minute and say, okay, now visualizing your mind, how would I move into this position so that my club's moving through here? And I would still get to that.
And like one big part about the motor learning research and like what actually makes someone improve is like, you gotta go slow and, and think, how would I. How would I do this when I swing? Mm-hmm. And then do five or 10 practice swings to really feel that.
David: I mean, I'm just feeling like I'm just ripping that wrist down.
Clay: Yeah. So far down. There you go. And when I'm looking at that one, that club face is literally pointing like over there at Impact. Yeah. It's super, super closed. Yeah. So the last ball went, it flew here and it probably had like three yards of draw on it.
David: Okay.
Clay: So we just wanna get all those running into the woods.
Oops.
David: I gotta feel just completely Alright.
Clay: There you go. That was world class right there. That was, that was so closed. I loved it.
I'm telling you, it's like, 'cause it feels like. When you're doing it, you're like, this can't be good. I had a 15 yard drive. Yeah, that went straight left. Like, this is silly. Lemme just go back to hitting him. Good. But I, you gotta trust me here a little bit. This is the, the better we do here, the better it'll go as we progress along.
Oh man. He's on fire now. Watch out left.
David: I know.
Clay: Yeah. That was great. Hey, gimme one
David: doesn. It matter where it's hitting on the face.
Clay: I don't care about any of that right now. We get to that later in the course, but you know, if I can't close the face every time, then none of the other stuff's gonna matter.
'cause I, 'cause I might hit it better on the face, but then it's spraying out to the right or left. Like I just gotta get, that's a big part of the learning too. I don't talk about this a lot in the courses, but during the, like the motor learning research shows, I gotta get specific, meaning I, I practice on like one variable at a time.
Okay. So like, if I'm. Whiffing the ball. I don't care, as long as the face is closed, at this point I wanna own this thing. Mm-hmm. So I wanna know when I get done with these drills, I can definitely close it when I want to. I may not even have any idea how to hit on the face, but I want to own this thing.
Then when I move on to the next thing, which would be swing path, while I already own the first thing, I don't even really have to worry about it so much. Now I can pair those up a lot easier. Gotcha. But a lot of people, what'll happen, and this is why I'm kind of. I'm joking around here a little bit. A lot of times people will draw a ball two, three yards and they'll say, oh, that's good.
Good enough. Like that's pretty close to where I want it to be. They'll be way better off by hitting those like you did the last few shots way left. So they can really own this face closing. Because if I'm only drawing it two or three yards here and then I add another piece, well maybe the face will be open and Gotcha.
You know, I'll be like back to square one. Yeah, exactly. So I warned you the drills will be crazy.
David: Yeah, no, this is good.
Clay: Dude, that's so good. That's hard to do, to be honest with you. Like that's so different than what any kind of normal swing would be. That was, it's impressive. Like how quickly you've got it. So let's say that we did that and we did 10 in a row. I think he's got it nailed. You hit five in a row there, the way left.
Now, if I wanted to go to the slice side, which you don't really struggle with the slice side, typically your face is mostly open when you're doing it. Yeah. But we'll do the exact same progression here and we'll just go the opposite way. So go back to when the club's in front of the, the right leg. And pause for me now on the draw one, we wanted to be inside so we could bring it in here and release it.
Mm-hmm. On the fade one, we're gonna practice being outside. This is gonna feel way to the left. Yeah. It's almost like my hands wanted to go here and this way when I was drawing it.
David: Yeah.
Clay: They're gonna go out here. And then to the left when I'm fading it. Right, because now if I get my hands out here, I can really pull on the shaft and keep it back.
David: Mm-hmm.
Clay: If I get my hands in here, I can slow my hands down and release the shaft a lot easier. So club shaft out. It was closed on the draws so we could really close it. We're gonna go really open on the fades. Now this, again, this, most people don't need to go very extreme on this 'cause they have no problem slicing it.
But I just wanna, I wanna do at least a few of these so we can really feel the differences. Okay. Then when I come to impact. I'm gonna be leading the way with my, my club shaft leaning forward. So go ahead and face the camera one more time. Show me that draw or uh, uh, fade impact or slice impact like we just worked on.
