The Swoosh Drill For Increased Club Head Speed

/ The Grateful Golfer

I am on the hunt for indoor golf drills. The next few months will be long and cold, but the quest to improve my golf game never stops. As stated previously, I will be working on my putting very soon and in addition, I have decided to look for other drills I can perform in my basement. It did not take me very long to come across what I think is a great drill I can use given my limited practice area; it is called the swoosh drill.

The swoosh drill is designed to increase club head speed through a proper wrist hinge. Touted as having an added benefit of improving impact, I will have to wait until spring to judge the full benefit of this drill.

One of the great advantages of a properly performed swoosh drill is that I will be able to hear immediate results. This will allow me to adjust my mechanics quickly and without very much effort. Having immediate feedback (that we understand) is something I always look for in a golf drill because it means anyone can use it successfully.

Here is a video by PGA Erika Larkin describing the swoosh drill :

I can see this drill having many benefits for my game. It will help me swing a golf club in the dead of winter, allow for immediate feedback on my technique, and help me focus on a proper wrist hinge. This is a perfect drill for the dead of winter!

Has anyone ever used the swoosh drill before? Did you like it?

I am a grateful golfer! See you on the links!

6 thoughts on “The Swoosh Drill For Increased Club Head Speed”

  1. If I may be so bold as to reiterate the suggestion I gave you about slowing your back swing and starting it more towards outside the line rather than in. I bring it up again simply because this drill should be a good way to test it a bit and is the main drill the pro I worked with gave me. That sounds like I got lots of training. I didn’t. Just a couple of lessons after playing for over 20 years and now my entire game is different not to mention much better after only 13 months of practice it. For me i’ts time to go back for another. I want some real green reading knowledge next.

    First, I do this drill with the club held normally rather than upside down. I can hear the swoosh just fine. In fact I have an old 7 wood with some extra lead weight taped to it that I use at home for this. Swinging the extra weight helps increase my club head speed with my regular clubs so I get an added bonus. I seldom need to use it indoors, but in Florida, we just don’t have your weather issues. But on occasion I have to make a bit of room in my garage to get in some swing practice if a tropical storm has the bad taste to stay longer than a couple of days.

    Either way you want to do it, I was told to start out super slow. Exaggeratedly slow and what felt really wide coming back to the top of my swing and hold it for the count of three. Then, as I start down, again slowly to start, I should feel my hands move a slight bit back and down to start and that should be caused by the lower body moving first. Then as my arms start moving down, I should feel my wrists cock more. Like a slight bit of added backwards pressure on them (you don’t really feel that when you do it real slow and its hard to feel with the club upside down even fast). Then from that point the club head should be behind and following the hands around and staying close to your right arm/shoulder. We hold it as we come around and don’t even think about releasing until after we are as far past parallel with the ground as we dare. He said not to worry about speed for the first swing or two until I felt I was getting it right, then just start increasing speed and loose the forced stop at the top.

    My back swing is generally much slower now than before which means only that I don’t get out of position quite as easily. I don’t swing quite as far back anymore so I can’t see the driver head in my left side peripheral. It’s higher and I’m guessing just left of my target line and not quite to parallel. But when my downswing starts, and my hands make the down and back move, it feels like I am there just as I start the down swing.

    There is only one thing about this swing that caused me issues and that was my back. The pro had me adjust my posture at the same time and helped me post up better instead of sliding so I suspect that is more the issue, but golfing left me with a sore back for the first few months after I made my changes. No problem anymore though. I actually think I am getting more coil after the posture and swing changes and worked those muscles more because of it so they needed to get exercised into shape.

    Sorry about the book. Nobody ever lets me talk about golf.

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    • Kevin

      Talk away. Thanks for the excellent description of how you use the swoosh drill. I will keep it in mind when I start my indoor routine, which will be very soon. I will keep in mind about keeping my movements slow and deliberate at first, this does sound very important.

      Cheers
      Jim

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  3. Jim I incorporated the swish drill into my winter workouts a couple years back. While it’s good for your hand action, make sure you are still making a good turn on your backswing because it’s very hands-focused. Also make sure you’ve got 8 foot ceilings in your basement!

    Brian

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