Possibly The Fastest Way To Fix Your Ball Striking

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Transcript Summary- 

If you’re looking to improve the quality of your strikes with clubs off the fairway—whether that’s your irons, hybrids, or fairway woods—I’ve got some brilliant insights to share with you. These come straight from a session I had with my personal mentor, Graeme Walker—one of the finest coaches in the world. Now, if you’re struggling with consistent ball striking from the fairway, chances are you’re not maintaining your trail wrist angle through impact. You’ll often see the club releasing too early, with the trail arm losing its structure, leading to a flicky, weak strike. Many golfers I work with know this, and they try to hold that wrist angle, but it just doesn’t work. The shots either go right or they lose all their power. And that’s because they’re forcing it. The best players? They do this naturally.

So in this video, I want to walk you through a fantastic drill that helps you feel what those top players do, so you can strike the ball first, then the turf, much more consistently. And if you’re new to the channel—maybe this is your first lesson—consider subscribing. I put out videos like this every week, and to make life easy, I always include a downloadable practice guide below.

Now I don’t know if this resonates with you, but I hear it all the time: “Danny, one day I’ve got it—I’m striking it great—but the next, it’s gone, and I’ve no idea how to get it back.” We’ve all been there, haven’t we? That’s why I love drills that act like a reset button—something you can always return to when things go off track. And that’s exactly what this is.

Here’s how it works. Set up like normal with the ball positioned maybe a clubhead inside your lead heel. You could even nudge it a bit further back to help you strike ball then turf. Now, grip down on the club—just slide your trail hand down the shaft—and set the club right in front of you. Straight away, this encourages your trail elbow to fold naturally, pointing toward your hip. Most golfers lose this—they flare the elbow out or get it stuck behind them, making the swing messy and hard to repeat. From here, let that elbow continue folding as you swing the club back, and then “pump” it straight back down until your hands are opposite your trail thigh.

What this does is brilliant. It gets the club tracing the correct path, keeps your trail shoulder in play, and gives you that lovely feeling of compressing the ball. A lot of golfers never get into this position—they either ruin the backswing or throw everything away in the downswing. This drill helps build that connection.

Now, there’s another massive part to all this: the clubface. So many golfers—80 or 90%—come down with an open face. You’ll often see the lead wrist cupped and the face pointing miles right. So even if you try to get shaflean and hit down on the ball, the face is open and you compensate with a last-minute flick. That’s where the inconsistency comes in.

So here’s how to fix that. With the same drill, pay attention to your trail hand—it should be more on top of the grip, not underneath. As you swing back and pump down, feel like your palm is pressing slightly down toward the ground. That gives you better awareness of the clubface. Most students say it feels completely new—like they’re really “on top” of the shot—and that’s a good thing. Because that’s how you create pressure and really strike the ball solidly.

Let’s take that to a shot. I grip down, slide my hand, set it up, let that elbow fold, pump it down, bring the hands back together, and let it go. Just a beautiful strike—ball first, turf second.

Now, one last thing. When you’re working on these drills, it’s easy to get a bit wooden or rigid—don’t. At no stage do I want you to hold the wrist angles. Once you’ve created the structure and the feel, I want you to release the club fully and naturally. One of the best exercises for this is something Tommy Fleetwood uses—it’s called the stop quick drill. You swing and then stop the club really fast. Your body naturally braces, and the club gets thrown—releasing those angles without you trying. Most golfers throw their body at the ball, not the club.

So let’s recap. Train that trail elbow and wrist angle using the grip-down pump drill. Learn the correct face orientation by feeling your trail hand on top. And finally, practice letting the club go with drills like the stop quick. These are the kinds of exercises you can come back to anytime your strike feels off.

If you found this helpful, give it a thumbs up, maybe share it with a friend who could use it. And if you haven’t already, press that subscribe button. See you in the next lesson!

