Sam Snead Fancy Footwork Drill: More Rotation

I added the Fancy Footwork Drill to the Golf Practice Planner today because it will train correct footwork which will increase your rotation and improve your ball striking.

Name
Sam Snead Fancy Footwork Drill

Category
Long Game Practice Drills

Difficulty
2 out of 10

Time
15 minutes

Props
Any golf club. Golf ball. Golf Practice Planner.

Overview
The Sam Snead Fancy Footwork Drill will help you increase rotation. You’ll also learn how the pressure in the feet work, and why fancy footwork helps improve ball striking. Being aware of where the pressure in the feet move has a ripple effect on a lot of other positive things including “rotation”.

Steps

Step 1: Watch
Watch the video below.

Step 2: Pickle Jar
A good analogy for how “rotation” is produced is the “pickle jar”. Imagine a pickle jar (see image below). To open the jar you naturally create opposing forces. You’d put your right hand on the right side of the jar, and your left hand on the left side of the jar. One hand is pushing, the other hand is pulling.

You want to do the same thing with your feet! You want your feet to “oppose” one another. When you do that you’re able to generate a lot of rotation.

Step 3: Backswing Footwork Like Sam
On the backswing come onto the big toe of your left foot and heel of your right foot, like Sam Snead. As you get further into the backswing, you’ll go off the big toe of your right foot and into the heel (see image below).

Step 4: Through Swing Footwork Like Sam
On the through swing come onto the big toe of your right foot and heel of your left foot, like Sam Snead (see image below).

By the time you get to impact have the right heel slightly off the ground. More importantly, at impact, you also want to have the left big toe up off the ground.

So many of the best players in the world, if you look at them at impact (with iron shots), you’ll see the left toe up off the ground. The good news is that when you focus on your “fancy footwork”, you don’t have to think about hip turn at all! The hip turn comes naturally from good footwork.

Step 5: Competitive Practice
Do practice swings looking at your feet, trying to emulate the images of Sam Snead’s footwork (see above). Do 10 Fancy Footwork shots. Give yourself one point each time you perform a shot with fancy footwork. Begin with short shots, and work up to longer shots.