CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The golf swing is this big, confusing, often intimidating set of movements. It can’t be perfect but it can often be wrong. There is no secret to it, but if there is one, it’s to find what works for you.
Justin Rose recently figured out one of the big things that worked for him, after he says he accidentally neglected it.
That turned out to be a simple drill: Resting a small ball in between his arms and keeping it there as he swings. Rose used to use a tennis ball, but more recently used the Tour Striker Smart Ball, a training aid developed by GOLF Top 100 Teacher Martin Chuck.
You can see Rose using the training aid below.
It may sound incidental, but after a downturn in form to start the season, Rose said that drill is a key to his swing that he has overlooked in recent months.
“When I have a ball between my hands, it really sorts my backswing out so much, and my wrist and hand position,” he said. “So whether it be a tennis ball between my wrists or a slightly bigger ball between my forearms, that’s probably the one thing for me because it deals with the clubface, but it also makes me not be able to lift my arms to the top, I have to really pivot and turn to the top. So it does three or four really good things for me.”
There’s a few good points in here worth noting. Rose says he tends to “lift” his arms to the top of the swing. In other words, about halfway through his backswing, his body stops turning, and he lifts his arms to the top. It makes sense that the ball training aid drill would help with this. When golfers lift their arms to complete their backswing, their arms tend to separate along the way — causing the ball nestled in your arms to drop to the ground. The only way to keep the ball there is to turn, which is exactly what Rose says he needs to do. If you’re struggling with the same thing, learn from Rose.
“I think I’ve not realized how important it had been for me at times,” he added. “I probably had gone off using it as much. I was using it religiously, I suppose, and in the last few months not as much.”
