Instruction
Killer Contact for Two Pennies
One sunny, late winter afternoon I was doing some housekeeping on the Carl’s Golfland driving range in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I came upon a young lad and his father working diligently on the youngster’s swing. I sensed some frustration and anxiety from the pair as I approached. The two of them greeted me warmly and asked, “What is your go-to drill?”
I am a man of some experience. My grey locks betray my youthful enthusiasm for the game of golf and all that goes with it. I shared with them an ancient and simple, yet tried and true, swing drill. It’s one I practice in some form on nearly every full shot.
Mind you, I am not a PGA Professional and if your game needs help then please seek out one of these fine teachers. My ability was certainly formed by men and women who were called to golf instruction. I have played golf all my life with great passion. Some principals of the game are timeless and applicable to golfers at every stage of development. Yes, even you!
The Two-Penny Drill is simple, easy to remember, effective, and it can be used on the range or with a slight modification during play. This drill is familiar to my son, my dad, my wife and my friends. I recently introduced a friend to this simple exercise who is reporting great results. So, how does it work?
Place a penny about a foot in front of the ball directly on the target line. Place another penny about a foot behind the ball, again, directly on the target line. Address the ball as normal. Take your normal swing focusing on brushing away the penny on the backswing AND on the follow through. Very simple. Very effective. This is a timeless tip passed down through the ages and through the great individuals of golf.
Horace Hutchinson wrote a book entitled “Hints on Golf.” An easy read, this book is perhaps the earliest collection of tips related not only to the physical aspects of golf, but also the mental and social elements of our game. Hutchinson’s work was first published in 1886 by William Blackwood and Sons.
One key quote from this book remains timeless: “Now, the great secret of all strokes at golf…is to make the club travel as long as possible in the direction in which you wish the ball to go.” Mr. Hutchinson is not alone in this school of thought. Arnold Palmer, arguably the most influential person ever to touch the game of golf, gave similar advice nearly a century later.
The King said, “Begin every swing smoothly and without breaking your wrists. You have to take it straight back in one piece as they say. Strive to do this for the first 12 inches the clubhead moves, and you’ve got the swing practically licked. Starting the club in this way gets your whole body into the act, from feet to shoulders.”
Mr. Palmer further advised, “One way to achieve maximum distance while sweeping the ball away is to fully extend yourself, both on your backswing and on your follow through….It is the full extension that (1) helps me fully stretch the big muscles of my body and legs and (2) flattens out my clubhead arc in the hitting area so that it is travelling at ball height for maximum distance before and after impact.”
In an effort to further validate my simple drill, I consulted with Dick Bury, a PGA Professional since 1956 who still teaches three days a week at Carl’s Golfland. Mr. Bury confirmed that the Two-Penny Drill is not only legitimate, but also simple and universally applicable. Mr. Bury added that golf instruction can become very complicated to the beginner with the advent of advanced golf analysis technology. In short, Mr. Bury fully endorsed the Two-Penny Drill.
As our conversation continued, we concluded that with a slight adjustment, the simple Two-Penny Drill could teach a developing golfer to hit a fade or a draw. Simply place the front penny about one half inch to the right and the back penny one half inch to the left to learn the draw. To learn that sweet baby fade simply reverse the adjustment.
Try the Two-Penny Drill to hit more solid shots and to learn to draw or fade the ball. This simple and effective tip can also be taken to the course. While in competition you cannot use your trusty pennies, on nearly every shot I look for an imperfection in front of my ball about a foot away — either straight through or offset to move the ball.
The Two-Penny Drill will quickly become your go-to drill when things go awry or when you sense the need to get back to the basics, as we all feel from time to time. Bring a few pennies with you as occasionally you will get it just right and blast one on to the range. Be sure to reset your pennies prior to each swing. Play well and always remember my friends, golf is fun!
The LPGA Tour is kicking off its 2026 season this week at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, and the pros are dealing with something most Florida golfers rarely face: freezing temperatures.
“It’s colder here than in the UK at the minute, which is a first,” said England’s Charley Hull during Wednesday’s media day at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.
Even Lydia Ko, who lives at Lake Nona, seemed surprised by the cold snap. “We’re pretty much getting to below zero in celsius here, which maybe in other parts of the country they would be thankful, but when you’re in Florida it is a little bit of a surprise,” she said.
If the world’s best players are adjusting their games for cold weather, recreational golfers should, too. Here’s how to play smart when the mercury drops.
Understand What Cold Does to Your Game
Before you change anything, you need to know what you’re fighting against. Cold air is denser than warm air, which means your ball won’t fly as far. Period.
