2018 UPDATE
The No Turn Cast Drill has proven to be one my most useful and controversial teaching concepts. The video I’ve embedded here is the original No Turn Cast Drill. For those interested, I go into much greater detail about this drill in my video series DRIVE 4 DOUGH. The video also looks a lot better in that version.
The concept of the No Turn. Cast Drill remains as simple as it was the day I originally uploaded the video: Many golfers conflate making a proper turn with arm runoff in their backswings. So telling those golfers to set the wrists on the backswing “without turning” results in a perfect turn and a much improved wrist set. Part two of the drill concerns a separate but equally confused feeling: When told to cast the club at the ball from the top, most golfers actually produce shaft lean at impact. This happens because trying to cast paradoxically speeds up the arms, resulting in better impact conditions, despite the effort to make them as poor as possible.
More generally, the no turn cast drill is a great example of the saying, “feel is not real.” What we think we’re doing, how we feel we’re moving, and what we actually are doing, are often very different in golf. Sometimes our perceptions of what is “correct” and how it should “feel” have nothing to do with one another:
[youtube=http://youtu.be/tgwNEpvQQqE]
ORIGINAL POST
Today’s post is going to be quite mind numbing. Lots of technical data, domino effect of swing faults and an incredulous, counter intuitive solution to some very common swing faults.
“Feel isn’t real” personified and to the nth degree.
The golf swing being nearly 100% counter intuitive, this is something I have been suggesting to people. Now it’s not even close to what’s supposed to happen, but the feels produce wonderful results.
i.e. the exact opposite of the title…a huge turn and all sorts of shaft lean.
In this era of making a big turn, completing the backswing and lag, everyone over rotates to the inside, over runs the turn with the arms, yanks the handle, gets stuck, upper body moves laterally, steep, stall, flip, warped political and religious beliefs, tax evasion and bad breath.
Golfers fall into two categories with wrist set and turn.
1. Those who set their wrists in reaction to a turn.
2. Those who turn in reaction to the wrists setting.
Herein lies the problem. 95%+ try to fall into category 1 and 95%+ actually fall into category 2.
This mismatch creates all the problems that amateurs lament across the world. Whipping the club inside, late arm lift, arm over run, over the top and cirrhosis of the liver (from drinking too much after your swing drives you to the bottle).
I have tried this on dozens of people. I tell them to make their normal swing. Then I tell them to make a no turn backswing and just set the wrists. Guess what has happened 100% of the time?
When I compare the videos, they turn shoulders 10-15 more degrees in the no turn swing and most of it happens by the time the left arm reaches parallel to the ground…and the angle of the shoulder turn is better and more perpendicular to the spine.
Result…shorter backswing with a bigger turn and the arms and hands in front of the turn…which is huge.
Guess why? A large majority of the population perceives turn as arm swing from a feel standpoint. So when they are instructed not to turn, the body reacts to the wrists setting by turning, which the arms move very little. Make no mistake, you aren’t supposed to restrict the turn, you just aren’t consciously making the turn and allow the body to turn itself in reaction to the wrists setting.
Think it’s just hackers? Two time PGA Tour winner Frank Lickliter was getting his arms behind his turn and didn’t know how to fix it. This feel worked for him.
So with a strange sounding feel in the backswing, we have eliminated takeaway too far inside and arm over run. This likely also eliminates reverse tilting at the top of the swing. Before we have even started the downswing, three big root causes that lead to a huge percentage of casting swings.
Yanking the handle, leading to the upper body reacting by moving toward the target, steepening the angle of attack and forcing the body to cast the club to keep from digging a grave…being the root cause of most of the other casting swings.
Casting is almost always a result of a swing too long, a steep angle of attack (Reverse tilt and upper body moving toward target cause this) or the arms trailing the turn…or some combination therein.
So now on to part two of the swing. Cast it from the top on purpose. I can hear and feel all of the lagists having their heads explode. Guess what this often results in? The right arm speeds up and linking the arms up with the turn/pivot. The turn reacts by speeding up which doesn’t allow the club to cast and you end up with shaft lean and an elimination of many of the root causes that result in the loss of shaft lean.
Like everything in the golf swing, these “feels” won’t work for everyone, but they have worked for more people than would make logical sense, but then the swing isn’t logical, is it?
Streaming Video Series
WOW !!!
Fantastic
Haha… you go out in the rain and *** weather for your readers 🙂
Great video Monte. Confirmed the feel/drills that you spoke of and made them easy to understand. These have really helped my swing a lot already! Thanks for taking your time to help us out! PS….weather looks a hell of a lot nicer here in Vegas for once 🙂
I would love to witness a conversation involving you, Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett. No weapons allowed.
Let the body turn in *response to* the swinging of the arms, to paraphrase Jim Flick.
Pretty good stuff. I keep struggling with a to “armsy” over the top swing and not getting that proper rotation. If I get the rotation right, I have perfect contact each time. Gonna give this feel a shot. Thanks!
Great video, it works.
I love the ball striking with this idea, but I’m zipping big hooks…missing fairways and greens. It’s worst with longer the club. What’s the deal? Can you cut the ball with this swing thought? I’m hitting these crazy left trap shots.
