Student Swing Review - Sammy

I adopt a strategy of trying to find one thing that fixes five things. In this case, I would just ask her (Sammy?) to look at your picture of yourself at the both arms parallel post impact position p9. look at your trail shoulder then ask her to look at hers. The trail shoulder has to move down, out and forward through impact and beyond. I would ask her to do the following experiment. get into her normal top of backswing position and go from there being aware of moving her trail shoulder out down and forward, which in effect is roughly like 90* to her spine as a guide. have her do this in the mirror and compare what she looks like at impact with the swing she sent. then try small swings at slower motion being aware of moving the right shoulder as prescribed. I'll bet she has trouble at first. Two reasons for why. First in her actual swing her trail arm is fully extended at impact and if she does that with her new shoulder movement, she'll hit the ball fat. The adjustment of course will come from seeing how slight bend of right elbow and increase in shaft lean together cure that. Second, I believe this is the way she will ultimately come to add more left lateral bend in the backswing. Because the downswing move of the right shoulder of out, down and forward is much easier and comfortable if the backswing is not as level through the pelvis and shoulder as hers is now. In my experience, these latter adjustments come naturally through attentive practice as a consequence of trying to make solid contact once committed to moving the right shoulder out down and forward in the downswing. Finally if you look at her swing, prior to impact her right shoulder moves out/level/ stalls then travels forward post impact. She just needs to see how more forward and down will impact her alignments. And that it is easierr and more rhythmic to do that from a top of the backswing position that is reached with less level pelvic rotation and less level shoulder rotations. I have some great pictures of Mac's backswing from when I was working with him that make the transition so much easier to engage in. But alas this is something I am better at teaching than doing myself :-)

Hello, It would be great with a view DL to see how she was setting up to the ball, and how she could get her pelvis to forward thrust (Y-axis) and how she started the downswing from P4-P5 DL. I can see that the pressure on her lead foot is not pushing her pelvis backwards and making place for her trail elbow to get in front of her hips. Her lower body is what I would put my work on and get her to use her legs correctly and have external rotation in her trail hip from P4-P5.5 and get some pressure in the trail foot to push off with and get that pelvis moving more backwards and not inwards. Henrik L

Very common issue among young female golfers, and I think it’s partly due to their flexibility. Huge shoulder turn with quiet hips in the backswing. Coming down, lead knee posts early and gets hips and chest really open while still keeping her lead hand behind the trail shoulder at p6.. then comes the flip. Her body almost completely stops rotating from about a foot prior to impact until just after p8. She’s already a great player, but gradually improving this flaw will make her a better player in the long run. Some drills that have worked for my players that struggle with this: Hit reduced speed punch shots while keeping lead knee flexed the entire swing (maintain flex in the finish as an exaggeration) If they flip, they’ll hit way behind. Little punch shots with alignment stick running down the shaft also helps educate the hands and shoulders. I just started the GSA certification, and look forward to learning from you all!

Marcello-- Looking forward to more posts from you as you enter the 'coaches corner.'

+Jules C Thanks Jules!

+Marcelo H I see this movement all the time too in a ton of my juniors. Their arms get left behind while the body drives the movement. I think it's due to their flexibility/mobility and lack of shoulder stability/strength. Their legs are lot stronger than their upper body. I've definitely found it a challenging area to improve with some juniors. I see it as too much lead arm adduction across the chest to the point where it's pinned and then it just pretty much stays there through the downswing. I generally go with a four pronged attack depending on the player. Technically I go with the less obtrusive option of playing with a lower ball flight and low 3/4 punch shots (lots of praise and high fives when they nail the low punch.) I'd also aim to make sure their arms don't get too deep or behind them in the backswing. If they are motivated, I point them in the direction of some shoulder stability work as a starting point. Some juniors improve this move as they just grow and physically develop so patience can sometimes be the answer. Sorry, going off topic a little with reference to our player here but thought it may add to the background of the movement. I've recently joined the 'coaches corner' too so Hi everyone. I'm sure I'll be learning plenty from you all and adding a few tools to the coaching toolbox, looking forward to it : )

I found the DL view very illuminating. I know what I would try to do with Sammy, but I am sure there are lots of ways to approach her swing. I've played golf competitively for over 50 years, and I am still surprised by 'what works' for different people because for most good golfers, it's really a question of believing in what you have and learning how to play with it. But here is my suggestion. In my experience, almost all problems that good golfers with good motions face are sequencing issues. To me the first place I would begin is with her backswing. Look at the video at the 5 second mark. I would want her to work on playing golf with that as the end of her backswing. Between the 5.0 and 7.0 second marks, there are two full seconds of arm run on after her rotation is completed. Worse her arms get into poor relative positions. Her lead arm travels too far across her chest/upper torso and is pinned; her upper trail arm as a result is driven behind her and unnecessarily far away from her body. This is a lot of camera frames of movement post the end of her rotation (to my eyes); the net effect is what we see at impact: the arms never catch up to move in sync with the body rotation and while her trail arm is not technically trapped behind her rotation, it certainly hasn't caught up. I don't love the trail leg role in her rotation into impact and beyond, but i don't think that is the source of the main problem. I think the shorter, tighter swing would clean that up a bit naturally. I don't think you have to work on anything technical to improve her swing, ball flight and compression. I was golfing machine trained by Ben Doyle, but I don't like the terms like 'power package', I think of the backswing as accumulating what you need for the transfer of energy that is necessary for what you are trying to accomplish. To my mind, where she is at 5.0 accumulates all she needs. Everything she does after that on the backswing creates wobble and potential inefficiencies in the transfer of energy to the ball. For efficient transfer you just need to accumulate what you need and deliver it efficiently. Those are my working concepts. That's why in my view the backswing really does matter -- even if, as they say, you don't hit the ball on the backswing. The last 2.0 seconds of her swing (as measured in video time, not real time) add nothing but sequence problems once transition begins putting her arms and hands entirely out of sync with her pivot. I would worry about cleaning up aspects of the pivot till later. That's just my take. I always think you want big rotation, short arms if possible; in other words, reduced arm travel in the backswing. This is like the anti- John Rahm swing. I am not claiming that this approach is right and definitely not that it is uniquely so. It's just where I would begin .