The Left Ear Drill

Pulled irons are most commonly caused by the upper body sliding laterally toward the target on the downswing. When your head and sternum drift past the ball before impact, the bottom of your swing arc shifts forward and your path moves out-to-in — sending shots left. The fix isn't a swing thought; it's a physical boundary. The pathpal Left Ear Drill places a padded rod at your lead ear to give you an instant visual and spatial reference, training your upper body to stay behind the ball through impact.

Keeping your head behind the ball means your skull — and by extension your sternum — stays on the trail side of the ball through impact. This preserves the original low point of your swing arc, ensuring the club strikes the ball before the turf and delivers the face on a neutral or slightly in-to-out path. Sliding forward shifts the arc, leading to thin strikes, pulls, or both.

In the Left Ear Drill, Janean places the pathpal's padded rod just off the player's lead ear — left ear for a right-handed golfer — at address height. Because the rod sits in your peripheral vision, it creates an immediate spatial reference for your upper body. If you slide, you see and feel the drift. The pathpal's padded guardrail means you can swing freely without fear of injury, making the feedback both safe and instinctive.

Set up in your normal address position, then place the pathpal's padded rod just off your lead ear — left ear for a right-handed golfer. The rod should be close enough to appear in your peripheral vision but not obstruct your swing. From this position it acts as a visual track for both your head and sternum through the impact zone and into the early follow-through.

As Janean demonstrates here, the pathpal can be elevated to head height to provide upper-body posture feedback — it isn't limited to ground-level swing path work. This is a key advantage over standard alignment sticks: the padded rod can be safely positioned near the body or head without injury risk, expanding its use to slide, sway, and posture drills across a wide range of swing problems.