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I've always heard of Vijay warming up by swinging with a glove or towel in his underarm, or possibly even under both arms. Doesn't this limit your range of motion? What does this do? Keep you from coming over the top? I am having that problem now that I am trying to swing left handed so I am looking for a drill. Do you let the glove fall on the follow through? Thanks.

The idea is to maintain connection between the arm and the body in that an arms only swing is less desirable from a consistency point of view...a connected swing will involve the larger muscle groups of the chest shoulder and back as well as promote a more balanced and powerful turn leading to better golf shots...

...that's my understanding anyway...

Using a towel under your right arm to warm up trains you to keep your right arm close to your right side during your backswing, and most importantly during your down swing. This keeps your club on plane for an insde to out path path as the club approaches the ball. It promotes a powerful straight ball flight.

Very good reply's,and yes you can let the glove or towel fall on the follow through.

What they said. The idea is to force you to make a "connected" swing. This means the arms stay close to your body, and you don't get your arms flying all over the place. If you watch any of the pros on tour, you should notice how their arms stay in close to their body during the backswing, and down to impact. This is what this drill will force you to do. Try it and see if it works for you. Put a towel under each arm, and it either towel falls out before impact, you did it wrong, but at least you now KNOW you did it wrong.

I believe he does it under his left arm doesn't he?

Ringer, good to see you're back. I was just thinking, "hadn't seen anything new from Ringer in a while..."

Ringer; I've seen VJ do it under both arms, it might depend on what he feels he needs to work on most at the time. If he finds his right arm it flying around a bit, I'm sure he'd start hitting balls with a towel under his right arm.

Thanks Bignose... I've been pretty busy this winter so far but it's nice to pop in once in a while and see what I can do to help.

OnePutt I work on keeping the elbows out in front of my students all the time to prevent forearm manipulation. I'm not sure I really like sticking something under the arms though because of the tension it causes.

I would think that putting a towel under the left arm would cause one to get stuck, i.e., not getting enough extension on the takeaway.

I'd recommend you try it and see if you can make a good full turn with good extension, and see if the towel falls out or not. This should answer your question for you. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

We have a picture of Vijay practicing, with something in his left armpit in our gallery:

http://www.golfrewind.com/photos/sho....php?i=116&c=4

nice find shooter

Man...that guy has a set of shoulders on him...who says golf is a non athletic pursuit!?!?

Lots of good golfers seem to have broad shoulders, even if the shoulders themselves aren't always excessively muscular. I am trying to come up with an explanation of why this might help a golfer, but I am struggling with it. I think it may have something to do with the extra 'real estate' for golf-muscles between the shoulders.