So the shaft is staying ahead, the hands are racing ahead the whole time. Now go back to the draw one and pause at the at the hook impact. Yeah, you see the difference? So if that shaft starts to go this way, face wants to open. If that shaft releases, it's gonna be there. So this is my hook release. This is my slice release.
Okay. So go back to the slice again.
David: Facing them or this way?
Clay: Yeah. So go ahead and go face that way. Go back to the slice again. Like, uh, like you're hitting toward the target again.
David: Oh, the target.
Clay: And then once you go through, now come through where the club's parallel to the ground on the follow through and it's gonna be the exact opposite.
So my hands are now gonna be way over here.
David: Yeah.
Clay: The face is gonna be toward the sky and the shaft is in right now. You think like. That would be, there's no way to get the ball to go left from or to hook it all from there.
David: Yeah.
Clay: So do, do a few now where you just feel, feel that slice release with the face open cans, go left and you're kind of holding it off
David: a second.
This?
Clay: Yeah. And it, go ahead and do it a few more times. I'll, I'll kind of get you a little bit more
David: so here.
Clay: Yeah. And you notice like we'll go a little bit more like that. Okay. Like that's more realistic.
David: Yeah. Yeah,
Clay: like almost like you're gonna take a, take your hand and karate chop something. Yeah. You know, you're just gonna go outside in.
Yeah. Big time. We don't wanna do too many of those 'cause it's like working on something that's already a bit of a problem. You know
David: what I'm good at?
Clay: So, uh, do a few more where you actually do some fluid ones and then we'll hit like one or two just to show that you can slice it and you'll notice like when you do that, the right shoulder, like when you do the hook one.
The shoulder has to feel like it almost tucks in here. Mm-hmm. It stays closed and then this shoulder stays that hand releases. Right?
David: Mm-hmm.
Clay: When you do the slice one, go ahead and get 'em out here. Mm-hmm. That shoulder feels like it just keeps on coming forward.
David: Okay.
Clay: To hold it off, right? Yeah. Yeah. So part of being able to release the shaft.
'cause I'm, I'm for right-handed player. You're feeling the right arm. Mostly if that shoulder stays back, now I can release the club and turn the shaft on over. If most players that struggle with slice, that shoulder starts to come over the top and just keeps on going. Well, now there's no way I can release the, the club.
Okay, so let's hit like one, one slice, one big mega slice, and then we will, we won't do too much of that.
David: Okay. Go for it.
Clay: Yeah, go for it.
Nailed it. Easy work.
David: Yeah.
Clay: Yeah. So like that one's, and, and I think that would be the case for most players. Most players don't have trouble slicing it. You don't. What it is is you just have to, you can keep the hands going and it just holds the face open. And some, most players have done that at some point in their life, so they kind of know the feeling of that.
I wouldn't spend, like, if you slice two in a row and you have no problem doing it. Normally we say, go ahead and hit 10 in a row before you move on. I would only do that if you have a trouble fading it. So if you're hooking, hooking, hooking, and you have to feel like you work really hard to slice it, go ahead and do your 10 in a row.
If you started this out and you sliced every single shot to to start, there's no need to go ahead and hit 10 slices in a row because we're dis ingraining the opposite of what we're really wanting to get to Anyways. So now what I would work as I go through this course again. And between now when we meet again, I do these daily drills.
So just like five minutes a day, all I want you to do is toggle back and forth between those two, two different drills. Okay. So I'm gonna go one like this where I club's inside face is closed. Mm-hmm. I release it with the face closed and then from there I go and release my, my club this way to where the face is down to the ground, it's fully closed.
So I do my, and I and I do that like kind of a fluid swing like this. And I say, yeah, I know that would hook. Then I go and do the exact opposite face open outside my hands, face open at impact, right? And there's my slice. And I would just do like five minutes a day to where you just go back and forth between those.
And then when you're doing those, try to make it in your mind, like visualize where the ball would've flown. And if it didn't feel like it really would've hooked. Like even if you're doing all the motions, but you're like, it still feels like it's gonna slice. I gotta go more extreme until in my mind it feels like it's gonna hook.
