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Take two alignment sticks. Place one through your front belt loops. So that it is parallel to your hips. Take the other rod and hold it on the club shaft so it extends up the lead side of your body. On the back swing point the club shaft stick at the target line or just inside it. On the down swing the club shaft stick needs to come down infront of the hip line stick and behind or to the right of your trail hip. Then you swing the club into the ball. This is an exaggeration but it is what a lot of great players feel. It keeps the club in the correct arch an position relative to the rotation of your upper body.

TWO ROD RELEASE DRILL

Use the momentum of the club to create your backswing.

FRONT LOADER DRILL

In this episode of Ask Malaska Golf, Mike Malaska explores a fundamental principle that separates inconsistent ball-strikers from great ones: the synchronization of body motion and club motion through impact. The discussion begins with a sharp observation from member John, who noticed how Mike&rsquo;s hips and hands seem to work together in perfect harmony during the swing. This seemingly simple insight opens the door to a much larger conversation about how the left hip socket and the clubhead must move together &mdash; not separately &mdash; to produce solid, repeatable contact.
 Mike uses a throwing analogy to explain the concept. If you were tossing a ball at the camera, your body wouldn&rsquo;t stop and let your arm whip independently &mdash; it would all move as one fluid, instinctive motion. The same is true in golf. Yet most golfers either fire their hips too early (leaving the club stuck behind) or stall out their body (leading to a flip). In a live lesson with student Billy, Mike demonstrates how this pattern plays out in real time and shows how feeling the connection between your hip and the clubhead can immediately improve your swing. He explains that this discovery didn&rsquo;t come from textbook theory &mdash; it came from years of playing other sports, and decades of teaching golfers of every level. Once you understand the way forces move and match in the swing, you&rsquo;ll not only strike the ball better, but you&rsquo;ll also finally understand why it&rsquo;s happening &mdash; and how to repeat it under pressure.
What You&rsquo;ll Learn in This Video: &bull; Why your hip and club must move together through impact &bull; How mismatched motion leads to flipping or getting stuck &bull; Why pushing back with the hips creates proper swing timing &bull; How a simple feel unlocks fluid, coordinated movement &bull; Why motion-first mechanics are the key to lasting improvement &ldquo;If your hips outrun the club, you get stuck. If they stop, you flip. But when the hip and club match, the circles match, the forces match &mdash; and it all just works.&rdquo; &mdash; Mike Malaska
Key Takeaway: Synchronize your body and club through impact. When your left hip socket moves back at the same rate the club is coming through, you create a powerful, connected motion that eliminates flipping and builds consistency. The M-System trains this instinctively through motion-based drills that help you feel how the swing should work &mdash; not force it.
&nbsp;What You&rsquo;ll Learn in This Video: &bull; Why your hips and club must sync at impact for solid contact &bull; How mismatched motion leads to flipping, stalling, and inconsistent strikes &bull; Why pushing back with the hips helps sequence the swing naturally &bull; How a throwing motion feel improves timing, tempo, and body-club sync

Sync Your Swing For Solid Impact

Use head covers as swing guides in order to train an in to in path.  Here's how to do it safely.

HEAD COVER DRILL

Dropping your right foot back gets your right hip out of the way and makes it easier to hit balls on the range and the course.

STAGGERED STANCE PROGRESSION

Mike connects the relationship with baseball to golf and how the grip is almost identical at impact. Hitting a golf ball and a baseball is essentially the same.

BASEBALL SWING

Choosing a club depends on the loft you want to achieve.

WHICH CLUBS TO HIT

LAUNCH ANGLE - WEDGES

Tip the club out in order to get the momentum of the club working for you. If you are late, you will have to force the club to catch up. This is avoidable by tipping the club through shoulder rotation.

Tipping the Club

Swaying changes the bottom of your swing.

THE SWAY FORWARD AND BACK

How path and face make the ball curve

IFYP-Impact

Set up like you are going to hit a ball with no club. Take your lead arm back into your backswing.You will fell your trail scapula retract. Leave your lead arm at the setup position. Then once you get your trail arm back then slap the hand of your lead arm. Notice how your trail arm is below your lead arm not above. Then from there leave your trail arm in the impact position and move your lead arm around and up into the finish. To do this your lead scapula will need to retract across your rib cage. This gives a great feel for how your shoulders and your scapulas or shoulder blades work.

