How to Draw and Fade the Golf Ball Without Changing Your Swing

So today I'm going to be helping one of my students, Sean, learn how to draw and fade the golf ball on command. Oh, beautiful. Would you be happy with that on the golf course? Oh yeah. So whether he needs to draw it to access a left pin, fade it to access a right pin or to shape it out of trouble around the trees, I'm going to show him the two simplest ways to control curve. And these are methods that I use in my coaching and in my own game, and they require no big swing changes. So by the end of this, you'll know exactly how to practice them. Now, if you're new to the channel and you want to improve your game, make sure you hit that subscribe button. We release videos every single week. And if you enjoy this, then make sure you hit that like button. Let's get to the video. How's your shot shaping? Rate it on a scale of one to 10 for me. I'll say four at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I know where the ball can start and how to shape the shot. Also knowing where the ball will end up when I'm trying to escape trouble. Okay. Which is the easiest shape for you to play, draw or fade? Fade is easier. Fade is easier. So we'll spend a little bit of time doing both, but let's help you more so with the draw. All right. I think the important thing to understand first of all, and for you guys at home is how do we play a draw? What do we need? So have you heard the term, the face sends it, the path bends it before. So what that means is that the starting direction of the ball is largely influenced by the face, not the path. So the ball is going to start closer to where the face is pointing at impact rather than the path. Let's understand how we play a draw and make sense of that. So this blue line here is our target line. We're going straight to the black flag. That's our target today. In order to play a draw, we know that we need a path to the right, which is this blue one here. We need the face closed to the path, which is the yellow one, but it's actually to the right of the target line. So the ball will start closer to the yellow one, and then it will curve depending how much difference there is to the face and the path. The bigger the difference between the face and the path, the more curved. So let's say a small draw is four degrees path to the right. We want the club face to be two degrees close to the path. So basically half of the half of the club path. Yeah. All right. So that would be, let's say that would be a small draw. If we had a medium draw, we'd have maybe six and three and a bigger draw. Let's say we'd have eight and we'd have four. So what we're going to do is figure out what we need to do in order to produce that when we strike the golf ball. And there's two ways I want to show you. The first way is completely doing everything in the setup. Let's say we went for a small draw, four degrees to the right. We're going to change the path by just aiming the body to the right. So feet, hips, and shoulders to the right. Then what we would do is we'd close the face in relation to my body. So straight away. Now I've got a path. If I swing on my body line, it's going to be to the right. My face is close to that path. You can either close the face first or you can close it when you get down to the golf ball. So what I would do is go, okay, I want to, I want to hit it towards that flag with the draw. I'm going to get the face somewhat near the flag. And then I'm going to aim the body to the right. So the idea with this now is if I just swing as usual on the line of my body, I'm hoping that the conditions that I've created at setup will produce that draw for me. We haven't got to change any golf swing. We're just relying on, on the setup. And what we need to understand with this as well is that most golfers have already have a relationship with face to path. So if somebody swings down four degrees left, they probably need to aim a lot further right to get four to the right. Does that make sense? Yes. But I know that your path is pretty neutral. So let's experiment with that first. And we've got full swing in play here to get the numbers. I'd much prefer people to go more shape first, and then we'll sort of tailor it back to go. Let's not work as much, not aim as far right and not close it as much. So I'm going to task you to start with to give me what would be a big draw. A lot of this is trial and error. You know, we, we've got to experiment to understand how do we create the curve and what do we need to feel in ourselves? Cause we're all so different. You've got to find something that works for you. And we're going to show Sean the two different ways and see which one works best for him. Oh, that's going left a lot. Perfect. So let's take a look at the path. First of all, what does the path say? Top left for two to the right. So it's four degrees to the right. Okay. Now we look at the, we look at the face to path. It was just a little too closed. The reason that curve too much was because the face was too closed. Okay. Great start though. If I turn my body, say I do this, then I will feel the ball is more forward versus like my normal normal stance. I feel the ball is more centered on my seven iron. Is that normal? If I move around the ball here, the ball position in relation to my alignment hasn't changed. All I'm really looking to do is aim everything to the right or aim everything to left. I'm not looking to change ball position. Okay. It might change in relation to the target line, right? Right. But not to the body alignment. Gotcha. Yeah. Good question. What are you