This drill will absolutely drop your handicap, pro says

Padraig Harrington has hit one golf ball to win three major championships, six PGA Tour titles and 20 European Tour titles. 

He has hit 10, 11, 12 golf balls to hit that one golf ball.  

In a recent video he posted to Twitter, Harrington lines up 11 balls a few inches apart. He squares up to the first one and hits it. In the same motion, he steps forward and hits the next and the next one and so on for all 11 balls. The drill, he said, “is actually my favorite training drill for amateurs.”

“If you can do that – walk up and down and hit balls consecutively – you will have the coordination, the connection easily to play to single figures,” said Harrington, who will also captain the next European Ryder Cup team. “If you can’t do that, you have an issue.”

The drill, he said, helps with swing plane.  

Harrington pivots right, Harrington moves his arms right, Harrington releases the club right. The plane on the takeaway matches the plane on the follow through. For all 11 balls. 

“Everything must work properly, especially your pivot,” Harrington said. “You must pivot properly, the club will stay on plane, it will release, your arms stay synched with your body – it does everything you want in your golf swing.”

Harrington says the drill can be done at home. You can hit plastic bottles in a line, he said. You can hit acorns in a line, he said. You can hit “the heads off daisies in a line,” he said. Harrington said the drill can be done at the range. “The driving range will appreciate you hitting the balls so quickly,” he said. 

If you can hit 10, 11, 12 golf balls, you can hit one golf ball. 

“If you can do this, there’s no reason why you can’t – if you’re not playing to single figures, it’s because of your short game because you have a nice, simple move through impact by continually moving up and down the line, and it makes you do it naturally,” Harrington said.

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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