SLAP DRILL

Mike has received the highest honor of PGA National Teacher of The Year in 2011. He wrote, “I Feel Your Pain” in 2013 and is proud to announce the new release of this 2nd book entitled, “The Invisible Swing” in 2019. Mike produced his own DVD, You Are Your Own Swing, featuring 2 ½ hours of both golf and fitness instruction in 2004. In 2010 he was selected for PGA Southwest Section Teacher of The Year and went on to be named The National PGA Teacher of the Year In 2011. In 2017 Mike was honored to receive once again, the PGA Southwest Section Teacher of The Year Award for a second time.

Since 2000, Mike has ranked among Golf Digest’s America’s Top 50 Greatest Teachers, and currently listed in the top 20 in the nation. Mike has also been selected as Golf Magazine’s Top 100 Teachers in America every year from 1995 to 2017. Since 2012 when the Golf Range Association of America started its list of award winners, Mike has been one of the top 50 on that list for his contribution to growing the game of golf. This award called Growth of The Game Teachers in America is yet another of his accomplishments. In 2017 he was voted the Top Teacher in Arizona by Arizona Foothills Magazine.

A graduate of Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, Mike was a college All American in 1974. He was then inducted into the University’s Athletic Hall of Fame in February 1999 and into the Utah Golf Hall of Fame in 2015. In September 2013 Mike was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award for his service to the University and his community. Mike is currently the Director of Instruction for the Nicklaus Academies Worldwide, Superstition Mountain Country Club, and a member of the National Advisory Board for TaylorMade Golf since 2002. He has been a summertime guest instructor for the prestigious Maroon Creek Golf Club in Aspen, Colorado in 2017 and 2018. As Director of Instruction for the Jack Nicklaus Golf Centers in Japan from 1992 to 1995, Mike was featured in Golf Digest Japan and was nominated for Japan’s Teacher of the Year in 1993. Then in 1996, he received Teacher of the Year for the Utah PGA Section.

As the continuing Director of Instruction for Nicklaus Academies Worldwide, Mike instructs the teachers at each of the centers around the globe. He continues to be a guest lecturer at countless corporate functions, PGA Section Seminars, PGA National Coaching and Teaching Summits, and as a guest speaker for the World Golf Fitness Summit in 2012. He has appeared numerous times on The Golf Channel as a guest instructor.

Mike Malaska

How to avoid the perils of wanting to get too good too fast.

LEARN TO SLOW DOWN

How does force actually move through your feet and what helps it work.

HOW DO YOU MOVE FORCE THROUGH YOUR FEET

Using your hands to control the face to make the ball curve the way you want it to curve.

CURVING THE BALL: FACE CONTROL

A Malaska Golf Member wants to know some drills so they don’t pull their hands in on the swing instead of extending them.Most teachers who see students come into the ball and pull their arms in call this the ‘dreaded chicken wing.’Mike demonstrates how the chicken wing happens. People think that the answer is to straighten your arms on the follow-through. Mike explains this is not the case; your arms are pulling in because they must. People have more hand-eye coordination than they give themselves credit.What happens is that when people swing back, they don’t push their hips back. On the downswing, their body ends up moving closer to the ball. To hit the ball, they resort to pulling in their arms to get the clubface on the ball. Hence, the ‘chicken wing.’&nbsp;Mike explains the fix! When you swing a golf club, the thing that makes your arms straighten out is when your left hip pushes back and away. By doing this, it throws and accelerates your arms forward.When Mike has students who do the ‘chicken wing,’ he gets them to step back from address and try to hit the ball. They usually miss the first one because their arms pull in. When they hit the ball, their arms must straighten out, and the ‘dreaded chicken wing is gone.’The ‘dreaded chicken wing is an effect of people moving closer to the ball. Once you figure out that if you push your left hip back, your arms will straighten out, and the ‘chicken wing is gone.’

The Dreaded Chicken Wing

Place a chair so that the seat of the chair touches the back or your upper leg very close to your gluteus. Then make a backswing when you start the downswing move force up to your lead leg then sit down in the chair. Then as your arms go through the ball then stand up. So you sit down to stand up. This is necessary to create a downward force that you can use to create a lot of force into the club. If you do not load down you will never hit the ball very far.

SIT DOWN CHAIR DRILL

Instincts used in other sports, such as the transition, can be applied in golf. Like other sports, the golf swing is a movement pattern and a constant motion.