going to do on this one? I'm going to try to grip the club face less closed. Okay. And then, uh, still the same alignment. So the alignment was good because it was four degrees. Yeah. Yeah. Better. Oh, beautiful. Would you be happy with that on the golf course? Oh yeah. Your path on that there was eight degrees to the right and the face was almost half of that. There's a nice draw, pretty extreme draw, but perfect. I'd love you to start there. Okay. You've done two things straight away, which I'm really happy about. You went one that was too much. The next one that was a nice draw, but it was a big draw still. Can you give me one that's just a, maybe a smaller draw now? Okay. The wind's off the left as well. So it's, it's a little harder. So I'm going to just grip the club tiny bit closed as normal. And then maybe aim the halfway between the edge and the flag. Perfect. Beautiful shot. Let me ask you a question. It was a lovely flight. Lovely strike. Did the ball draw? Bear in mind the wind's off the left. Then they must have draw. Okay. So a little draw. Yeah. What do you think of the path based on the shot? The path is going to be a little less, um, probably three or four, I'll say. And then, uh, the club face probably one or two. Okay. Let's take a look. Your path on that was zero. Okay. You had a really neutral path there. Okay. And the face was 1.1 degrees closed. So it was a relatively straight shot. A little bit of a tiny draw. Tiny draw or pull draw. Pull draw. Yeah. So you pulled it a little bit because the path wasn't far enough to the right. All right. The ball's going to draw. We've got to get it starting right. So we need that path a little bit more right. Yup. And also if you're struggling with your game, make sure you check out the me and my golf game assessment. Seven simple questions is completely free. It takes 90 seconds. Scan the QR code here. It'll tell you the biggest thing that you can work on right now and more importantly, help you improve it. Struck these beautiful, by the way. Watch out, Tommy. Ah, I didn't quite strike it. No, that's okay. I have another go. We'll just take a look at the path number anyway. Let's see. Okay. Zero. Okay. The last two paths have been zero. So let's just get a little bit more right. All right. What did the ball do? It kind of faded again. Sort of faded. It just went relatively straight. Right. But we know that we know the path there was much better. Yeah. Yeah. So you got the path sorted. Now I want you to keep the same path, but we've got to get the face more closed. Okay. You can see with this, it's not always like easy to just get it straight away. This takes practice and just start to understand your tendencies and what you need to do with Sean. His path wants to be a little bit more left and his face, his face isn't quite there yet. We've got to make sure he gets that path right and gets the face closed. There we go. Okay. Beautiful shot. All right. That's like the graduation shot. Where did the ball finish? Left of the flag. So my face must be a little too close relative to the past. Good. Take a look at it. Great path on that one. 4.4 to the right. The face was just a little close, but on the golf course, look, you are like, that's a really nice shot. You just left at the flag. Perfect. Ideally to hit the perfect shot. We want that half of that. We want that face to path two degrees. Okay. So good draw a bit of work to do on that. But that's the way, obviously changing the setup, swinging on the line. It still needs practice, but good way of doing it. And you executed some lovely shapes there. All right, let's do fade. This one is a little easier. Give me a small fade, which is let's say four, four degrees to the left. That's too much. Okay, good, good. I'd rather you start there. So let's, let's take a look at the numbers. Then path was actually like perfect. You had 4.8 degrees to the left. Face was 1.5 degrees to the right. So that's actually okay. What we didn't really think about there was that wind just grabbed it. The wind's off the left. You can see the flags blowing there. So that those numbers were good. But whenever we curve the golf ball, if the wind is going this way and the curve is going that way, the wind's just going to take it. All right. Hit me one more. All right. That's better. Oh, just a beautiful golf shot. Let me give you one of those because that was beautiful. Let's take a look at it. Path was plenty left. We know you're probably going to be a little bit more left than right. If anything, a tiny bit of face open to that, which meant it was perfect because of the wind. Okay. So with the first way we didn't change the swing at all. We said, right, let's close the face or open the face. And then we aim the body and swing as normal. Yeah. We're going to do exactly the same on this one with the body. The only difference is we're going to aim the face and the body to the right. So you want me to set up the clubface square to my body? Yes. Okay. Then the only way we're going to try and create the curve is in how we finish through the shot. I always like to get to have the minimal amount of swing change with when it comes to this, we've got to try and change path and change the pattern. It's really hard, but one thing that we can change, and it's not, not for everyone. We can change what the face is doing. It's a little bit easier to hold the face open or a little easier to actually rotate the face. So we can feel that without having to change any swing directions. I think a lot of players will do a combination of the two. They'll do some of this, but then they'll have