Having inside-the-ropes access to the range at a PGA Tour event means I often see and hear things that most amateur golfers aren’t privy to. While some may think there are “secrets of the trade” that PGA Tour players use to get so good at golf, it often comes down to a combination of incredibly hard work and pure talent.

There are, however, a number of drills and gadgets that Tour players use to practice smarter and get the most out of their practice sessions and abilities.

As I’m busy covering equipment news week-in and week-out on the PGA Tour, I also want to highlight some of the simple drills that PGA Tour use during tournament weeks. It’s important to note that you should absolutely consult with your local professional first before implementing any new drills into your own practice routine, but “Tour Drills” will highlight the things that PGA Tour players use and why. Hopefully they can be helpful for you in some way.

This week, from Riviera Country Club’s range at the 2022 Genesis Invitational, Adam Hadwin breaks down two incredibly simple drills that he uses during tournament weeks, and why they’re effective. To perform these, you’ll simply need an alignment rod (which you can find at most local hardware stores or golf shops), your clubs (obviously) and some range balls.

1) Stick an alignment rod directly on your target line, then hit fades and draws around it

Hadwin says: “The biggest thing I’m trying to do is find the club face, really, and I do that through exaggeration. I’ve got the alignment stick in front of me, and I’ve got to hit cuts and draws around it. But, before just hitting a standard cut and a standard draw, I kind of do it by hitting a pull cut and a push draw, just to feel that club head and that club face awareness in my swing to start out.

“Then I’ll start hitting some shots by aiming left and cutting it back to the target, and aiming right and drawing it back to the target. Again, it’s really just trying to find an awareness of, OK, my body is here, the club is here, the shot did this, and the alignment stick just helps with that visual to exaggerate things.

“The idea is to try and let the athlete react. It’s not as easy as that some days, but a lot of times, for me, my miss with a cut has been a pull, and I just need to feel the club head and my arms out-race my body a little bit more. Because I feel like I’m holding it off, but it never holds off. I think it’s just that the club kind of gets in behind my body a little bit too much, and then from there, it’s not really a cut anymore. It becomes sort of a push. To really feel that cut I sort of have to feel like the arms are out-racing the body and swinging around left of them, plus I’m holding off the club face.”

2) Turn your driver upside-down, then swing it both righty and lefty at increasing speeds

Hadwin says: “My trainer (Jason Glass) literally just put this drill in. I don’t want to say that I’ve done speed training, because I really haven’t done any. But, as for everybody, distance is very important and it obviously plays a very important role in the game. I’ve tried to increase that a little bit. So he just thought it’d be a quick and easy way during tournament weeks to fire up the nervous system a little bit while on the range just to keep that speed up while warming up before going out and playing.”

Make sure to check out all of our photos from the 2022 Genesis Invitational here.