A lot has been made of Phil Mickleson’s driving recently, which makes sense. He’s hitting it longer than ever as Lefty has fallen in love with gaining swing speed to hit “bombs.”
And over the weekend, he was spotted using the driver to help his putting.
It’s an eye-catching drill to those who may not have seen it before, but it’s actually a pretty common and useful drill that may help your own putting stroke.
First, take a club or an alignment rod and place it under your armpits, then take your address position. I’ve drawn a line down Phil’s driver shaft here; you’ll see why in a minute.
The goal of this drill is to simply rock the shaft back and forth. First, the lead side of the shaft dips down as you make your backstroke.
And then, the lead side of the shaft moves upward as you stroke through.
The shaft is there to maintain the relationship between your arms, wrists and shoulders, to make sure they all work together. Your sole focus should be to rock your shoulders back and forth, creating that pendulum rhythm we all desire. You can see it in the action below.
So give it a try, and if you’re looking for a slight variation of the drill, there’s one called the “chopsticks” drill from GOLF Top 100 Teacher David Orr, which accomplishes a similar feeling:
