This 3-Minute Drill That Instantly Shallows Your Club! (Adds Depth)

The drill that gets me inside coming down is hitting the imaginary bag behind me. Straight down not toward the ball.

Great stuff! In my quest for more depth, I’ve made my lower back problems worse. My PT told me the lower lumbar spine is designed for forward bending motions, not rotary motions. And the thoracic spine area is designed for shoulder rotary motion. I turn too much from the lumbar area & not from the thoracic spine. Can you guys do a video on turning more from the thoracic spine rather than the lumbar spine? My back would sure appreciate it.
Thanks! As always, you guys are the benchmark.

Great tip guys. ⛳🏌️💫

Had no idea that the backswing depth was suppose to feel like that. Felt like my lead arm was really pressed against my chest. Today, I was hitting the ball well; just swinging back to hip high level - felt really connected and made pure contact. I wonder if this greater depth is the missing link to get me into that good impact position

Thanks guys. Does hand depth change as you go through the bag? So is driver depth deeper than a wedge depth? Thanks

Jack Nicklaus was and always will be one of the greatest golfers Of All Time, of course thats not news to anyone here.

.... It's interesting how Nicklaus was a little across the line with the driver.. same with flick, toski, and grout.. if I'm not mistaken. I think it makes more sense to be with the driver. I was laid off and flat.. and i can tell you that i had better luck with roulette..

Not related to this video subject specifically, but do you have any videos on early wrist hinge? For every club but in particular irons and wedges?

I feel like when I do it, it forces my body to rotate better but that’s probably not reality so just want to educate myself on the subject

uhmmm..:Nelly Korda does that drill all day and I heard she’s pretty pretty pretty good

I have been through the misconception of the high hands with no depth!! This is great instruction for us all!! Thank you Mike and Shaun!!

Are you rotating the lead arm in pronation as you go up? I can't put my shoulder through the lower arc of the backswing and also have it go up past parallel. The humerus runs into the glenoid or acromion-- there's a bone roadblock. I haven't wrapped my head around how to achieve this motion in the backswing while still holding all these other positions. I used to think it was because the arm was too far across the chest (adducted), and, indeed, you had another video addressing that issue. But, now, you're showing a movement that seems to encourage this across-the-chest movement with getting the arms higher and deeper. I don't know how you get the shoulder to move that way without having to have a pause or hitch to put the humeral head in a different position to free up the required range of motion.

Great video as always, the drill to feel proper depth is a go-to for me as my tendancy is to reach across my chest too much and get way too inside.

I have a bit of a problem finding that limit for the turn though. I have an exaggerated curve in my lower back from sitting down too much. I'm working on it, but it's a slow fix. I've noticed that when i turn in the backswing I sometimes "collapse" the spine, i.e. curving even more, effectively pushing the gut out towards the ball - this makes it really hard to then rotate back through.

Do you have any drills that would help with this problem? (Not looking for physio advice, just something to help keep space through the swing). I imagine you might see this a lot with golfers you teach who work desk jobs...

I’ve downloaded the swing coach app and based on some of my swings on that app I feel like the drill in this video would make the app say the hands are too far back at the top. What am I missing?

Let me just pitch in with something here on Nicklaus that you guys probably already know, but a lot of people out there aren't going to.

As you know, those clips of Jack are from his Golf My Way video made in 1983 or so. He also did a book you may remember, The Full Swing (aka The Full Swing in Photos), around that time (I think '84), which to me is one of the great almost-unknown instructional books in golf history. (How you can do a book hardly anybody knows when you're the greatest major championship player -- and maybe the best player overall -- in the history of the game is beyond me. But then, there are all kinds of people who will tell you how wrong Nicklaus was about this or that, and even besides those people, there are tons more who just don't care what a guy at that level has to say about the swing. It's unbelievable. But anyway, moving on.)

In that book, and also reflected in what you see in the VHS GMW vid, he goes through the changes he made with Jack Grout in late '79 and early '80, at a point when he said he was getting to the end of his rope with deteriorating ballstriking.


Now here's where it gets good: Jack talks about how Grout told him he was still "high" with the backswing, but had lost his depth. We're talking about more than four decades ago.

Grout made three primary changes with him to get that depth back: Stand taller, get more centered, and let the right elbow fold earlier on the backswing so the club could move on a more natural arc compatible with the lie of the club and the angle of the spine, rather than on overly upright plane.

And, of course, you can see in these GMW clips (in your vid here) that Jack may have the hands "high," but that's mostly a result of his width and turn, not lifting straight up to a "high" position, and the hands are actually over his right shoulder and even a little toward the back side of that shoulder, if anything. He said the result was to regain a sense of hitting the ball from a shallow inside arc, not the steep chop he'd developed increasingly in the late '70s. Said it completely turned his game around. And the original problem? Lack of depth.

Almost nobody remembers now that this was the central problem Jack faced that drove him to this big midcareer change.

So that student you were talking about might be awfully interested to know that his favorite player (and mine, probably above all other favorites) was very much into this question of depth. And in fact, once he put the work in on it with Grout, he said it was the best period of solid ballstriking he ever had.

I have stopped playing golf for over a year to try to fix a steepening from the top of my swing. (I have tried longer than that, but it lead to me getting frustrated at the course). I will watch videos, come to a perception, rehearse, and then go practice and try it. It doesn’t work. I go back to the drawing board. I cannot figure out what exactly I have mentally wrong. I don’t really fit into any typical video that is constantly put out by everyone. I primarily follow this channel, because I know you have at least the positions accurate.
I hit the ball relatively straight, I can move the ball the direction I want,
if you give me a couple balls I probably could even hit the height. My swing is probably a little too long, and I believe too flat; but the main issue is I steepen the shaft at the top. Possibly from having too much depth. Im not sure. I definitely know its a perception thing. I dont really come over the top/across the line. It just steepens to wear it doesn’t drop down my forearm line from a down the line view. I have to then shallow it by manipulating something. Whether it be slightly standing up or delaying something. It leads to inconsistency in strike, which gets worse as you get in into the longer clubs, and horrible with woods; and then it saps a lot of speed/distance. It is also very frustrating; because when I hit a bad shot I cant tell whats the fault to be able to fix it mid-round, due to it being a very manipulated swing. It’s actually quite depressing, due to how much I enjoy golf; and how long I have been trying to make a change with this one thing. I can force my hands to drop way behind me, but thats not good either.

I love thai pre set drill . pushing the arms away . never felt that before . do you have more videos on this move . does it have a name ( resting club on shoulders and pushing away )