Tour Ball-Striking Drills

If you are struggling with inconsistent contacts, try these Tour Ball-Striking Drills to get yourself back on track!

Tour Ball-Striking Drills

Rafa Cabrera-Bello – Upper Body Check

Keeping your sternum directly over the ball is one of those fundamentals we hear repeated time and again. Cabrera-Bello uses his putting mirror to check it. Setting your upper body correctly over the ball at address and then returning to this position through impact is the key to consistently sweet strikes.

5 Strange Tour Practice Drills

Martin Kaymer – Alignment and strike drill

As well as checking his clubface alignment before he hits, Martin Martin is also using this drill to focus on a spot just in front of the ball. By doing that he ensures that he strikes the ball first with the ideal, downward angle of attack. Placing a tee in the ground in front of your ball is another way to hone cleaner, sweeter contacts.

Ian Poulter – T-Bar Drill

Ian Poulter uses a simple T-Bar to check both his ball position and alignment. These are the foundations of good ball striking and worth checking regularly yourself.

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Padraig Harrington – Weight Movement Drill

This is a drill that Harrington has actually taken with him onto the course during competition. The theory behind it makes perfect sense. Essentially, he steps into the finish position to create a better, more natural weight shift through the ball. Moving your weight towards the target in the downswing is one of the most basic fundamentals in the swing – get it right and you’ll hit the ball further and straighter.

How Tour Players Practise Putting

Stewart Cink – Start-line Drill

For Tour Ball-Striking Drills, this one is very simple. Stewart Cink places an alignment stick in the ground about 6ft ahead of where he is hitting from, directly on his ball to target line. This illustrates how straight he is starting his shots. It can also help you with your shot-shaping. If hitting a fade, you must start the ball left of the stick. If hitting a draw, the ball should fly off to the right. It’s a simple drill, but a really effective one.

Neil Tappin
Editor

In July 2023, Neil became just the 9th editor in Golf Monthly's 112-year history. Originally working with the best coaches in the UK to produce instruction content, he has also presented many Golf Monthly videos looking at all areas of the game from Tour player interviews to the rules of golf. 

Throughout his time with the brand he has also covered equipment launches that date back well over a decade. He clearly remembers the launch of the Callaway and Nike square drivers as well as the white TaylorMade driver families, such as the RocketBallz! If you take a look at the Golf Monthly YouTube channel, you'll see his equipment videos dating back over a decade! He has also conducted 'What's In The Bag' interviews with many of the game's best players like Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm. Over the years, Neil has tested a vast array of products in each category and at drastically different price-points. 


Neil is currently playing: Driver: TaylorMade Stealth Plus Fairway Wood: Titleist TSR2 Hybrid: Titleist TS3 Irons: PING Blueprint S (4&5), PING Blueprint T (6-PW) Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM7 50˚, 54˚, 60˚ Putter: Odyssey Triple Track Ten Ball: Titleist Pro V1X