Quick Drill for Perfect Wedge Shaft Lean
Distance wedges are such an important part of your golf game. You rely on them to capitalize on a great drive, a three-shot par-5, and countless other times throughout your round. How much can some consistency in your distance wedge game help your scores?
If you want more predictability from your distance wedges, and a move that will translate to other aspects of your game, check out this shaft-lean drill from Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher Mark Blackburn.
Distance Wedge Alignment Stick Drill
To demonstrate this drill, Mark uses a club with an alignment stick stuck in the butt of the grip. If you don’t have a spare wedge that you can permanently alter, or you just prefer not to, you can hold the alignment stick in your grip along the shaft. At setup, the alignment stick should extend past your rib cage on your lead side.
Once you’ve got your alignment stick in place, address the ball. In order to get the alignment stick outside of your rib cage, you’ll probably notice you need to add some extra shaft lean at address.
Next, rotate your body through the shot without flipping your hands. If you do this correctly, your lead arm will still be in line with the shaft after impact, and the alignment stick will not hit you.
If you feel the alignment stick hit you in the side, you know you’ve lost your shaft lean, which will crush your goal of hitting consistent shots.
The Benefits of Proper Shaft Lean
When you hit shots with the proper shaft lean, and do it consistently, you’ll see lower-launching wedge shots and you’ll notice it’s easier to control the face. The result will be predictable shots from arguably your most important scoring shots.