Using the clock to improve your swing

However as you will see, we have added some new relevant numbers to greatly help with your distance control for chipping/pitching.

The large numbers represent the opposite points on the clock face, and as you will see in the first picture, I have swung back until my hands are at the 8 o’clock spot. As there is no conscious wrist hinge in this particular swing my club shaft is roughly in line with my hands. If my wrists had hinged, then the club would have travelled much further on.

This is okay as we are only interested in where the hands end up. Think in terms of hands on the clock face.

Note how my left arm is nicely connected against my chest, with the writing on my pullover almost being obscured. When the elbows are too far apart (disconnected) then the writing would be much more visible but the direction line back down to the ball would be too variable, with inconsistency being the result.

Take a look at the second picture where as you would expect I have swung through to reach the four o’clock spot - with my hands. At this point both arms are dead straight, with no sign of any unwanted chicken wing to spoil the shot. My left hip has correctly cleared out of the way with my right heel coming up just off the ground, in response to this unwinding motion. It is also worth mentioning at this stage that my eyes are up following the ball flight - no thoughts of keeping my head down here!

Try to think in terms of your bread and butter pitch shot being a 9 to 3 type of swing. Then an 8 to 4 for slightly less distance. Then finally for short chip shots 7 to 5 would be perfect. This clock method is a great way to achieve good distance control rather than asking me how hard do you hit it. Good luck as always experimenting with it in a bounce game. Next week: 3,6,9,12 putting drill.