Hull noticed this immediately during practice rounds at Lake Nona. She mentioned hitting a gap wedge into the 18th hole during a previous win but needing a 4-iron during Tuesday’s practice round. That’s a difference of four or five clubs for the same shot.
Action item: Expect to lose 5-10 yards on every club in your bag when temperatures dip below 50 degrees. Plan accordingly and don’t be stubborn about club selection.
Layer Up Without Restricting Your Swing
Hull admitted she wore three pairs of pants during practice. While that might be extreme for most of us, staying warm is critical to playing well in cold conditions.
Your muscles need warmth to function properly. When you’re cold, your body tightens up and your swing gets shorter and faster. Neither of those things help you hit good golf shots.
Action item: Wear multiple thin layers instead of one bulky jacket. Look for golf-specific cold weather gear that stretches with your swing. Keep hand warmers in your pockets between shots. And don’t forget a good hat because you lose significant body heat through your head.
Take More Club Than You Think You Need
This is where ego gets in the way of good scores. When it’s cold, the ball doesn’t compress as well off the clubface. Combined with denser air, you’re looking at serious distance loss.
The pros at Lake Nona are dealing with a course that measures 6,642 yards but plays much longer this week. If they’re adjusting, you should too.
Action item: Take at least one extra club on every approach shot. In temperatures below 40 degrees, consider taking two extra clubs. It’s better to fly the ball to the back of the green than to come up short in a bunker.
Adjust Your Expectations on the Greens
Cold weather affects putting in ways most golfers don’t consider. The ball is harder and doesn’t roll as smoothly. Your hands are cold, making it harder to feel the putter. And if there’s any moisture on the greens, they’ll be slower than normal.
Ko mentioned that she still sometimes reads the greens wrong at Lake Nona despite being a member for years. Cold weather makes that challenge even tougher.
Action item: Hit putts more firmly than usual. The ball needs extra speed to hold its line on cold greens. Take a few extra practice strokes to get a feel for the speed before you putt.
Embrace the Mental Challenge
Hull said something interesting about cold weather golf: “I like the mental toughness of it.”
That’s the right attitude. Everyone on the course is dealing with the same conditions. The player who stays patient and doesn’t get frustrated by the extra difficulty will come out ahead.
Action item: Lower your expectations by a few strokes. If you normally shoot 85, accept that 90 might be a good score in 40-degree weather. Focus on solid contact and smart decisions rather than perfect shots.
Warm Up Longer and Smarter
This might be the most important tip of all. Cold muscles are tight muscles, and tight muscles get injured easily.
World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul revealed she’s been protecting a wrist injury that bothered her late last season. Cold weather makes those kinds of injuries more likely if you don’t prepare properly.
Action item: Spend at least 20 minutes warming up before your round. Start with stretching, then hit easy wedge shots before working up to your driver. Keep moving between shots on the course to maintain body heat and flexibility.
The pros at Lake Nona this week will adapt and compete at the highest level despite the cold. You can do the same at your local course by following these tips and keeping a positive attitude.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Brooks Koepka is back on the PGA Tour, and whether you love him or hate him, the guy knows how to win when it matters. After his LIV Golf stint, the five-time major champion returns this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
What makes Koepka fascinating? He doesn’t fit the mold. His swing isn’t textbook. He doesn’t obsess over mechanics. Yet he’s won three PGA Championships and two U.S. Opens, regularly making it look easier than guys with prettier swings.
So, what can average golfers learn from someone who treats the game so differently? Quite a bit.
Stop Overthinking Every Shot
Koepka describes his approach as “reactionary” rather than mechanical. While most tour pros grind over swing thoughts, Brooks sees the target and hits it. No mental checklist.
This might be the most valuable lesson for weekend golfers who’ve watched too many YouTube swing videos.
How to actually do this:
On the range, hit five balls where you stare at the target for three seconds prior to addressing the ball. Don’t think about grip or stance. Just burn that target into your brain. You’ll be shocked at how pure you hit it when your brain focuses on where the ball is going instead of how you’re swinging.
Next time you play, give yourself a rule: Once you pull the club, you’ve got 15 seconds to hit. Koepka is one of the fastest players on tour because he doesn’t give his brain time to sabotage him.
If you feel tension in your hands at address, you’re trying to control too much. Koepka’s grip pressure is famously light. Loosen up until the club almost feels like it might slip, then add just enough pressure to hold on. That’s your swing thought: soft hands, see the target.
This approach works better under pressure. When you’re standing over that shot with water left and OB right, the last thing you need is a mental checklist. See it, feel it, hit it.
