Throwing A Club Discussion

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In this discussion video, we're going to take a look at what we can learn from

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throwing

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a club.

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A lot of golf instructors have used this drill or exercise to teach sequencing

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and natural

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rhythm, but we're going to see what we can really learn from it.

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So a friend of ours, Christoph Bosek of Progressive Golf, we've talked a bunch

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online, and he

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actually just posted this video to show me how good his wipe and his arm

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extension was.

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So he's a very good player, and here we can see him throwing a club, and we'll

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see he

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gets into a very athletic position with those arms, really good arm extension,

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arms work

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across his chest.

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As he said, sequencing was great, arm extension was great, and I've had a few

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questions about

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it in person, nothing formally through the site, but I thought it would be a

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good little

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discussion topic.

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So the thing that I want to help you understand is, yes, when you do a throwing

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exercise like

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this, you're going to get a good sense of what an ideal path might be, or a

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very athletic

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path.

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But what I want you to see is what most golfers struggle with is when they do

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this exercise,

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the club face is almost always in an extremely open position.

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Basically, the club is rotated so that the weight of the club is perpendicular

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to the

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direction that it's moving, or the weight of the club is kind of in line with

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the direction

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that it's moving, instead of having a club face that's square or pointed in the

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direction

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that it's moving.

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So we're going to look at a handful of other examples and discuss some of the

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strategies

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where I think it's good to use this throwing drill and other times where it

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might not be

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the best thing for you.

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So there's a number of these examples on YouTube where you can see golf

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instructors

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demonstrating the throwing technique.

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The first guy who I heard about doing it was Fred Shoemaker.

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He would have a lot of students throw clubs down the range just to get the

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feeling of

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kind of the natural athleticism.

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So over here on the left, we have an instructor who is throwing the club and

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you'll see he

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does a very good job of sequencing body, staying in posture.

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But if you look at that club face, again, it's almost always in this position

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where that

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would be pointing 40-50 degrees down off to the right compared to where his

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body is aligned.

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And so yes, even though as he comes in, you can see that he's got that lead arm

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in a good

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tucked position.

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He's really maintained his posture.

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He hasn't solved the club face equation.

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So then if we look at his actual swing that he did just after throwing the ball

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, you'll

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see that instead of rotating through here, he starts standing up to help him

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get the club

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face to close.

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So you can see that the club face is in a very, very different position and his

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body's

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in a pretty good different position.

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You'll then see that as he approaches impact, he really extends that right arm

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to get the

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club face to close by using the whole shaft instead of just using this

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motorcycle move

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or shaft rotation or gamma rotation or whatever you want to call it.

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So this is going to be a very common pattern that we're going to see.

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I think that similar to like orange whip training, throwing clubs can be great

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for learning

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the path, but you should use a video so that you can try to incorporate a

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little bit of

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face control because otherwise you're just going to learn path with hands that

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aren't

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in a good alignment to actually hit a golf shot.

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So now we have another example over here on the left.

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She is throwing the club and you can see, you know, great looking sequencing,

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great looking

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arm position, but club face wide open club face wide open club face wide open

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club face

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wide open.

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So that's not going to work when she actually addresses the golf ball.

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Even though it's probably more powerful probably creating more club head speed,

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she has to

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solve that club face equation.

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So here we have her actually hitting a shot and we can compare a few of these

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different

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positions.

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So you can see a very different release strategy because her method for closing

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the club face

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is to stop the body, radial deviate or kind of rehinge that leader wrist and

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flip the

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arm or roll that right shoulder in order to get the club face to close.

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But that's using a lot more that's taking away a lot of her path speed because

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she's

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kind of using some of the path mechanics to help get the club face to close.

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So when she's throwing the ball, you can see she gets very open, trail arms

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still bent,

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but the club face is wide open.

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So she uses sawing her body, rehinging the wrist and rolling that right

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shoulder in order

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to actually get the club face to square in her real swing.

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She can throw as many clubs as she wants, but if she doesn't figure out how to

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solve

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the club face part of the equation first, it's never going to transfer into her

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actual

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swing.

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And if we go back to the original clip of Rory McElroy, it's very hard to see

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the club face

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because it's in a very blurry position, but oftentimes, there we go.

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We'll get one frame or so where kind of the stars align and we're able to see

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the club

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face.

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And we can see that the club face is so much in line with the path of the shaft

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that it

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is literally pointing more than 90 degrees away from where the club face would

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be in

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the actual swing.

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He's able to create a tremendous amount of speed.

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It's a really good throw.

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But if he did that when he actually hit a golf ball, we wouldn't know who he

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was.

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So I don't want to discourage you from throwing clubs.

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I want to clarify when it's useful.

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It's very good for developing throwing sequencing.

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So you're going to get really good body mechanics.

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You're going to get really good arm positions.

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But if you don't address the club face issue, it's never going to transfer to

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your full

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swing.

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It's very similar to what we saw and what we continue to see with golfers

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making practice

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swings where they ask, "Why can't I just do what I did in the practice swing?"

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As we show in another video, it's very common to have lost club face awareness

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because club

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face awareness, since this is a target sport, is going to be one of those big

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skills that

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golfers have to learn in order to maximize their ability to create speed.

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If you have any question about how to close or square the club face, check out

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the club

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face drills or the arm specific drills in either the transition or the release

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section.