Okay. So let's do a handful of those and just see how that holds together. Okay. You can let me know if it feels like it would've sliced and hooked when you're doing it.
I feel like it may have been straight
David: a little bit. I feel like I pulled it and then tried.
Clay: Yep. So go ahead and do that one more time. Yep. So when you're coming in here, go go ahead and go to the back swing again. Okay. All right. So pause when the hands are in front of your leg. So make sure these hands get a little more in.
Okay. So I don't want 'em to get too far out. 'cause the farther out they go, the more they wanna go this way.
David: Mm.
Clay: Okay. The farther in they are here, the more they wanna go out into our, into our, um, our hook release.
David: Okay.
Clay: So get the hands a little more in back here. Shaft in, it's closed. Then when you're coming down to the release.
I'm gonna go ahead and release it there.
David: Mm-hmm.
Clay: And it should feel comfortable 'cause my hands are out. Like if I try to put my hands over here and do that, it gets really weird.
David: Yeah.
Clay: Want my hands gonna go out this way and get that shaft release.
David: Gotcha.
Clay: Does it feel fairly comfortable when you're doing it?
Does anything bother your wrist or hurt it all or anything like that?
David: Um, I think when I'm trying to rip it down,
Clay: yeah.
David: Sometimes it hurts a little bit. It feels weird just because I'm not used to it at all.
Clay: Yeah. So when you're doing these drills too, like you're at home practice ones. You wanna make it feel completely fluid, like how would I, 'cause a lot of it'll have to do with how you position your body.
David: Yeah.
Clay: So like if my body's way outta position, I'm trying to jam the club back in there. Gotcha. It might feel weird, but if I close my body, it's like, oh, I can really much more easily. Yeah. So you're gonna feel like on these, go ahead and go back to there again. So you'll start to notice how when you close your shoulders more this way.
Mm-hmm. It's like, oh, that gets a lot easier. Feels better. Yeah. Right. And then if I'm struggling to get my wrist turned down as much. Mm-hmm. Then I would take a little stronger grip. So it's more comfortable too. Okay, gotcha. Right. So I'm just trying to figure out how to make this comfortable when I'm doing both of these mo motions.
And that's why you kind of gotta do 'em. And you, you notice how you're kind of like dragging, dragging, dragging at the last second. It's going right. Feel like it happens all the way. All the way through. So like if I was gonna do this, and I'll face the camera. Okay. When I'm doing this little drill. It's gonna start to release there and gradually release the whole time.
So I don't want to go, I don't want to go like this and get all the way over here. Okay. So my hands have gone way too far in front and I still have all this big angle. Okay. And then I feel like at the last second, I gotta, I gotta go like that. I want it to feel like it's just kind of smooth. Like the head is already going ahead and rolling on over.
So she kinda looked like that. Does that make sense?
David: Yeah.
Clay: Try a few more of those.
David: Right now what I'm doing is, I'm getting too far here.
Clay: Yeah. Now you don't have any time. Yeah.
David: I need to feel like I'm here.
Clay: Yep.
Yep. So give, let's actually face the camera this way and I'll, I'll lead you through it.
David: Alright.
Clay: So you go ahead and do the first position and pause. And then from there you're gonna feel like this is already releasing. All right. And it keeps on going the whole time, so it should feel very smooth. So it's like a constant release the whole time.
That one was a little late.
David: Okay.
Clay: I moved you in the wrong spot. This would be a little early. I could really hook that one, right?
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clay: This would be a little late.
David: Okay.
Clay: This would be early again. Does that make sense? Yeah. So if I really wanted to, to hit one. Yeah. You good?
David: All right, so early, late.
Clay: Show 'em that one again. 'cause I think that's an awesome thing you just did there. So do the early one.
David: Early.
Clay: Yeah. So again, like we're not trying to learn how to swing the club here. We're trying to learn cause and effect. We're trying to learn how do I get the shaft to release early? How do I get it till they release late?
Like, we're not even worried about turning this into a drive yet. I'm just trying to learn like what pieces make the different things happen.
David: Okay.
Clay: So I love that. Try to do like four or five more just filling it.
David: I feeling like the middle. Trying to get it in the middle or,
Clay: yeah, just, just go whatever you feel like you make a good hook, swing, whatever you think it should be.
Yeah. Yep. And that would be super early. That feels like it's definitely gonna hook now. Right.
David: And then do we want me to, so do the fade or no?
Clay: Yeah, do the fade now. So where you go, you're gonna go one hook and then one fade. One good hook, I should say. And then one good fade. One good hook. One good slice.
You know, back and forth.
Yep. Now let's do the fade side or the slice side, I should say. So you'll notice when you did that, you got the club inside for the hook swing, and then it felt like it was like hard to get it back. Yeah. So now go, go back to the slice one again. Pause for me right here, and then we're gonna go hands out.
David: Oh,
Clay: that far. This is gonna be up, right? I'm really exaggerating here. Okay. Because I gotta make space for my hands to go that way. Oh, okay. Right. So if my hands get in here, how am I gonna get 'em to go back that way? It's almost impossible. They're gonna go, they're gonna go more hook. So hook feel. So I'm feeling like I'm out here,
David: so even on my back swing, I'm kind of just going here.
Clay: Yeah, it's gonna feel like that.
David: Wow.
Clay: I'm talking like way exaggerated.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright. So
Clay: yeah. See yeah. That's good though. That's it.
David: Okay. And then here, this is the,
Clay: yep. And gimme another fade one. Yep. Perfect. Yeah. Gimme like five more of those goes going back and forth. Five or six. Good.
And when you do that one, that one's a little awkward. Go ahead and finish the swing there again. So you. That club's gonna feel like it's more down like that. Oh, okay. Right. That probably feels comfortable. 'cause you're dragging, the hands are leading away. Yeah. What you're doing is you still released a little bit, then it got kind of weird.
David: Okay.
Clay: So the, the fade one's almost like I'm taking my hands out and I'm just karate chopping, like my hand just kind of stops there. Okay. Across me. And then the release one is I'm, or the, the hook one is I'm coming in here and I feel like I'm throwing my hand out that way. Yeah. That's the hook. That's, that's a perfect hook, swing right there.
David: So it's, so hook would be,
Clay: that's it.
David: And then
Clay: that's a ball that would start like over these trees and then just like sling back in.
David: Okay. And then the fade would be more here.
Clay: Yeah. That would be,
David: I still feel like I'm bowing it, but it's 'cause I'm, I'm bowing it because I'm dragging it so much.
Clay: Yeah. But you gotta get your hands more.
I'll, I'll go one more time. Keep your hands on there.
David: Yep.
Clay: So you're gonna feel like your hands come out here and then as they come down, it's gonna be there. And then these hands are going way more left.
David: Oh,
Clay: like that?
David: I mean, this feels weird too, it feels
Clay: like, is that Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be awkward.
David: Okay.
Clay: Right, because I'm going way extreme here. Like nobody could really hit the ball like this. Yeah,
David: yeah. Okay.
Clay: So the fade is gonna be, um, here, I'm almost like I'm creating a big gap for my hands to go away left. And I'm just going like that. That would be a giant slice. And then I'm doing the exact opposite when I do the draw coming in here.
Throwing it that way. So it's like my hands going like this. Yeah. And my palm's down. I'm going like this and my palm's up.
David: That would be more,
Clay: yeah. Like if I was gonna hit a wicked slice. Yeah, go ahead and go back to, to impact again. I'll, I'll feel, show you what you'd feel like. Yeah. So go back to there and then I would, I would hold off on it.
Eventually it has to release and it would be like, it'd be like this somewhere at the face way open. So if you're gonna start it over those trees and like way slice it, I'd have to get way out here. I'd have to hold it. And then. It'll be like that.
David: Okay.
Clay: Yeah. We don't have to worry about that one much to be honest. 'cause like you already know how to fade it.
David: Yeah. So,
Clay: oh yeah. That's so good. Show 'em the, show 'em the draw one again. Facing the camera.
Yeah. So you can see it's exaggerated.
David: Yeah. Yeah. I can feel it like flipping over.