little fields. Justin Johnson famously, remember his video that he's famously said when he said the one thing you've got to do when you play a fade is you make sure you fade it. We can make sure that it fades by how we release the club or make sure that it draws by how we release the club. What we're going to focus on here is aim everything to the right to create the path. And then through the golf ball, we're going to make sure that that right arm finishes more on top of the left. So we're going to have more of this action here. Okay. More of this release of the arms and the hands. And that hopefully should create the closed face to the path and give us that shape. Okay. We've seen Scotty. We've seen Bubba Watson who shaped the golf ball. You see Scotty sometimes and he's finishing like this when he's trying to draw it. Colin Morikawa uses this a fair bit to create the shapes. So let's try this. So what are we going to do on the through swing is just make sure that right arm finishes more over the left. Okay. Feel different in that. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that now look at the club face. That club face is turned down. Okay. All I want you to do on this is just finish with that right arm working over the left. Beautiful. That's over cooked, but okay. Let's take a look at the numbers. Beautiful. Four degrees to the right. Almost face was just a little too much closed. We just released it too much. All right. So give me a little bit less release. Again, when you experiment this on the range, I'd much rather you, if you're trying to draw it, make sure it draws first and then tailor it back. Whether that's changing the setup or whether it's less release be interesting to see which one works for you. Let us know in the comments, actually. That's better. Oh, that's a sexy shot. Yeah. 4.6 to the right with the path 3.6 to the left that there, if you could hit that shot on command, you're in a great place. Okay. Tiger talked about his shot shaping. Like when he, he said, when he wants to hit a draw, he plays the ball back a little bit and open the clubface for a draw. Yeah. Putting the ball back in the stance moves the path more to the right. Yeah. Um, and the face open for him might just cue him to close the face. So there's no right or wrong with this. Some people would feel the face more open. Some people would feel the face more closed depending on the pattern really. As long as we can produce the numbers. We're good. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So let's go fade now. So if the, if the drawer is releasing the right arm over the left, what's the fade going to be like a helicopter finish? Yeah. So it's going to be feeling that the left arm is a little bit more on top of the, the right through impact. And actually the finish position is very much, you'll see it's more level across the head like this. Now when we get the right arm releasing, look, we often get the butt of the club this way. Okay. Whereas the fade is actually more of this feeling where we're almost just holding it off. Okay. And this is making sure that that club DJ make sure it fades like this feeling is really just going to make sure that that ball doesn't double cross. Okay. Through swing now is feeling a little bit more this way where the face isn't releasing as much. So just the face point to the sky. Yeah. And then finishing more with this a little bit more horizontal. Okay. The drawer is more like this, right? The fade is more like this. Okay. So let's align ourselves left. I want to see if you can get that path. Let's go. Give me a six degrees left path. Okay, good. Again, first thing that you did on that one, you, you went too much. I'm happy about that. I'd rather you go too much than do a little bit less. There you go. So seven degrees, seven degrees. So you were closer than six, which are four degrees. Give me one more. Beautiful. Really, really nice. Again, the winds took it a little bit there. Great strike. Take a look. Excellent. Look at those numbers. So pretty much half of that on there. All right. Really nice. Let's finish off with getting out of trouble shot. When you're practicing drawer fades, I think it's, it's always good to have your top, like something as a reference point for your target line. So we've got that on the ground there. So you can visualize starting in right or left of that. That's going to help you train the face as well. I want you to be able to start it at the bunker. Okay. And then bend it back around to the flag. I'm going to be at the, uh, I'm going to be align myself with the yellow flag. But then my face is going to be pointing at the bunker. Love it. Cause that's now creating the path. So see how you can sort of work that out there. Yeah. Oh, Sean, that was so nice. Look at this. Let's just have a look at that. Oh, it didn't pick it up. We don't need, we can make numbers up. That was a good shot. Amazing. Really good. Which one do you think is easiest? Do you think you'd go to one or do you think you'd go both? I think I need to do a combination of it and see which I need to do more in order for me to, uh, more confident on the course. Yeah. Get that consistency. It takes some practice, but have a go at that. Also, let us know in down down below in the comments, which one do you think will be more helpful to you? Remember to check out the me and my golf game assessment. If you want to help with your game to find the number one problem that you need help with and also how to improve it, scan the QR code right here, and remember to subscribe to the channel and we look forward to seeing you again soon.