Play to Your Strengths (Even If They’re Not Pretty)
Koepka uses a strong grip that wouldn’t pass muster in some teaching circles. But he’s built his game around what works for him, elite driving distance and recovery skills. He doesn’t try to be someone he’s not.
Here’s how to build your game like Brooks:
Look at your last five rounds and figure out where you’re actually gaining strokes. Bombing it off the tee, but can’t hit greens? Lean into it. Play courses where distance matters more than precision. On tight holes, grip down on your 3-wood instead of trying to thread a driver through a keyhole you’ll miss seven times out of ten.
Koepka knows he can scramble, so he’s not afraid to miss greens. If you’re deadly from 50 to 75 yards, start leaving yourself those distances on the par 5’s instead of going for them in two every time.
Know when to take your medicine. Koepka in the trees at the PGA? He’s punching out to 100 yards, not trying to bend a 6-iron around three oaks. You’re in the rough with a flyer lie and water short? Hit your 8-iron to the middle and move on. That’s not playing scared, that’s playing smart.
Save Your Best for When It Counts
Here’s a wild stat: Koepka’s putting average in majors is often more than a full stroke better per round than in regular events. He elevates when pressure is highest.
How does an amateur tap into that gear? It’s not about trying harder, it’s about caring differently.
Here’s what actually works:
Decide which rounds matter to you. Club championship? Member-guest? That annual trip with college buddies? Circle those dates and treat them differently. Koepka doesn’t care much about regular tour events, but majors? That’s when he locks in.
Two weeks before your big round, change your practice. Stop beating balls mindlessly. Play nine holes in which every shot has consequences. Miss the fairway? Hit from the rough on the next hole too. Three-putt? Twenty push-ups. Koepka’s practice intensity ramps up before majors because he’s rehearsing pressure, not just swings.
Develop a between-shot routine that resets your brain. Koepka is famous for his blank expression after bad shots. Try this: After any shot, take three deep breaths while walking, then find something specific to notice, a tree, a cloud, someone’s shirt. That’s your reset button. By the time you reach your ball, the last shot is gone.
The Bottom Line
Brooks Koepka’s return reminds us there’s no single path to success in golf. His “substance over style” approach proves that results matter more than looking good.
You don’t need a perfect swing; you need a reliable one that holds up under pressure. You don’t need to hit every shot in the book; you need the shots you can count on. And you don’t need to play great every time; you need to play great when it matters.
Welcome back, Brooks. Thanks for the reminder that golf is ultimately about getting the ball in the hole, not winning style points.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Blades Brown made a big impression last week in the California desert, and not just because he’s only 18. He put up numbers that would catch any weekend golfer’s attention. Most of us won’t hit 317-yard drives or find 86% of our greens in regulation, but there’s a lot to learn from how Brown managed his game at The American Express.
Here are three practical lessons from his performance that you can use on your own course this weekend.
Step 1: Give Priority to Accuracy Over Distance Off The Tee
Brown’s driving stats are impressive. He averaged almost 318 yards off the tee, ranking 12th in the field. More importantly, he hit 76.79% of his fairways, tying for fourth place in the tournament.
Think about that ratio for a second. Brown could have swung harder, chased more distance and tried to overpower the course. Instead, he played smart golf and kept his ball in play.
Your Action Item: Next time you’re on the tee box, ask yourself a simple question before pulling the driver. Do you need maximum distance here, or do you need to be in the fairway? If there’s trouble lurking or the hole doesn’t demand every yard you can muster, take something off your swing. Grip down an inch. Make a three-quarter swing. Do whatever it takes to find the short grass. Brown’s approach illustrates that fairways lead to greens, and greens lead to birdies. He made 22 of them last week, along with an eagle.
The math is simple. When you’re hitting three out of every four fairways like Brown did, you’re giving yourself legitimate looks at the green with your approach shots. That’s when scoring happens.
Step 2: Commit To Hitting More Greens
This is where Brown really separated himself. He hit 62 of 72 greens in regulation, an 86.11% clip that tied for first in the entire field. Read that again. An 18-year-old kid tied for the lead in one of the most important ball-striking statistics in professional golf.
How did he do it? By keeping his ball in the fairway (see Step 1) and giving himself clean looks with mid-irons and wedges.
Your Action Item: Start tracking your greens in regulation. You don’t need a fancy app or a statistics degree. Just mark down whether you hit the green in the regulation number of strokes. Par 3s in one shot. Par 4s in two shots. Par 5s in three shots.
