Working on My Takeaway: The Push-Away Drill
While I was working on weight shift from my earlier post, I thought I’d look at my takeaway and experimenting with a fulcrum-style lift of my clubhead to see if that helped. I liked it. My little baby living room swings were starting to feel pretty good. For the first time, I noticed that my spine angle wasn’t reversing, my plane looked good, and in slow motion, I could see the clubface staying closed. Progress, right?
Then I decided to try the Push-Away Drill that I learned a while ago (I’m looking at you Nelly). The concept is simple enough: place a ball behind your club and push it away as you start your takeaway. It’s supposed to promote a smooth, on-plane motion and help with tempo. But when I tried it with my new takeaway, I noticed that the ball moved away from me instead of straight back along (or inside) the target line.
Intrigued, I did what I always do when golf makes me go hmmmm: I turned to AI for answers. Apparently, if the ball moves away from you during the drill, it’s a sign of a few potential issues:
- Too much arm separation – My arms might be disconnecting from my torso, pushing outward instead of moving together with my body turn. (Could be)
- Clubface opening too early – I could be twisting the clubface open during the takeaway, which would send the ball outward. (Also could be)
- Off-plane takeaway – My swing path might be too steep or outside the natural arc. (Most likely definitely sounds like me flailing about)
More to drill. Yay! I’ll be working on keeping my arms connected to my body and focusing on using my shoulders and torso to guide the takeaway while I continue to try and find my swing plane.