Every golfer who buys a GOLFSTR+ would love to golf as well as Lydia Ko : only 17, 5’ 5” and consistently shooting under par on 6500 yard courses. Her demeanor is as consistent as her perfect swing: calm and controlled. She learns from her misses and enjoying the thrill of every shot. Pay attention to Lydia Ko and every swing in your game will improve.
After watching Lydia win another tournament I was pleased to see the GOLFWEEK Approach Shots blog by Beth Ann Nichols. Her blog reported that only weeks after turning pro, Lydia moved from New Zealand to the Orlando, FL area to work with Sean Hogan and David Leadbetter (also training Michelle Wie and Suzann Pettersen). Sean is working on adding to her low fad shot by teaching her to work the ball up and down and side to side. The article covered some of her basic training exercises that we all should be using:
Palm-push Drill: Pull your leading straight arm as you rotate your chest for an improved backswing. It’s a great stretching exercise to learn the straight leading arm swing.
1/ Warm-up Palm-push Drill: She loosens her upper body by pulling her straight leading arm in the backswing motion. She crosses her left hand above her right wrist and stretches back and through simulating a swing. This achieve the same rotation that Michael Breed talks about with 2 straight arms in the takeaway to rotate the chest. Of course GOLFSTR+ is a great trainer to achieve this straight leading arm swing as you play 18 holes.
Step Drill: In practice to improve her draw, Lydia steps into her swing like a baseball batter or pitcher.
2/ Hit the Draw using the Step Drill: As she takes her backswing she is lifting and shifting her left foot back to her right foot (like a baseball pitcher winding up) and then swinging from the inside. “The step drill really promotes a draw because it drops the club to the inside on the way down,” Hogan said.
3/ Swing Focus Flow Drill: To keep her natural rhythm Hogan has her lift her club forward of the ball and taking the club back over the ball to complete her backswing and then swing through impact. Ko even uses this in her pre-shot practice swings to stay loose.
4/ Building Consistency with a Stability drill: Hogan uses a shaft in the ground and leaning against the right side of her leg to prevent swaying to the right. This keeps her weight forward as she completes her swing.
5/ Short Game Practice to Stir Creativity: He challenges her to create different shots with different clubs from various locations around a green to promote creativity.
6/ Putting focus on a Shortened Backswing: Ko practices with a tee in the ground behind her putter to restrict her backswing and force the acceleration of the swing up her intended line.
These are all great training tips. Of course GOLFSTR+ should be used to practice Every Swing in Your Game too. Check it out at www.golfstr.com
Two comments on your tips :
-Keeping the left arm straight :this should be obtained by working on your flexibilty first (See ROGER FREDERICKS :THE FLEXIBLE GOLF SWING ),not with a training device
-Putting :restricting the backswing: poor advice:see GEOFF MANGUM ,the putting Guru ,in his excellent book “OPTIMAL PUTTING “:the putter should behave like Grand Ma’s clock ,there ‘s no thrust to be put in the putter it oscillates by itself ,the father the pin ,the longer the backstroke .Everything happens by gravity alone
Hi Raymond, Thanks for your 2 comments. I totally agree that there is no need to wear GOLFSTR+ when stretching. The stretching exercise was meant for body rotation and shoulder stretch. Your second point is about putting: The exercise used by Lydia was recommended by her instructor ( This blog is just a summary of an article for Lydia’s training). I like your recommendation about putting like a pendulum on a clock (tick – tock) and using the same length of swing back as the swing forward (avoiding any rushing motion). I believe that they are working on Lydia’s putting follow-through up her target line. This avoids any side spin on the putt.