ALL Players Can Benefit from this Wall Drill + The Best Value on Alabama's RTJ Trail

TIPS & DRILLS
ALL Players Can Benefit from this Wall Drill
Better ball compression with more consistent contact and more distance

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To Recap…

Are you someone who tends to hang back in your swing, often leading to fat and thin shots as a result of inconsistent low point control? Or do you just want to get better ball compression? Here is a great drill from one of the best young coaches in the sport, Ryan Hager:

-STEP 1: Take a golf stance without a club just behind a wall. Place your lead foot right up against the wall, and cross your arms at your chest. Practice rotating your torso in reverse mimicking a backswing, and as you transition to your downswing, shift all your weight onto your lead side. Once your shoulder and hip bump the wall, that’s your trigger to push up away from the ground and rotate your lead shoulder.
-STEP 2: Once you’ve perfected the feel without a club, try the same drill with a wedge in your hands (but don’t actually swing, of course, or you’ll break your wrist).
-STEP 3: Now it’s time to take this drill to the range. Grab an alignment stick and push it vertically into the ground against your lead foot (simulating the wall). Practice the same feel with and without a club. When you feel like you’ve mastered it, graduate to half and full speed shots.

PRO TIP: You might be tempted to skip Step 1 and go straight to Step 3 on the range. This isn’t the worst idea, but there’s a different signal being sent to your brain when you have a real wall in front of you, so if you find yourself sliding too much to your lead side, it can’t hurt to go back to Step 1.

COURSES
The Best Value on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail
An incredible layout from the design icon

Grand National Golf Club - Lake Course (RTJ Golf Trail)
Opelika, AL

Robert Trent Jones, Sr. has a resume as a golf course architect that will almost certainly never be surpassed. Spyglass Hill in Pebble Beach, Hazeltine in Minnesota, Congressional in Maryland, the list goes on and on. If it’s on the top 100 Courses list, there’s a better than average chance than RTJ touched the course either as an original architect or re-design consultant. The guy was prolific. He passed in 2000 at age 93, and one of his most incredible achievements was the RTJ Golf Trail in Alabama, consisting of 468 holes on 26 courses across 11 sites, all designed by the legend himself.

Many say the Lake Course at Grand National Golf Club is not only the best value on the trail, but some say it’s actually their favorite course, ranked 8th in the state by Golf Digest. With generous tree-lined fairways, strategic bunkering and huge multi-tiered greens, the Lake Course is a perfect example of RTJ’s preference for “heroic” design full of risk-reward shots where it’s difficult to make a par but easy to make a bogey. It’s the home course for Auburn University, and it has hosted LPGA Tour events, PGA Tour events (Barbasol Championship from 2015-2017), and even the Division 1 Women’s National Championship in 2004.

Visually, the course is stunning. RTJ himself reportedly called the 600-acre Lake Saugahatchee site the "single greatest" piece of land he had ever seen for a golf complex, and he took full advantage of the lake, routing 12 of the 18 holes along its shoreline. As one reviewer wrote, "Grand National's Lake course is a hidden gem on the Robert Trent Jones Trail. The par-3s are particularly memorable, with the 15th hole's island green rivaling the famous 17th at TPC Sawgrass… there's not a weak hole in the bunch. It's a testament to Robert Trent Jones Sr.'s design genius."

The Grand National also operates an 18-hole “Links Course” (ranked #12 in the state) as well as an 18-hole par-3 “Short Course,” making it a fantastic option for a weekend trip centered around a Fall football or early Spring basketball game Auburn.

Rates: $58 - $125 dependent upon day of the week and time

Check out this video from @auburnopelika

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STATISTICS
Stat of the Day: How Grip Strength Translates to Club Head Speed
presented by…

The Stat: For every 2 pounds of additional grip strength, your club head speed will increase by 1 mph.

The Takeaway: You don’t need to be completely jacked like The Rock to hit the ball 300+ yards. Heck, look at guys like Rory McIlroy (320.2 yards avg. driving distance, 5’10” & 160 lbs.) and Carlos Ortiz (315.3 yards avg. driving distance, 6’0” & 150 lbs).

What you need is club head speed, and one of the best ways you can get more speed (outside of consistent fitness and speed training) is improving your grip strength. A 5 mph increase in club head speed means 12.5 more yards off the tee. So this winter, grab a few manual training gadgets, or do some bar hangs, or join some arm wrestling competitions… whatever it takes.

TODAY’S TRIVIA
Answer to Win a Set of 3 Mizuno T24 Denim Copper Wedges
(1 winner chosen on 11/30/24 across all November trivia entries, 1,000 correct respondents minimum)

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