Clay: Yeah. So do you feel like it's flipped over pretty far at impact on that one? Or do you feel like it's still a little square?
David: Um, yeah, I couldn't,
Clay: yeah. It feels like it's gonna be closed to me. Yeah. I think it's pretty good.
David: I feel, I mean, it's way more than what I've been doing.
Clay: Yeah.
David: You know, it's just,
Clay: so let's, let's try a couple here to where. Make a few of what you would think would be, we're gonna kind of skip around the course a little bit. Okay. Make a few practice swings of what now you would say is like a normal swing that's gonna hit it dead straight. So just do your best guess to make a full swing now practice swing.
Okay. So you can get a few full swings under your belt without going so extreme. And just your best guess of what you think would be straight after what we've talked about.
David: So don't hit the ball back.
Clay: Yeah. Just practice swing here.
David: Okay.
Clay: Yep. I looked pretty good. You feel like it was open or closed at impact? Can you tell? Can
David: drag it a little bit?
Clay: So on this one, all I want you to do is again, like that right hand okay? Is gonna come in here and when you come in impact, it's gonna be turning over and it's gonna end up over here to really, to really get it to turn around.
So I want this, the club head, if you imagine my right hand is the club head. It's going in there, it's wrapping around the outside of the ball and ended up over here. It's gonna kick in that way a little bit, but I want my hands going that way. My hands are going way out here. Yep. Does that make sense?
David: Yeah.
Clay: Like, that looks like a massive hook. Now
David: it looks good. Like I'm pushing
Clay: and that, that wouldn't be good. That would be a, yeah, that would be a, you're swinging way out to the right and then hooking the heck out of it. Yeah,
David: yeah,
Clay: yeah. That's it. So you see, a lot of times, like pros will have their, uh. They will have this really long finish. Like a lot of times people will be struggling with like a chicken wing type move. Like, man, I can't figure out why I'm doing that while I'm casting it. And then pushing the club through air rather than letting it get to here and letting it release.
Like when you're doing those where you let it roll on over, you're, you're really long through there. It looks just like what you would see, like with players on TV kind of thing. Okay. Let's go a few now where it feels like 80% swing speed. So imagine you're gonna hit a ball now and just no ball, just practice swing.
Looks good. Let's go a little faster. That looks awesome.
David: I'm trying to feel, let the love that go.
Clay: Yeah. So now we're gonna try, um, this is like skipping around on the course a little bit. Let's try to hit one. And then wherever it goes. Yeah. We'll just go back to exaggerating the opposite feeling. So if it slices, yeah. We'll work on a few more draw releases. If it hooks we'll do a few more feeling like it slices until we kinda straighten it out a little bit.
But I wanna show you like, you're gonna have a noticeable difference here, um, just even after this first, you know, half hour or so.
David: Yeah. Alright, go for it.
Clay: Yep. Yeah. Give it a rip. No bad shots. I don't care where it goes. We'll, we will adjust from there.
What about that? Yeah, that was crazy.
David: All right, we're done.
Clay: Yeah, so I think what it's really sh so like that was your, one of your straightest ones. It still faded a little bit. It did. The cool thing is that ball carried 2 63. Mm. And your your ones in the beginning were carrying about that you actually swung seven or eight miles an hour slower.
'cause you're kind of tentative. Yeah. If you go back to your normal swing speed and you get the ball to release kinda like that, you'll, you'll probably carry it 'cause you were swinging like 117 pretty fast. You'll probably carry it ballpark, like 2 90, 300. Yeah. Because you've got enough swing speed. Like Scotty Scheffler swings one 18.
Okay. You were swinging one 17.
David: Yeah.
Clay: Like your swing speed is really high.
David: Okay.
Clay: So like. That's a good quality shot you hit there. Now I would be picky on it. If it was me,
David: you would be picky.
Clay: And I, I would say that ball still faded like five or 10 yards maybe.
David: Yeah, I wasn't hoping.
Clay: So then I would go back to my, my hook releases.
