Left Side Release Drill

A feel to release your left side

Hi, Robin here with a quick tip for anybody who’s struggling to release their left side through the ball, to get their left side out of the way through the impact zone and then to the follow through. And I’ve seen many times players spending many hours on the range. They’re looking good at set up.  They’re making good back swings and good transitions.  They’re into a good position here coming into the ball. But they spoil all their hard work with a poor release of their left side through the impact zone.

When you don’t release your left side through the ball, many things can happen. Just a couple of those common things would be quickly: the left shoulder would work up, rather than working behind you, causing a sort of tilting back and a hanging back on your right foot. Obviously this causing poor contact, high weak ball flights. The left side gets blocked, causes the shoulders to stop moving.  Club releases early, causes that early release, scooping. Again, poor contact, high weak ball flights, loss of distance.

Another one of the most common ones, actually with a poor release of the left side through impact and into the follow through, would be the chicken wing. Because the left shoulder not getting out of the way, the left arm’s not rotating. There’s really no other option than the elbows to separate. Often that goes together with high ball flights, weak slices to the right.

So the feeling I’m about to give you, I won’t claim it as mine. Actually, I spent a little time with David Leadbetter during the summer. And one of the things he was suggesting, which I really liked the kind of concept of was to get some frisbees.

And basically if you imagine you’re on the beach with your friends and you were throwing some Frisbee, left-handed, not right-handed. How would you through them? Now, it would be quite instinctive.  You’d kind of move your lower body first, just the way we’d want to in a swing. You’d start rotating your chest. You’d certainly get your left shoulder out of the way, and your left arm would rotate so you could get that flight parallel to the ground with a little bit of power. You would never throw it like this. Left shoulder going up or getting blocked.

So if you do have a chance, a couple of hoops or Frisbees, give it a try. I’ve got a bunker behind the camera here, so I’m not going to through these particularly hard. But give a feeling of how you would throw the Frisbee. Even if you can’t throw the Frisbee, I think you can imagine how that would feel. Certainly, when David said it to me, without throwing the Frisbee, I could sort of visualize how that would feel. And then try to take that into your golf swing.

That same left shoulder getting out of the way, left arm rotating. And then try to apply that same feeling through the impact zone and into your follow through. I say it’d be great if you could give it a try with some Frisbees, but maybe you don’t even need to. Maybe you can sort of imagine how that would feel and then put that into your own swing.

So, getting your left side out of the way through the impact zone, it’s a crucial factor in being able to hit good solid contacts. Control the direction of your shots. So if you think you have some fault anywhere within what I’ve talked about, try to picture yourself throwing a frisbee left-handed.  Take that feeling into your swing, and see what happens.

Hope it helps. And as always, thanks for watching.