Your 8 o’clock swing should fly 10 yards shorter than 9 o’clock, while your 10 o’clock typically goes 10 yards longer.
“Maintaining good rhythm is the most
important part of this drill as you want to
get an accurate distance.”
ROUGHLY 60%
OF ALL YOUR SHOTS
IN A ROUND OF GOLF
ARE FROM INSIDE
100 YARDS
—Ryan Zylstra
rolled out. The carry distance is what we
are looking for. Make sure to focus on the
lead arm only getting to 9 o’clock for the
right-handed golfer.
It will be the opposite for lefties, who
will take their lead arm to 3 o’clock. Again,
the key is to maintain the same rhythm
back and through. There are two com-
mon faults I see when my students try to
execute this drill for the first time. They
either take the club back very slow on the
takeaway and then accelerate very fast
through impact. Or the exact opposite:
take the club back fast and decelerate on
vsga.org
the downswing. Maintaining good rhythm
is the most important part of this drill as
you want to get an accurate distance.
Once you have hit 10 balls, paying atten-
tion to where they carried, grab your range
finder and walk out and gather the balls
and stand in the area where most of the
shots landed. Take your range finder and
laser the distance to your golf bag, the
number you get is what your 9 o’clock
swing will produce.
Being able to identify your 9 o’clock
number will help you dial in the other
distances. Once you know how far your 9
o’clock number carries, experiment with 8
o’clock. Typically it will fly 10 yards shorter
than 9 o’clock. Your 10 o’clock swing will
travel about 10 yards longer than your
9 o’clock. This drill is an easy way to lock in
those dreaded less-than-full wedge shots
and is extremely important for lowering
your scores when roughly 60 percent of
all your shots in a round of golf are from
inside 100 yards.
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