One Handed Swings = Golf’s Best Drilling?
If you practice one handed swings, I guarantee you’ll start swinging more synchronized over time. Allow me to explain.
One Handed Swings Advantage 1 = No Cheating Possible
One-handed golf drills don’t allow you to cheat. To hit the ball any distance at all, you have to athletically work with your sequence, grip pressure, and overall power application. It’s simply not possibly to go in and manipulate the swing arc. You have to be pure about your motion
Advantage 2 = One Handed Lead handed Drills induces body rotation
The lead hand has often been said to be a control hand and an aid to close down the clubface in the impact area but it’s task is much bigger. In the 70s I remember seeing Johnny Miller on the first tee. He would swing 10 aggressive lead hand swings and they were far from done at the ball. And that’s the thing. The lead hand, which is strong on the lead side of the body, will train your follow through.
It will force you to let go of lead shoulder pressure/tension and to get any style of speed in the swings you need to start focusing on feels way past the golf ball. It unveils how post impact intentions affects the impact area.
The absolute passive bonus of it is that it actually develops chest rotation during and after the strike. Cool right?
Advantage 3 = One Handed Trail handed Drills adresses the biggest culprit in golf
I sincerely believe that the biggest problem in golf (that most golfers don’t deliver nice swings) is that the trail hand steps in with high grip pressure and manipulate towards the golf ball too soon and too much.
This leads to a steepness and outside path of the hands = the good old Out to in pattern.
By training your trail hand only and putting the ball position slightly back you need to unleash your golf club to even make it somewhat possible to hit the ball. It trains the opposite of the problem in golf.
Test it out – One Handed Drilling
Now that you know the benefits, let’s put it to use. Go in a net (if you can) and just perform loads of loads of air swing with each hand. Allow the blade to open in the backswing as well please. And use something like a 7 iron so the club becomes long enough to feel properly.
For the trail hand, put the ball position back in the stance. For the lead hand, move it forward.
Do 5 air swings and then 1 golf ball. Allow yourself to suck big time for a while. Then slowly start understand how you need to think with each hand to allow the “ball swing” to be as easy as the “non ball swing”. Alternate and hit and progress. Hit 20 balls per hand (240 swings in total).
Do this as a start to your range training for 10-20 sessions and you will have developed your motion without having to go all mechanical. The end goal? Hit a 7 iron 90-100 yards with each hand. The lead hand ball flight will be lower than the trail hand.
Best of luck!
I just love these old drills and have started to understand them in the FMM Project. Check out the Forgotten Master Moves homepage here. The FMM Project – the swing style that I teach – has it’s overview page here.