Okay. And I would do a few more of those. And in my mind I would be like, okay, I know what the last one felt like. I'm gonna try to do whatever I feel like I need to do to get that one to draw 10 more yards or 15 more yards. So try to do a few practice swings. And it, and it take your time with it and say, be honest with yourself and say, does that actually felt like that would've drawn 10 or 15 more yards than the last one?
And what'll happen is the more practice swings you do, that'll feel more like your normal swing. Like that last swing, you didn't feel like you swung different than normal, that much. A little different. You felt like you drew a little more. I tried it, but all of a sudden it had 30 yards less slice on it.
So the more of these hook swings you do, if you go back in two weeks after doing a lot of hook swings and you feel like you make a completely normal swing with no adjustments, it'll probably be drawing. Okay. And I'll need to feel like I'm doing a little less of that and a little more fate. You know what I mean?
Like I'm always just, I'm looking at the ball, flight, whatever it's doing. I'm trying to make a few practice swings to get it back on track and then repeating the process. Okay. And then eventually I'll get to where I feel like I make my normal swing. It goes straight. And then I don't have anything to work on.
Yeah. Perfect. Okay.
Gimme one more little faster. While you're doing that,
David: get another one. You said
Clay: one more practice swing where you're going a little faster. So it's more like a real swing. We'll see how it holds up. Yep. So now let's go ahead and hit another ball.
David: You want me to go full?
Clay: Whatever screw you're comfortable with, we don't have to go full rip.
We can always swing faster once we get it dialed in. You can go as hard as you want to. You at that? Yeah. That is so good. Yeah. We need to quit now. I feel like I wanna stop the video.
That was great. I'd say that was probably like a dead straight shot. I mean the wind kind of. Pushed it a few yards of draw, but that was awesome.
David: I didn't
Clay: hit full, but
David: lemme find a
Clay: team. No, I mean that's still your swing speed was one 12 on that one. Okay. Which would be like kinda low end of what you'd see on Tour Uhhuh.
Um, like Luke Donald when he was number one player in the world, he swinging like one 12.
David: Oh, really?
Clay: Okay. Yeah. Rory swinging like 1 26. We'll see if we can get to Rory Yeah. Here in a little bit. But, uh, no, that's an awesome start. So like, let's just go ahead and hit a few more.
This is insane. This is so good. That was wild. Yeah. Pretty much dead straight. Maybe had a couple yards of F on it. With the winds pushing it back left, but that was, that was pretty much dead straight.
David: I mean, I feel like I'm in a full swing. I feel like I'm just doing as much as I can.
Clay: Yeah.
David: But in reality I'm not.
Clay: You're dead straight. Like if you look at it on video, you'd be like, oh, it's just dead straight. Because I mean, your path on that last one was, um,
look on here.
2.6 to the right.
David: Okay.
Clay: So tour players would be within two degrees a zero.
David: Okay.
Clay: So if I'm 2.6 to the right, I'm swinging just a little more than a tour player inside out. Okay. A lot inside out would be like eight or nine, something like that. So you're, you're one minute on a clock is six degrees. Yeah. So you're a third of a minute.
Like if you think about My club is moving. One third of a minute to the right of the target. Like it's barely anything. So you feel like you're going like, you're going like this. Yeah.
David: That's what it's, yeah.
Clay: But when you look at it on the numbers, you see the ball flight, it's, that's just dead straight.
David: Gotcha.
Clay: And now you got the club like really whipping through there. Mm-hmm. It feels like it's a lot less effort too, doesn't it? Yeah. Like the club's just taking off, you know?
David: Yep. I'm just letting, I mean, what it really feels like is I'm letting the club release, I guess. 'cause usually I'm just, I'm always here.
Clay: Yeah. Just show that to the camera again. One more time. That's, that's the perfect way. If I wanted to slice it, I would do the first thing you said. Right. Because if that shaft never kicks Yeah. Like go to impact and show me that. So look how open the face is. 'cause I've drug the shaft forward and then we get tired of slicing it.
So we're like, man, I gotta slam it shut. And then we'll kinda like manipulate it with our hands. Yeah. And it's like you try to like roll it shut, but there's no way to get it shut. Whereas if I just take the shaft and go there now I do the same thing with my hands. Now it's gonna be way shut. So like how much the shaft releases.