Full Transcript-
so if you look to improve the quality of your strikes with clubs off the fairway that's with your irons your hybrids in your fairway woods I want to bring you in on some really amazing insights I've just had from my personal mentor Graeme Walker just one of the best golf coaches in the world Ultimately if you're struggling with ball striking off the fairway this is likely what we're going to be seeing You're struggling to maintain this right wrist this trail wrist angle through the impact area What you'll be probably seeing on camera is the club will be kind of almost releasing too early here flicking on the way through You'll be losing this trail arm Now a lot of players who come and see me they know this They've been even trying to hold this wrist angle but none of it's working In fact if anything they when they do try it either goes right or they lose a lot of speed That is because you're not doing it in a natural way The best players achieve this incredibly naturally And in this video what I want to do is I want to share with you a fantastic fantastic drill that's going to help you feel exactly what they do So you can start to develop this more natural flowing golf swing whilst at the same time maintaining the correct wrist angle so you can strike that ball then the ground much much more consistently Before I do though look if you're new to the channel it's been a first golf lesson of mine please consider subscribing I release golf videos just like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game Plus you never have to remember a thing Everything we do here I'll put into a free downloadable practice guide in the description box below So I don't know if you're the same but I have a number of students come and see me And they often say "Look one day I've got it I'm striking it really really good but then the next day I've seem to have lost it and I have absolutely no idea how to get it back again." And you know we all have that don't we But I always love if we've got some form of reset golf drill that can help us generate feelings of what creates a great strike I think that for me gives me a sense of security and it certainly does my students This is what this drill does It's going to be hopefully your reset The thing to come back to if you ever feel like you're losing that strike Super super simple So let's get started So this drill is easy to set up You get yourself set up here in a normal setup position with a ball position A good club width I've got like a seven iron here A good club width inside my lead heel You could even move it a bit further back if you want Why Because look we want the bottom of your golf swing after the golf ball And as we know this is the bottom of the golf swing here So if the ball is behind that position we know we're increasing our chances of striking that ball first We tick that box Right now the next thing I want you to do is take the grip grip down the golf club here So just slide your trail hand down the golf club Then what I want you to do is just practice setting the club right in front of you here Now what this is doing is very very clever It's doing a couple of things Can you see how my trail elbow here now is pointing towards my hip It's folded Now this is smart because what it does is most people don't most people this trail elbow is moving out here It then gets pulled behind him in the back swing here They get into all kinds of positions which makes the golf swing incredibly complicated and almost impossible to repeat So as soon as you've done this here you're getting a sensation of this right elbow having to fold very naturally Right from here all I'm going to do is continue to let it fold all the way back So the right elbow now is naturally folding again helping the club swing beautifully backwards You don't have to try The next bit is also amazing From here I want you to pump this club straight back down here until the hands are opposite that trail thigh Why is this so good It does a again a couple of things It's helping you to trace the club straight back down to the golf ball here Keeping this trail shoulder in play Why is this important Because now all I've got to do look is just beautifully turn onto the golf ball and I've got natural compression Most people never get there Apart from not getting into a good back swing let's say they did get into a good backing From here look they will throw those wrist angles away They'll throw their trail shoulder at the golf ball here And again look we're into this kind of chicken wing flicky position Now there's one thing more that's amazing about this drill which we're going to go in a second which is the club head But just for now let's just go through a shot and hit a shot doing this So all I'm going to do I'm going to get myself set here get myself comfortable grip down this golf club set the club work it back set it back down here come back into a position make a swing and then hit this shot So we're training this sensation We're training how this trail side beautifully works to help you create that compression So let me hit a shot doing exactly that Get myself set Trail hand down the club Set the club up here Work it back fire it back down here Move the hands back together here and away we

go But the drill doesn't stop there There's one thing apart from the the the inability of a golfer to naturally fold this trail arm on the way back The other factor that often hu was a huge factor uh which will affect your strike is where the orientation of your club face is as it's coming down Most of the time I'm talking 80% of golf maybe even 90% of golfers who struggle with ball striking When they come down this club face is wide open and you can often see it because their wrists here this leader wrist is really cuped If their face is wide open if I was to create beautiful shafling to strike that ball first where's the face pointing now Way out to the right So because you know we're more talented than we realize you do a great job of squaring that face But in squaring it you're squaring it too late Now we get this flicky horrible strike So how can we combine this drill to help you achieve or kill two birds with one stone Again very very simple We take ourselves set up here We fold this club into position here Now look at my trail hand My trail hand is on top of the golf club here Right It's just slightly on top here Almost palm facing slightly down Not underneath where most people would be From here look as I fold this back I am now feeling look like I'm punching this straight down my hand is there What a wonderful feeling this is because it's going to feel help you feel where that face is Now for for a lot of my students they go "This is a brand new feeling." They go "God that feels like I'm really on top of it." Yes because on top now that allows you look to put that pressure on that ball and give it an almighty strike So it's pretty straightforward And again this is something you can keep returning to time and time again So let's put that one in action now before we work on the final step So get myself set here Slide my hand down the golf club Set that club in position Right Feel it slowly Let that trail elbow naturally fold I almost feel you can almost imagine the trail hands almost feel like it's pointing to the sky But this is the key bit Bang I'm really feeling that palms in place here My elbows in place I'm parallel to the ground here Everything's come beautifully down here What I haven't done look is released and moved over I've just got myself there All I do from there look is just beautifully turn onto that golf shot Simple as that Or is it It really is so good Such a lovely thing Let's have a have a crack at this one more time before we work on step number three

And that is absolutely ripped Ball turf strike Loved it So sometimes when you're working on your game you can start to get a little bit rigid You can start to almost kind of you're working on these drills but you start to get wooden I don't want you to do that At no stage do I want you to be holding on to any wrist angles I want that club to be fully and freely releasing You've done the hard work by getting this club now into a great slot here I want you to let that absolutely rip And the one of the exercises I'll often give my students is ultimately the stop quick exercise It's a favorite of Tommy Fleetwoods And ultimately what it does is this You practice and you make a swing and you stop it really fast You stop the club from going all the way through here And what it does is as you start to stop quick your body kind of braces for impact and the club gets thrown So ultimately you're releasing those wrist angles It's really important Most people don't Most people don't brace for impact and they throw their bodies at it And if you do that that's when all this starts to happen Right So we want those wrist wrist angles naturally releasing beautifully through the shot And the simplest way to do that to start with is once you've done got this feeling here really imagine stopping that club as quickly as you can And now see where my wrist my wrist angles look are fully released through the shot My body's braced for impact That is what's going to create the strike and the speed So at no stage am I ever holding those wrist angles I've developed the feel and now I'm letting them completely release Now I've got a a much more detailed video on how to uh do this swing fast stop quick exercise which will take you step by step It's an absolute brilliant one I'll put that right here If you enjoy the video give it a thumbs up Maybe share it with one of your friends And of course look if you're new to the channel press that subscribe button right down here.