This free range was my favorite golf item I used this year

At GOLF.com, we come across all kinds of goodies. Here, we reveal some of our favorites from the past year.

Often, some of the best golf tools are sitting there in the corner of the house, staring us in the face. Ordinary ruler, 12 inches. Bathroom mirror. Living room wall! My main training aid is a little further away. Not quite 10 feet, more like 200 meters.

While I don’t live the blessed life of being a member of a country club, I do live right next to a freeway. of Diversey Driving Rangein Chicago, a municipally owned cash machine to be exact. I don’t know how much money this moving range makes, with its heat lamps running twice this cold week and the upper level of maximum hit points in the summer, but I know it makes money. It should. I sit in my apartment and watch little white balls fly through the air all day.

While I spend a lot of money at Diversey, thanks to my lack of an annual membership and my frequent Tuesday night boredom, I think my affinity for joining has changed more than my recent results. It has (hopefully) fixed my influence, from a surprising source.

You see, as a fastball cutter, every now and then, there is room for improvement. It sticks to my pace – often too fast – and also the amount of my hips sliding during the swing. To create power—that is, to load during the backswing and push up and forward (slightly) during the downswing—there is naturally some lateral movement of the hips. The problem occurs when this swing becomes overwhelming, or when it is out of sync with the upper half of your body.

Enter the Diversey Driving Range bag stands. They’re unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere—masters painted green and rust-peeled iron half-cylinders—with open eyeholes to add a touch of pleasing aesthetics. But what they lack in looks they make up for in zero dollar efficiency. They are shock absorbers.

The bag sits in the Diversey 90 degree upright stance and is roomy enough for anyone to squeeze inside. There is extra space in their base, so once you get inside, you can get a comfortable position. They stand about three feet off the ground, the perfect height to hug your hips as you mimic a swing. Basically, they are a barrel, and thinking about swinging with your lower body in a barrel can do you a lot of good.

It is one old advice Paula Creamer gave me years ago. She has struggled with hip slippage herself! But the whole idea is, if you’re going to generate power to hit a golf ball while your lower half is in a barrel, it THERE to start with a full hip rotation, not a side swing. The barrel allows your hips to move only so far, so completing a back movement requires them to turn more and more and then pull back from within the same small space.

Staying in range, these barrels are always on your periphery, a nice reminder that if I’m going to hit from the inside, I’d better roll. Another reminder came from hitting next to me. My partner recently took up the game and, thanks to using my clubs early on, struggled with the same impact that many beginners struggle with. My clubs were a little harder on her, and in order to get the club face off the ball and bring some power forward, the natural movement was to slide her hips in that direction as well.

The result of increased influence, especially for beginners, can be twofold. First, there would be a tendency for your hips to push too far ahead of your hands on the downswing, since you’ve created a ton of lateral shaft space for them to slide forward, out of sync with the rest of your swing. But more simply, it can lead to resetting where the bottom (hit zone) of your swing is. Once the bottom of your swing leaves where it starts (right after the ball), you’re looking for choppy, thin shots.

It’s the kind of movement you can only see slow motion videobut we saw that day. Of course, once the barrel roll top came out and my trusty Diversey range stands were around for a demonstration, it was the perfect swing thought for my partner to start making better contacts. Of course, it helped that the local teacher walked along and fully agreed with the theory. Even better yet: Paula Creamer’s composition below: