Golf Downswing Slot
Begin your downswing by shifting your weight to the side closest to the target. If you have reached the apex of your swing correctly, your downswing should be on the same plane as your backswing, and you should begin to feel more comfortable swinging the golf club. Downswing for golf practice drill for more power and consistency. Having a smooth transition and downswing is often thwar. What the golf downswing must achieve: Regardless of what a golfer does in the downswing, in order for a ball to go high, straight, and far, the club must be delivered to the ball from an inside path, with an adequate angle of approach (attack) and at maximum speed.
Why You Need This: In this video, you'll learn how to start the downswing and get into the slot.
I'm sure you've heard the term 'get into the slot' but there's all sorts of questions about it.
What exactly does 'get into the slot' mean?
And how do you perform this swing move?
You'll discover the answers to those questions, and more, in this video.
Find out...
- What angle your club path should travel on,
- How not getting into the slot hurts your swing, and
- What you should feel in the swing to make sure you're getting into the slot.
Watch this video now to get your club into the slot and boost your consistency and power!
Golf Pros Featured:
Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard
Video Duration: 5:07
Watch This Video Now!
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Video Transcription:
All right, guys. Hit that one pretty well. How do we start the downswing and get into the slot? Everybody wants to get in the slot, that ensures that your club is going to be delivered squarely to the golf ball with a lot of power.
So the way we’re going to think of the slot is, when I’m coming in my downswing, and the big piece of this is getting the camera lined up correctly.
I want to line up the camera behind my body shooting through my toes and then out to my distance, out to the target in the distance.
If my camera’s set up to where it’s too far this way or it’s too far that way, it’s not going to be lined up to where I can really see if the club’s in the slot or not.
What I want to do, is I want to go ahead and have this club working down my forearm in the downswing. So this club shaft is coming through my forearm and the club head will be kind of traveling through my forearm.
I’m going in slow motion here, so I’m not sure I have this exactly right, but that should be basically traveling down through my forearm into the release through the ball. That ensures that I’m coming into the ball correctly.
Now if I’m steep, if my club shaft is over top of my forearm, that would be kind of an over the top type move, or some people get steep and they kind of back up out of it. If you’re losing your posture that’s very common, you’re getting steep and then having to move back out of the way.
If I was steep and I just kept on going down, I would just slam the club into the ground, so I’ve got to back up out of it to create space. That would be too steep. It would also be an over the top kind of slice, would be to steep this way.
If I’m too shallow or underneath, now my club’s getting stuck in under. I’m blocking out to the right, or I’m hitting some of those snap hooks that really start to turn over, where you just miss them a mile out that way. Either way, we’re going to have a little bit of trouble.
The first key is, what starts our downswing? What’s a good visual to start our downswing that we can actually take out to the range? Then second, what’s a good way to feel how I get in the slot.
So to start the downswing, the thing that I would recommend – let me grab this tee so I can set up another ball – I would recommend feeling like you have a 2,000 pound concrete ball or steel ball, and the center of your hips is the middle of that ball. It’s just kind of wrapped around your body.
As I start this downswing, I’m going to feel like I do that with my lower body. My legs, and my hips are going to get that ball starting to kind of rotate.
Imagine a 2,000-pound ball, I’m not going to be able to rotate that very fast, I’m just talking about building momentum.
The lower body, the big piece is the big muscles of your body create momentum in the swing, so that my arms and hands and club can add speed to that, that can add the snap at the end of the momentum.
Golf Downswing Slot
So feel like in your downswing, I’m going to go ahead and get a little bit of a weight shift to the left, start that ball rotating, and then at that point I’m going to be in the slot and I can go ahead and release my hands and arms, get a lot of that snap and that speed.
Golf Downswing Slot Machine
So now how do we feel like we’re in the slot? Well I’ve got a great little drill for you. If I go ahead and set up my club like I’m going to swing it like a baseball bat, if I set it up in front of my right shoulder – I’ll try to get as lined up as well as I can with the camera.
This left arm’s going to be nice and straight, it’s going to look like that. My left wrist is going to be flat or even a little bit bowed, and then my club face, my club head, or let’s talk about the right arm first.
My right elbow’s going to be pointing up, my back of my elbow’s going to be pointing toward my hip. My palm is going to be up toward the sky like that.
Now from there, this club is going to be down below that a little bit. So if I’m swinging this baseball bat, it’s dropping below it slightly and then kicking up square.
So it’s slightly below that, now you notice if I go this way, and I get into that position slightly below with my club head, as I tilt forward, now that’s in the slot. I’m perfectly on line with my forearm.
So again, it’s about right shoulder height. My hands are jut below my shoulder, if I had to get really technical with it. This club is going to dip down about, let’s call it 10°.
My right arm is up, and then from there I’m going to hinge forward, and now I’m in this position where I have a bunch of lag and my club’s coming down in the slot.
The way I’m going to practice this, is I’m going to make four or five swings first working on momentum. Imagine that big ball around my hips that has a bunch of weight.
Once I get that momentum going, I can add to that with my hands and arms. So I’m just going to do a couple little practice swings feeling that, and swinging on through.
After I’ve done about five of those, now I’m going to do the one where I get in the slot here. Get that same position, I’m going to hinge forward with my hips.
You’ll notice as I start to videotape from down the line, that’s about where it needs to be as far as coming into the slot. In slow motion it may not be perfect there, but we get the idea.
Five or six of those swings, and then I’m going to be ready to put those two pieces together, and get a good momentum, start the downswing in the right way, and then be in the slot where I can go ahead and rip this golf ball.
There we go, guys. Work on starting the downswing the right way, getting in the slot. You’re going to play some great golf.
Having a smooth transition and downswing is often thwarted because you won’t be able to do this fast enough if you throw your arms from the top of the backswing and hit at the golf ball or try and bump and slide too much.
Which is a very common error.
A common golf swing fault is for players to rush the golf downswing because their dominant side (usually right hand ) to swing the golf club. This causes and out of sequence golf swing.
Golf Downswing Slot Drill
This also prevents you from shifting your weight which is critical to allow the golf club to shallow out to get on plane and to allow for the sequencing to unwind properly.
If you want more lag in your downswing, it’s critical that you learn how to shift your weight properly.
Many top players work on this including Justin Rose golf swing and Tiger Woods practice drills