The Nine Shots

In Mental , posted by Virginia on

Hank Haney recently said that when he was teaching Tiger Woods he would continually practice “The Nine Shots” on the driving range, a practice drill that is highly effective in mind and body synchronization and increasing your repertoire of shots, which are crucial in lowering scores.

So what are “The Nine Shots”? Haney would have Tiger hit a high fade, a mid-height fade and a low fade and then do the same hitting a straight shot and with a draw, making a total of 9 different shots (not necessarily in that order).

This forms the basis of a great practice or warm-up session. Over time this will give you heightened mind-body awareness in that you are instinctively aware of what your body needs to do to play a shot you are visualizing. There is no conscious control of your swing. The more you can learn to play and practice using visualization and feel, instead of having technical thoughts and letting negative interferences in, the better you will become.

 Being able to control both the trajectory and shape of the shot is integral to a good scoring game. In windy conditions it helps enormously to be able to hit the ball low into the wind and high when it’s behind. There are obvious advantages for being able to shape the ball with a drive or approach shot. Realizing that there are several ways of getting to the ball to the target and some are more effective than others, is a big part of improving your golf game.

Next time you are on the range, work on The Nine Shots. In addition to increasing your visualization and feel, it will tell you a lot about your swing. E.g. If you are having trouble hitting it high, or hitting a fade, try to figure out why.

Give this drill a try this instead of working on numerous swing drills and hitting to the same target and I’ve no doubt you’ll see the results on the course.

Source Golf State of Mind