How much it, it kicks through here is how much lag you can have, how fast you can release your lag. And it's also gonna help with, with the club face closing down. Okay. So if I'm dragging the shaft, it's like a full-time job just to get it to draw like a yard, you know? Yep. Now if I'm releasing the shaft too much, I'd be snap hooking it.
David: Yeah.
Clay: And I might wanna feel a little bit more of that. Okay. That drags, like somewhere in the middle is always good.
A nice ball.
David: A little toy.
Clay: Yeah. And that's where, so week one we go over face. So now we've learned how to really hook it. Mm. We've learned how to find the middle a little bit. We kind of skipped ahead a little bit on that, but week one is all about the face. Okay. And then week two is about the path.
Meaning can I swing the club at inside out to get a draw or outside in to get a fade? Uhhuh. And I wanna be able to not only curve it the right direction, but also like start to the right and draw it back or start to left and fade it back. Mm-hmm. And then week three we go over like actually striking it on the face and work on that.
So for right now, like I wouldn't care if you hit all of them off the Zel or the tow, like we can easily get to that. Okay. Like later on. Um. So let's do see how much time we got here. Yeah, that's about it for today. Let's actually skip over into, um, what I would normally do here at the end of the first week Okay.
Would be, let's try to toggle back and forth between a draw and a fade. So I'd like for you, just for these last couple shots, to try to purposely get one to draw. And then as soon as you do that, you're gonna do what's called a wind shift loose stay. So I'm gonna try to draw it. As soon as I draw it, I'm gonna go back and hit a fade.
Okay. As soon as I fade it, I'm gonna hit a draw. We don't have to do, usually I have players do 10 total successful shots. Okay. We'll just do a couple of them. Alright. But like those last few shots have really been dead straight or almost a little bit of a fade on 'em. Mm-hmm. Let's try to get 'em to curve another five or 10 yards.
Let's, let's, this is the thing that I think helps players the most, and this is the hardest thing to do with this whole deal. You start hitting him good. Like he said, the last five shot's. Awesome. And everything in your body is saying, I'm not messing with anything. Like I am not gonna change my grip. Yeah.
I'm not gonna change my feel. Like I don't care what you tell me to do. I don't wanna mess anything. I'm afraid I'm gonna lose it. The problem is if we do that, we will lose it eventually, and then we'll have no idea how to get it back.
David: Yep.
Clay: So we're actually gonna mess it up right here, and I want you to purposely get one to hook more than those.
Okay. On purpose and then we're gonna wanna slice more. Okay? And that's the only way to like really own this. So if it ever gets off in the future, you now have the feelings to make it feel like those last five did. Okay? That's the only way to really like own your swing.
David: And since my natural, when I, before I got here, is a fade, do I just try and swing the way I was swinging?
The
Clay: fade. Yeah, it's fine. You already got the fade nail. It's
David: already okay.
Clay: Yeah.
David: All right.
Clay: And I don't care where it starts, like I'm just looking for ball curvature. Okay. So those last few would've been failures on my hook side. 'cause I want it to hook. You should actually hit a bad, a bad shot. That over hooks here.
David: Okay.
Clay: So let's start out with the hooks, since that's your, your main thing you're working on.
Yeah, I want like 30 yards a hook on this one. Okay.
Yeah. Nice. You probably felt like you had a massive snap hook and that ball drew, you know, 10, 15 yards, 20 yards, something like that. Yeah, but that was good. I'd count that as being a success. Okay. Technically the wind helped it a little bit like on my radar because it doesn't have the wind on this one.
You swung a little
David: pull, right? Just like
Clay: a pull and Yeah, like the face was a little closed I think. But I would actually wanna close it a little bit more. Lemme see if I can find the face to path. No, you were good. You were nine degrees closed on that one. Okay. That was great. So let's hit the slice now.
Easy work.
David: Yeah. Well, I'm just, now I'm actually paying attention to me dragging it.
Clay: See, the cool thing is like. If I'm bad at slicing it, even if I'm toggling back and forth, if I hit the first, the slice good every single time, I only hit one slice. And then if I'm struggling with a draw, I get a lot more draw reps in.