ATHLETIC INSTINCT

Mike Malaska introduces Garrett Richards for a Player Lesson and Sports Connect at Ocotillo Golf Course. Garrett, a retired MLB pitcher, previously played for the Boston Red Sox and, most recently, the Texas Rangers.Mike talks about how he had always wanted to play baseball as a kid, and he pitched until college. He loved the hand-eye coordination of the sport.Mike explains that he will look at Garrett's swing and relate that to pitching. Baseball players have great hand-eye coordination when they are hitting and throwing a ball. They already have the perfect golf swing.There is a misconception that baseball and golf are different; however, they have the same body movement patterns. You hit the ball on a different plane and at a different spot, but the swings are very similar.Garrett says that his misses are usually an over-draw to the left, and he struggles with pitch shots inside of 100 yards. He is more comfortable with 150 yards. Garrett says he tends to overthink tight lies with his wedges and catches the ball thin or fat.Garrett says he is looking for a mindset, a comfortable feeling, or a weight shift that will find the clubface more often.Mike asks Garrett how often he plays a week. He says that he uses a simulator at home and that he is a member of Seville Golf and Country Club in Gilbert, AZ. He doesn’t get out as much as he would like because of kid’s activities, but usually, it’s once or twice a week.Garrett usually warms up with a pitching wedge to loosen up. Mike watches Garrett hit a few shots to assess his swing.Mike comments that Garrett has a nice motion, which he expected, having been a professional athlete. Mike says that he watched Garrett pitch, and Garrett explains that he was a cross-body pitcher. Mike says there are a lot of things that are similar in pitching and golf, specifically how quickly you open up. In golf, if your shoulders open up too fast, you are dead, and the same is true when you are pitching.Mike explains that in golf, instead of throwing a pitch out in front of you, you have a ball on the ground, and the pitch is down there. You must rotate and stay rotated until you plant your feet. There are many similarities.Mike says he will fix Garrett’s swing fast. He wants to work on a fundamental concept in golf that Garrett is weak on. Mike elaborates that he is fighting all his natural instincts for one particular motion. Once Garrett understands this, he will get significantly better.Mike asked Garrett what type of pitch he liked the best: a fastball or a curveball. Garrett liked his slider better because he had more control over it. Based on this, Mike says he will show Garrett why he hooks the ball. Mike continues to explain that Garrett controls the type of pitch with his fingers on the ball. When you play golf, you can also control the clubface with your fingers.That is how Mike does it because Mike used to be a pitcher. Mike controls the clubface by pressuring it with his fingers to hit a draw or fade and hit it straight, just like a pitcher does with a baseball. You curve and spin the golf ball the same way you do with a baseball. The clubface becomes an extension of your hands.Mike takes Garrett’s hand and fingers and shows him how to manipulate his fingers to hit different shots, which is similar to pitching. Mike tells Garrett that he is so good at putting spin on a ball that he should be good at it with golf.Garrett hits a ball, and Mike says that Garrett is going to improve easily.

Garrett Richards-Pitching and Golf Connect

Setting gates down your target line helps you to see line correctly. Once you set the gates properly. Then if when you set up over the ball the gates look wrong. You then correct your eye line until the gates line up. This helps you identify the issues in your stroke. Your stroke might be perfect but you see line incorrectly.

GATE & YOUR ABILITY TO SEE THE LINE

Before you make a full swing, practice lining your arm up. Learn why this is so crucial.

DRIVING

There needs to be room for your arms to swing. Practice nmaking swings with your right foot back.

HOW YOUR RIGHT HIP WORKS

If your body gets too close to the ball, you won't be able to swing. Practice getting your center away from the ball.

