Good drill

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Of course, it may all depend on what you need to work on accomplishing in your swing, but I think this is well worth trying. There's an episode of Playing Lessons From the Pros with John Daly, and at one segment in its 30 minutes, he demonstrates using his left arm, his lead arm, by itself to hit a golf ball. Take the left arm back, and swing through the ball. Big John is strong enough that he can wedge a ball 75 yards with just his left arm.

But you know what? You can learn to hit a ball this way, too. The first times I tried to do this it was ugly. Club hitting way behind ball most frequently, but also numerous skulls and a few shanks. But I kept at it and finally began to feel what I needed to feel, the clubhead getting pulled through the ball, and improvement began to occur. I'll probably never be able to hit a wedge 75 yards the way Daly can, but the basic point is to get my left side to learn that pulling motion, how repeatable it is when you get it right.

Try hitting at least 20 balls this way every day. I think it'll also be especially helpful to getting the feel of those short game pitches.

[chollyred]

Doesn't that do basically the same thing as the "towel under the armpit" thing? Teach you to use your left arm and keep the right close?

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

I'd agree about the left arm idea, but it doesn't involve the right arm. I'm thinking that for people whose handedness is especially dominant it's a good drill to help the weaker side learn the proper mechanics.

[What'saScore]

That's a drill my little league baseball coach had me doing long, long ago. When I asked the teaching pro at the local driving range about adapting it to golf, he looked at me like I was nuts. Told me the right hand was too important in a golf swing to try and learn without using it. That if I learned to hit the ball with one hand, it would completely mess up my swing when using both hands. I never agreed with his assessment, but he is supposed to be the pro, right?

[Pa Jayhawk]

I think you learn this when you have a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and can't decide which to put down. By doing this he could hold the beer in his right hand and cigarette in his mouth and still play golf. I think he tried perfecting using just his belly button, but it didn't quite work out the way he planned.

Actually, I did see the episode and even try it on occasion if I feel my right arm gets to dominant, which it does on occasion when I am chipping.

I think his next comment was something to the regard of "how can a left eye dominant person with a nice pendulum stroke not putt worth a darn". I think he did used to be one of the better putters to go with his long game. He is just fun to watch and has a great attitude now that he seems to have his mental game better under control. Here's hoping that Golf Magazine can single handedly get him in the Ryder Cup.

[Matthew_22]

I am a fairly skinny person, and I have been doing this drill for the last week or so, and I have noticed a big improvement in control and on the smoothness of my swing. I can now keep the club under control during the transition from backswing to downswing.

[Eracer]

I'll try it. Heck, I'll try anything to get rid of my chyips.

[EnglishGolfer]

Originally Posted by chollyred

Doesn't that do basically the same thing as the "towel under the armpit" thing? Teach you to use your left arm and keep the right close?

Despite my fondness for the teachings of Faldo, this was one drill that I didn't particularly agree with. I know it is only for 3/4 swings but if you watch the way Eldrick Woods (I just think his other name is silly) takes the ball away on the first third of the backswing then I doubt a towel would stay there. some people have a wide arc and some people don't, but I think a wide arc achieves greater distance.

[Farquod]

Left hand only is a great drill for righties, for just the reasons you mention Hitch. It teaches you to let the left hand lead the clubhead, and get the left side through the ball. It was cool as hell to see Daly doing those little finesse chips left hand only, wasn't it?

Now the towel under the right armpit, from what I've read, is supposed to make you feel "connected" so that the big muscles (the torso) bring the smaller muscles (the arms and hands) through the shot. The drill reminds me a lot of Penick's magic move that we were discussing a few weeks back, ie, reweight the left side, while simultaneously reconnecting the right elbow to the body. But Penick did not believe that the right elbow should be plastered to the body for the whole swing--just the opposite, in fact. In his Little Red Book, he rather pans the towel drill, with observations not too different from those of EG, above.

As always, FWIW.

And to PAJ's point, I love to watch Daly play, but he does give in a bit too easily. And because he wears his heart on his sleeve, it's easy to see when he's said. "Feck it!"