Mm-hmm. Gotcha. So like you kind of end up by following this program or process, like you end up learning how to hit whatever your weakness is. You get a lot more practicing on that.
David: Gotcha.
Clay: So let's go ahead and hit one more big, uh, big massive hook here.
David: It's like wanting to, but not That's a fail. That
Clay: ball would've been so good. Like such a good shot on the course.
David: Yeah,
Clay: like an amazing drive. If I look at your face to path, you were, it was, uh, you probably hit that a little off the hill maybe. Yeah. Because you were two degrees. The club face was two degrees closed.
Let's see if that's right. Yeah. The club face was two degrees closed. I want to get that to really exaggerate more, because what'll happen is like, if that's my, I feel like when I'm massively hooking it mm-hmm. Then I'll start to slice it again in two or three weeks and it'll be really hard to get it to hook if I can get you to really turn one over.
Mm-hmm. And then you'll be like, oh, that's what that feels like.
David: Yeah.
Clay: Then anytime you wanna draw it more, you just feel a little bit more of that. Okay. So I would, I would say the biggest thing for, for you, go ahead and go to here. The biggest thing for you is right when you get to impact. I want you to feel like, how would I get the club face to be more closed like that?
Like what is that gonna feel like and how would I move through that?
David: Okay,
Clay: so you can do it pausing, but I'm having to think in my mind, how would I get this club to move through that position and be so closed. I
David: gotcha.
Clay: So try a few practice swings and we'll end on a good draw
David: because what I'm doing right now, I think of them.
Clay: It is just a little late is all.
David: Yeah, so,
Clay: so see how like if you pause here, that face is still a little open and then you're trying to get it to get, yeah, there you go.
David: More close.
Clay: Yeah, close it. There you go. And it should be low and left if you really do it right. Awesome.
David: O go for it.
Clay: You got it.
There you go. That was sweet. Because what it shows me is like, yeah, that wasn't a good shot, but it shows me like you tried to do something, you're able to do it.
David: Yeah.
Clay: Now you just gotta do half that much and it'd be a good shot. It's like, go back and make one more, uh, full swing. Just a normal shot. So say, um, you're just playing around a golf and you're gonna feel like you're trying to hit it dead straight this time.
David: Okay.
Oh, now I'm hooking it.
Clay: There you go. Yeah, so, so whenever you do those exaggerated feelings,
David: yeah.
Clay: It'll start to change like what normal is. So now I feel like you don't, you don't have to hook it as much.
David: I,
Clay: there you go. That was on a string. I. I guess that ball had like zero yards of curve on it. That was perfect flight. 'cause that that shot was uh uh, technically the wind pushed a little bit left. Yeah. But that shot curved about, about the same amount of pro shot with curve. That was really good.
David: Cool.
Clay: So now all you'd wanna do between now and whenever we meet again next time is just do your daily drills.
And the daily drills are just gonna be, I'm doing these little hook swings. And I'm getting to where that feels super comfortable hooking them. Yeah. And I want these to feel like snap hooks.
David: Okay.
Clay: And then I'm gonna go, after I do one hook swing, I'm gonna toggle back and do my fade swing to where I feel like that'd be a massive slice.
And I'll just do like five minutes a day.
David: Like at home?
Clay: Yeah, just at home. And just grab, like if you don't even have a driver or you're in your living room, just do five minutes a day with like a sandwich, a broomstick. Like I don't really care what it is. Okay. But you just gotta get, because it takes a little bit of time for your neurological system to like.
And smooth out all the parts. Yeah. And get comfortable with it. But if I can learn the hook swing and really ingrain it and the slice swing and really ingrain it, then anytime I get a little off track, I just feel a little more of the hook swing. It's almost like a volume knob. So like if I know I crank it all the way to a hundred, that's a massive snap hook.
Correct. If I crank it to a hundred the other way, that's a bit massive slice and then I just gotta like toggle until I find Gotcha. Find zero in there.
David: Cool.
Clay: That's awesome, man. Yeah, dude, you killed it.
David: Thanks.
Clay: Those are good drives. Thanks. That was pretty sweet.