YOUR PELVIS AND THE GOLF SWING

Hi, my name is Matt Baker, and I&rsquo;m a Malaska Golf-certified coach based here in the UK. Today&rsquo;s question comes from Keith Sumner, and it&rsquo;s about a recent change he made to his grip. Keith watched a video and transitioned from holding the club in the palm of his hands to gripping it more in his fingers.
For full shots, this is exactly where we want to be. Using the lever system effectively requires gripping the club in the fingers, which also provides a much more secure hold. If you&rsquo;ve noticed wear on the top of your glove, it&rsquo;s likely because the club is moving through your hands due to being gripped too much in the palm.
Keith also mentioned that he tried a friend&rsquo;s club with slightly thinner grips and found it easier to hold the club securely in his fingers, particularly with his left hand. However, with thicker grips, he struggled to achieve the correct finger placement. He asked if this issue is common when transitioning from a palm grip to a fingers grip. The answer is yes&mdash;it&rsquo;s relatively common, but it varies based on individual hand size and grip preferences.
Different manufacturers, like Ping, offer grip fitting systems tailored to individual needs. Ping, for instance, uses colored grip sizes based on hand measurements. They measure the width of your palm to the crease in your middle finger and other dimensions to recommend the ideal grip size. I personally switched to a smaller grip size (aqua instead of the standard white) for the same reason as Keith: to feel more secure and achieve the proper finger placement. This adjustment allowed me to &ldquo;pinch&rdquo; more effectively with my little finger and improved my overall grip.
Grip sizes vary greatly between players, and I highly recommend getting yours checked or fitted. Ping&rsquo;s online guide is a great starting point. The goal of gripping the club in the fingers is to create a stable, secure hold, which ultimately improves swing mechanics and performance. Keith, I&rsquo;m thrilled to hear that this change has already made a difference in your game. Keep practicing and working through the system&mdash;it sounds like you&rsquo;re on the right track!

Stop Glove Wear-Finger Grip

Rotating your left arm out of the top is what pins your arm against your side and gets your club in the correct position.

ROTATING THE LEFT ARM IN THE DOWNSWING

INTRO TO PITCHING

Hale Irwin shares a story of what he picked up from his dad.

FINISH WHAT YOU START

Joe Nichols viewed the shoulders as a pulley system when it came towards the beginning of the backswing.  He ingeniously linked the hips, the hands, and the clubhead lever system so that it was impossible to get the clubhead behind you.  This is part 1 of Joe's backswing.

PULLEY SYSTEM - BACKSWING - PART 1

Use how you stand to find your natural posture

NATURAL POSTURE

(How to Keep Improving After the Program Ends) You&rsquo;ve completed all 21 days&mdash;now comes the most important part: staying on track and continuing to improve. In this final video, Mike Malaska reveals exactly what to do next. Success in golf doesn&rsquo;t come from endless tips or chasing new techniques&mdash;it comes from following a process. This program gave you that structure. Now, Mike encourages you to turn the 21-day sequence into your long-term training system. Each practice session should begin with short game fundamentals, build into motion and face control, and finish with speed and full swings. You don&rsquo;t need to do it all every day&mdash;but you do need to repeat the sequence consistently. This is the same process Mike uses personally and with his students&mdash;from beginners to tour players. Mike also shares a powerful story from his time in Japan, where he taught a group of students over 11 weeks using just seven core drills. Every week, they chose the one drill that challenged them most&mdash;and focused on it until they mastered it. The result? They made faster, more lasting progress than any other class. That&rsquo;s the real secret to continued improvement: find your weakest link and train it until it becomes your strength. This closing lesson ties directly into the M-System philosophy: Master, Maximize, Maintain. You&rsquo;ve now built the foundation. Keep refining it, and your game will keep evolving.
What You&rsquo;ll Learn About What Comes Next: &bull; How to build a practice routine using the 21-day structure &bull; Why the most difficult drill should become your weekly focus &bull; How Mike practices every day&mdash;starting with short shots, then working up &bull; Why consistency in your routine beats random tips or YouTube swings &bull; How to use the drills as a testing system for long-term mastery
Key Takeaway: You don&rsquo;t need more swing tips&mdash;you need a repeatable process. Pick the hardest drill and master it. Then repeat. Stay inside the system, and your game will keep getting better. This isn&rsquo;t the end of your journey. It&rsquo;s the start of mastering your swing for life.

What's Next

The trail arm works the same in most all shots. It lines up with the shaft of the club you are hitting at impact. Start with your putter. Set up with just your trail arm. Your wrist is parallel to the club face. Then hit puts just using your trail arm. Your forearm should line up with the shaft. It pushes the shaft through the ball. The key is that your forearm does not twist. You can then do the same thing with your lead arm. The task is to make a stroke where the arm does not rotate. Then put both hands on the putter and hit some putts. This is the same relationship of your trail arm with even your driver.

