Lesson #2
April 23rd 2019
From face on we can see your right arm “throwing” early which is a result of the quick transition and lack of lower body lateral shift/rotation. From this position you have to release the club early in order to have any chance of hitting a straight shot. At impact we can see the flip in an attempt to “hit” the ball rather than swinging towards the target. (Click on the images to enlarge)
At address I noticed your feet aiming right which I’m okay with as long as your shoulders match. As you can see in the first frame, your shoulders are aiming left and your feet aiming right. The 3rd and 4th frame show where I would love to start seeing the end to your backswing vs. the actual top of your backswing. The 2nd set of frames show your transition and how it affects the angle of the shaft coming down into the ball. A quick transition with not enough lateral weight shift makes the hands travel too far out and then you have no chance to get the club back on plane.
I loved your reaction once you saw the difference in your swing simply by throwing a club. You can see your weight shift forward with a much bigger hip turn and your hands hold that shaft angle for much longer since you’re focusing on the target and not down at the ball.
Immediately after you threw some clubs your transition and swing direction improved. Your hands now started to travel more down before they started to rotate away from you. You can see the shaft angle is much more shallow and the clubface is closer to the swing plane. I think this is the first swing I’ve ever seen you make that ends up under the plane….lol.
Most of your swings looked like this after throwing clubs and a little self discovery of your own after explaining that your swing direction will always be left if you don’t have enough lateral shift during your transition. The more lateral shift, the more your swing direction will go under the plane and out to the right.
Combine this drill with your lateral shift and slower transition and you’ll be premiere ball striker. Alignment stick gripped in the hands with the club that will run under the left armpit. Make small swings with no hands/arms, just pure body rotation. Don’t let the stick hit your side, if it does then there was a flip of the hands because you didn’t rotate hard enough.
Just more great positions after the slow transition feel you developed. Remember, slower is always better no matter what. Centeredness of contact is always highest priority no matter the shot. The slower you swing the easier it is to hit the center of the face. Short, compact, effortless power, easy to control. That’s our goal.
Tour player positions here. Clubhead trailing behind hands, ball gets compressed from downward strike. Finish with club pointing at target and arms forming nice triangle shape with the grip splitting the middle. This is a sign that the hips and shoulders turned through the shot at even speed and finished facing the target. Here’s some old guy for reference.
By the end of the lesson you were striping it with eaze. Much closer to the swing plane and the shaft is in a much better angle to deliver the clubhead squarely into the ball. Keep up the good work!
Bonus clip. You should be able to see a lot of what we working on today happening here. Notice how short his backswing is and yet he’s one of the longest hitters on tour.