Hit with Confidence: The 7 Proven Drills for Better Ball Striking
When a beginner golfer heads to the driving range, the goal is to make contact with the ball. As our games improve and handicaps lower, the goal becomes more complex.
Ball striking, clean and efficient ball striking is what most amateur golfers are striving for.
Using golf drills to become a better ball striker is a great strategy. We have put together these range drills to improve ball striking that will make you feel like you are in control of your golf iron shots.
Practice one or all of these during your next session. Not every drill will be a perfect fit for your game. Look at your strengths and weaknesses and decide accordingly.
The 7 Best Drills for Superior Ball Striking
Punch Shot Drill – Collin Morikawa
Collin Morikawa is one of the best golf iron players in the world. He mentions that one of his best golf drills for ball striking is to hit punch shots.
With a punch shot, you will stop your swing short just after contact.
This process helps golfers focus on hitting the golf ball, creating solid contact, and not worrying about what happens after impact.
If you hit the ball thin a lot when you play, the punch shot is a good one to have in your arsenal.
Miss The Stick Drill – Kerrod Gray Golf
Golfers who are approaching the ball from the correct position have a much easier time making solid contact.
However, many players are coming from over the top in their swing. This position makes it hard to achieve consistent and solid contact.
This video gives you a simple drill for taking the club back under the alignment stick and ensuring you don’t hit it on the downswing.
If you are afraid to hit shots with the alignment stick setup like this, you can always use it for practice swings and then copy that concept into the rest of your practice session.
Ball Than Turf Drill – Danny Maude
Danny Maude simplifies clean ball striking with this ball than turf drill.
Even great players are known to exaggerate movements in golf and make things more complicated than they need to be. Luckily, the ball then turf drill can fix that.
You’ll place your trail foot well behind the lead foot and keep your balance as you try to throw the golf club at the ball.
This drill helps when your ball striking is off, and you need to go back to just making great contact and not worrying so much about positions.
Alignment Stick Lane Drill – Cameron McCormick
To be a great golf ball striker, you will need some control over the clubface of your irons.
In this video from Cameron McCormick, you’ll learn a drill that helps you understand how path and face angle change your golf game.
Use this drill very slowly in the beginning to get used to the feel. Once you have that down and you become quite good at it, you can expand and hit shots like this.
Many professional golfers set up a similar setup when they head out for a round of golf. It makes a difference in the precision of the shots they are able to hit.
Pour the Water Behind You Drill – Coach Lockey
At HackMotion, we talk a lot about the position of the lead wrist in golf. After analyzing more than 1,000,000 golf swings, it’s easy to focus on this lead wrist because of the impact it has on the game of golf.
However, there are some other things to consider here with the trail hand.
For this drill you’ll hold a water bottle in your trail hand. As you swing to the top of the swing the focus is to pour the water behind you.
With this concept in mind, you can gain a lot of power, add extension to the trail wrist, and make more consistent contact with the ball.
Don’t Look at the Ball Drill – Chris Ryan Golf
In this drill from Chris Ryan you will learn why he believes looking at the golf ball leads to issues with inconsistency in ball striking and poor body movement.
This very simple drill is a way to check if your lower body is moving as it should through the ball.
Choke up on the club all the way down to the clubhead and take little swings. Make sure that the golf club does not hit your side until your clubhead is past the golf ball.
Do this in slow motion at first so you can feel the process and understand what it takes to make clean contact.
Motorcycle Drill – Tyler Ferrell
Where Coach Lockey’s drill worked on the trail hand, the motorcycle drill from Tyler Ferrell will work on the lead wrist.
Golfers tend to have too much extension at the top of their backswing. This extension makes it hard to approach the golf ball with a square clubface.
To eliminate some of that extension, you can add a motion to the top of the backswing that looks like the revving of a motorcycle. The motion adds flexion, not extension, to the lead wrist and helps to square the clubface.
This drill will make the ball striking better because of a consistently square clubface. When that face is square, you will accelerate through impact with much more confidence.
Wearing the HackMotion while doing this drill can help you get a feel for what it takes to become a better ball striker.
Final Thoughts
When working on your ball striking drills, try to use a club that you have some confidence in.
Most golfers like to use an 8 or 7 iron. There is just enough loft to help you succeed but also focus on the drill at the same time.
Practice these ball striking drills to become more precise in the golf shots you hit on the course. You will be glad you did!
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