See the comment on the throw v. the roll below. Maybe you are rolling.
What are you doing wrong if on short wedges like you hit, you hit it really fat?
Upper body moving laterally toward target is a good bet.
Beautiful. Bring on the angle holders.
Monte — I like the video and it’s kind of what I thought it would be, good stuff. My question is if you just hinge the wrists with no turn you would hit yourself in the head with the shaft of clubhead, wouldn’t you? (maybe I’m missing something)
Allow your body to react.
Awesome video Monte, I’m guessing it needs to be a lot of “throw” and not “roll” or else the whole thing gets messed up, right?
Yes
well done video, amazing how many golfers this would help
Great video Monte… bonus points for “asunder”
Thanks. I haven’t used an obscure literary reference for a while.
I don’t plan on those references, or the Roget words, they just come out at opportune moments.
Excellent, Monte – I try this and get mixed results so far. Short clubs great, longer irons into woods I get a pull/pain in the right hand (pinky and next finger) after impact. Not turning enough?
Great vid, Monte. Well done!
is this why mr. hogan said he wished he had three right hands?
Great video Monte! Tried it today and had decent success with every club except my fairway wood, low left to right line drives
Great video. I regularly play with a scratch player who constantly tells me to shorten my backswing.. He tells me that it hould feel as though I’m barely turning. He says, what I think is turning, is just swaying off the ball . When I get it right it looks exactly like hat you’re teaching and the strikes are consistant and centerfaced.
However, I’ve been searching for some kind of trigger to stop the backswing. I’m going to try the no turn. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Best golf lesson I’ve ever had!!! It works. It helped my putting, too. Hopefully you have a mailing address on the site. Will be sending a check. Thanks so very much Monte.
When I start my crowd funding project to produce my training device, just buy a few of them. 😀
What’s the possible issues when you’re hitting pull hooks doing this? Worked surprisingly well but man when it was off, it was WAY off.
Reminds me of four magic moves fr.o.m. Dante & Elliot.
“Start the backswing with an early backward wrist break”
Edit: from
Best instruction I ever saw. Thanks
Reminds me of Ron Del Barrio
Monte, I found your blog after wanting to correct my long and low back swing. I just couldn’t correct the problem on my own. The “only cocking the wrist” cue didn’t work for me, so then I tried just moving my arms. ( No effort to rotate shoulders at all.) Result was a perfect shoulder rotation with lead arm in perfect position at the top. Immediately started making more consistent contact. I’m really grateful for your efforts. PS. Went back and most of your old blog posts, and I’m a fan now!
It worked! It worked! It worked!
Sums it up. Thank you Monte.
Hi Monte.
I make pretty good contact with this drill, but I’m pulling a lot of my shots. Is this normal for someone making this change at 1st? Am I possibly getting ahead of the shot?
Thanks.
Jason.
Let your body react to the throw! You’ll never throw away the angle because the body recognizes that it has to keep up. You will actually have more “picture frame lag” and the re-hinging of the wrists after impact indicates a full and free release. This left thumb against the handle and supination of the right forearm from the top keeps the body in sync and supercharges the release.
Tried it yesterday and liked it!
I had a few Eureka! moments on the golf course today after watching this video and “Plane and Release”. I did not know that I could hit iron shots without making a turn. I should say, without dragging my arms around my body and pulling the handle. I also had three of my longest drives by taking that baseball swing to the ground. I don’t think I’ve ever used my arms correctly before and I’ve been playing for 20 years. Thanks Monte, for the insightful instruction.
Found your blog via a lucky link and I am glad I did. your counter intuitive drill is tremendous. I have been fighting my swing (trying to remake it) and have gotten to the point where high 90’s looked good. I headed out over the weekend to a tough course and all I worked on on the range was this drill – it took 3 swings before my irons started flying on line with a hint of a draw (into a left to right wind). Broke 90 while spending msot of the round helping my son. The only swing thought during the round was set the writst and cast the hands. Amazing the difference between feel and reality. Thanks for the great work.
I’ll say it again, Monte: you are an absolute genius when it comes to what’s going on in the golf swing. You should be the most famous instructor on earth. There would be a lot fewer shitty golfers out there if that were the case.
I was using this for half wedge shots today. It worked great!
Hey Monte,
I’m an overrun and upper body towards the target guy. A moved I’ve tried forever to kill. It’s gotten better through a lot of lessons and practice, but still my number one fault. No need to explain the downsides there as you’ll already are well aware.
This worked really well for me, but I do have a question. Right around 7 iron I started getting more toe contact, more thins, less distance, more hooking (my normal miss). That carried on down to the driver. With 8 iron through my wedges I’m not sure I’ve ever hit the ball that well. Even some (small) divots, which are pretty much unheard of in my world.
Any tips on what might help me move this success into the longer clubs or what common mistakes I might be making based on my normal tendencies?
Thanks though. It’s a feel that seems to work very well for me with getting a semi-normal turn.
After this, it would be good to remove all lag/plane and other related videos from the web. This Monte-thing works as a charm.