Once you know your baseline, set a goal to improve it by 10%. If you’re currently hitting five greens per round, aim for six. The beauty of this approach is that it forces you to think strategically about club selection and shot shape. Brown’s strokes gained approach number was positive (0.179), meaning he was better than the field average. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be on the dance floor more often.
When you hit more greens, you eliminate the need for heroic short game shots. Brown only had to scramble 10 times all week, and he got up and down 70% of the time. That’s solid, but the real story is that he rarely put himself in scrambling situations to begin with.
Step 3: Minimize Mistakes And Stay Patient
Here’s the stat that jumps off the page: Brown made only three bogeys all week. Three. In four rounds of professional golf against the best players in the world.
He also made just one double bogey. That kind of clean card doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when you play within yourself, avoid the big miss and trust that pars are never bad scores.
Your Action Item: Before your next round, decide that you’re going to play boring golf. No hero shots over water. No driver on tight holes just because you can. No aggressive pins when there’s a safe side of the green.
Brown’s performance shows us that consistency beats flash every single time. He didn’t lead the field in any single strokes gained category, but he was solid across the board. That’s how you post numbers and cash checks.
Give these three steps a try. Your scorecard will thank you.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
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Jerry
Jul 25, 2017 at 8:31 am
I like the drill … to get rid of my 6-10 degree in to out club path – I look to make contact on the upper right of the ball and have the club swing left of the line. Pennies can be used to hit the fade.
Don’t know about the advice about keeping the club on the line – that is artificial. What counts is where the clubface points at contact, which influence 80% or so of direction, and then path. The swing is on a curve and swinging down the target line is problematic.
Dave R
Jul 21, 2017 at 12:23 am
Sorry to say Moe was not a idiot. He has more course records and hole in ones than any golfer alive . Mabey do some fact finding before saying such crap. Moe had issues yes but idiot not. One of the purest strikers of a golf ball. He could call a shot and hit it . He was amazing to follow and watch him play the one thing that brought him pure joy. It was the idiots on the tour that destroyed this man both American and Canadian tours,he was different so he didn’t belong. And if that makes him an idiot then we are all idiots for allowing this to happen.
Rev G
Jul 18, 2017 at 11:03 am
This is a terrific drill. Mo Norman often employed this. Except he would put the backswing penny more like two feet back and instead of trying to push it back, he would just make sure to hit it. It was an essential component of his one plane swing.
ooffu
Jul 18, 2017 at 12:51 pm
moe was an idiot and the canadians kept him out of their golf hall of fame for years and then buckled for political correctness and pity
Deadeye
Jul 17, 2017 at 7:33 pm
I have heard of this drill but not for a long time. I will try this at my next range session. I will let you know.
Robert Parsons
Jul 17, 2017 at 3:26 pm
I tried it, and maybe don’t understand how this drill works. But I can’t sweep the back penny away. Am I supposed to drag my putter on the ground a foot back to push the back penny? Makes no sense to me. I’m a good putter anyway, I mainly need to work on getting my speed down on different greens. If I had perfect speed, I’d be in that happy place putting.
dAVEfROMaCCOUNTING
Jul 17, 2017 at 4:24 pm
I don’t think he’s talking about putting. Try it with your full swing with irons.
Robert Parsons
Jul 17, 2017 at 6:47 pm
Tried. I still can’t drag a club back a foot low enough to push a penny. Maybe a ping pong ball a foot back. Thankfully I don’t need this drill, just wanted to try it and see what it’s all about.
dAVEfROMaCCOUNTING
Jul 19, 2017 at 1:23 pm
Agreed. I tried it too and think that’s an awfully long way back to be dragging the club that low. I like the drill where you set up to a ball and put another ball on the back side of your club. Then just take it back low and slow and let the ball push back down the target line. Got that from Martin Hall and like it a lot to slow the takeaway when it gets too fast. I tried this drill and just felt like I was dipping to keep the club that low. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHXwV6wIJ7A
dAVEfROMaCCOUNTING
Jul 19, 2017 at 1:30 pm
I also think this drill would work a little better if the pennies were a foot apart from each other (6 inches in front and 6 inches back). A foot behind the ball seems a long way back to be a pennie’s height off the ground in an arcing motion like the golf swing.
Heybuddy
Jul 17, 2017 at 12:30 pm
Full swing drill? All clubs? Seems like a fairly long distance to maintain the same amount of “sweepage” for a wedge to a long iron.
TexasSnowman
Jul 16, 2017 at 9:19 pm
Semi-Shank. Could be useful and help simplify swing complexities/thoughts for some folks, but I think only possibly would help with path issues; still gotta control the club face or your shots may continue to displease.