IMPACT DRILL - PUTTING

This, is the 18th green for the members. It was the ninth hole in the last round of the Utah Open. This was probably one of the most influential shots I hit in the round, showing my confidence in how I was striking the golf ball. Now, if you look back there, you can see the members' tee.But if you go a little to the right, way back there, that's the very back tee. It's about 175, 180, 185 yards from here, and the pin was right here. So you've got the pin, the bunker, and you're in a canyon.If you miss right, you don't want to short-side yourself. The pin was way over on the right, with the bunker in front, and it's a tough bunker shot. If you miss right of the bunker, you're likely making double bogey. So here we are with this setup, which is perfect for hitting a fade. But because of the way I was playing, every shot I hit was solid, with a little draw.I was hitting about a 5- to 10-yard draw on everything. So where did I aim? The pin's here, and I’m back there. I aimed almost in the center of the bunker, and I hit it. It started in the center of the bunker and hooked in. I hit it about six feet from the hole and made birdie, which gave me a two-shot lead—an important moment for me.My point is, I was so comfortable with the shot I was hitting that the trouble didn’t even come into play. People would ask me, "You started it over that bunker. What if it didn’t hook?" Well, I hooked everything. Every time I hit it solid, it would draw 5 or 10 yards. This highlights that, to be a really good player, you need a shot where, if you make a good swing and hit it solid, you know what the ball will do.You can’t be trying to hit it both ways. Initially, everyone wants to learn to hit draws because your club comes from the inside, squares the face, and generates the most distance. That’s how I started. I played that draw almost exclusively for the first six years of my golf career.I was really good. I won this tournament, I won some college tournaments, and I was playing great. Then suddenly, someone said, "Oh, we’ve got to change who you are. You should never have tried that. You should hit the middle of the green and fade it to the hole." So, a lot of things changed. They changed my grip, they changed my swing, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t just stand up and make a swing knowing what the ball would do. I knew I’d hit it solid, but it might fade a little or hook a little.That uncertainty made me defensive, which is where most golfers are. The other approach is being offensive, like I was before, because I knew that if I hit it solid, it would always draw 5 to 10 yards. It wasn’t going to fade—no chance. Learning to have a consistent shot where you curve the ball the same way every time is crucial for playing your best.Now, this was the first tee and my first shot of the day. It was probably one of the most important tee shots I hit all day. I had warmed up on the range, found a rhythm, hit it solid with a little draw, and this hole set up perfectly for that. I just aimed at the left edge of the trees out there and hit my draw.At that point, you're no longer thinking about the swing itself. You're just feeling the motion you're going to make to hit the shot you want. It was a good shot, right in play.That first swing was one of the most important shots of the day because I got it in play, hit it past everyone, and gained a lot of confidence relative to the guys I was playing with.Okay, so now I’m here, as a senior, just short of the first hill. When I played the tournament, my tee shot would have been about 80 yards farther. I was right up here—there’s the 100-yard marker—where I could see the top of the flag. My tee shot was up here, and I had this shot left.I made birdie on number one, and then I came to number two. This hole, if you look at it, has out-of-bounds left, but you can see how it sets up for a nice, soft draw. I’ve always aimed at the hill, right over the white tees. There’s a hump, and I’d aim at it and draw the ball back into the fairway.Visually, this course set up really well for me. A lot of golf courses come down to how they set up visually for a player and what you need to do to feel comfortable.Even now, at my age, I still hit the draw. That was always my shot. They tried to take it away from me for a while, but I’ve returned to it, and I’m hitting it more consistently now than when I was trying to mix in fades and different swings. Back then, with the changes in my grip and swing, I was trying to hit fades and draws instead of just hitting one solid shot.Now, let’s talk about this tunnel. We had about 5,000 people out here, and most of them were following the last two groups. People follow the players they like. When we got to this hole on the back nine, the crowds walked with us, and the tunnel felt so claustrophobic. There were so many people around, and it was packed. I felt really edgy.But when I came out of the tunnel, it was like I experienced freedom. Everything calmed down. The same thing happened when I approached this par-3, which was the ninth hole for us. When I came out of the tunnel to hit my tee shot, I was much more relaxed. The tunnel had made me feel uneasy, but once I emerged, everything was calm again. I tapped into that feeling—high energy, but calm at the same time."

Managing Pressure

Get the club out in front of you and feel the club's momentum at impact. This will prevent you from getting stuck, bringing the club around to the left.