Hitting a perfect draw

One of the most common requests I get on the lesson tee is: “Can you please help me learn how to hit a draw?”, writes Matt Chalmers

For a right-handed golfer, a ‘draw’ is a shot that starts to the right of your intended target, spins right to left through the air, and finishes on target.

Many people I speak to are under the impression that the draw is something that only ‘better’ players can produce. However, producing a draw only requires an understanding of the necessary science and some practice. I can help you with the first part.

The first step is learning how to make the ball spin from right to left through the air.

In order to achieve this spin, you have to make sure that the club face is slightly closed (pointing to the left of the target) at impact.

The most common analogy to help you learn how to do this is to imagine that you are playing a topspin tennis forehand. This tennis shot requires significant right forearm rotation in order to apply the correct spin to the ball. When applied correctly, the ‘top’ edge of the tennis racquet will contact the ball first, encouraging the correct spin.

When applied correctly in golf, the toe of the club will contact the ball before the heel, thus making the ball spin from right to left through the air. When you are learning this skill, it is a good idea to exaggerate getting the toe of the club to the ball as early as possible to create maximum spin.

Once you can get the ball spinning from right to left (on purpose!), you can move onto the second part of hitting a draw. 

When you are on the driving range, imagine that you are standing in the middle of a giant clock.

If you drew a straight line from your ball to your target, that line would point directly at 12 o’clock.

Equally, if you extended that line straight through the ball in the opposite direction, it would point directly at 6 o’clock. 

Let’s take it as a given that in order to hit the ball completely straight, your club has to travel from 6 o’clock through to 12 o’clock and the club face has to be pointing directly at the target when contact is made.

Your your second task is to learn how to manipulate your ‘swing path’ so that the ball initially flies to the right.

The best way to do this is to imagine that you are trying to make your club travel from 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock (in the downswing), thus sending the ball out to the right. It will feel as if you are intentionally trying to hit a ‘block’.

Although this might seem like a huge amount of information, it is fairly straight-forward if you take the time to practice both parts individually.

My advice is to challenge yourself to hit 10 balls in a row that deliberately start (and finish) to the right of your intended target. Once you have completed that, challenge yourself to hit 10 balls in a row that spin from right to left through the air.

In the final part of the challenge, hit five balls where you try and combine both thoughts.

These two areas are crucial to your development as a golfer. As with anything, the driving range is the place to experiment, not the golf course.