Swing Analysis - Driver

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All right, golfers, let's take a look at analyzing your driver swing.

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So in this video, we're going to talk about the real big pieces or I should say

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, we're

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going to boil down the driver swing into one key fundamental, which is creating

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the flat

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spot of the driver from the research I've seen and my own experience working

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with golfers.

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This is the differentiator between golfers who drive the ball consistently

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solid as well

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as straight, not necessarily far.

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We'll cover that more in the speed or the distance analysis section.

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But just looking at how do we make solid contact with the driver, let's talk

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about this flat

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spot idea.

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So as a quick reminder, if we're analyzing our impact with the driver, we're

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going to

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have about 20 degrees of axis tilt, so your upper body is a little bit more

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behind the

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middle of your stance or more towards your right foot, as opposed to with an

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iron where

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that axis tilt is significantly less.

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In fact, many golfers have that left shoulder in line with that left hip and

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left ankle,

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depending on the length of the club, especially with the shorter clubs.

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You will see a little bit of tilt with, say, five, six iron things of that

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nature.

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So you might be wondering to yourself, why do I want to have this axis tilt?

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It relates to what we're trying to get the club to do.

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So here we have a few freeze frames of the video, and what we can see here is

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that the

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golf club is roughly at the height of the golf ball from about the left foot to

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the

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right foot.

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So if I had my golf ball here, here's what that flat spot means.

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If I was swinging my arms around my body in a circle, then the club would come

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down and

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kind of have a consistent arc more like this.

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That's closer to what we see with the irons, but with the driver, you will tend

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to see down

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at the bottom of the swing more of this flat pattern with a slight ascent kind

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of like

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this.

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So we've got the club traveling at a pretty consistent height.

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From down the line, it would be going pretty straight like so, or slightly from

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the inside.

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Clubface-wise, you don't want to see a lot of the clubface coming in the ball,

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and then

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a lot of the clubface disappearing.

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And from this face-on view, you don't want to see a lot of loft changes as well

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.

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The driver has more inertia to it, so it becomes more sensitive when it's

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moving really

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fast, so it's hard to line everything up.

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The example I always use is if you had a really heavy tennis racket, you wouldn

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't be able

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to just flick your wrist, you would have to get it going in the direction that

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you wanted

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at the angle, you wanted much earlier.

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The driver is more like a heavy tennis racket where the short irons is more

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like a light

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tennis racket where you can kind of flip it, close last second.

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So the more consistent guys tend to have more of this flat bottom of the swing.

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By getting your body more tilted behind like so, then when you extend your arms

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, that will

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get the clubhead to travel more parallel to the ground instead of down at it.

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But the first thing I want you to look at is if you're analyzing your driver

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video,

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take a look at the height of the golf club and the angle of the clubface from

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about right

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foot to left foot to see if it fits this pattern.

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Here's another example of Rory.

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Again, you'll see right foot to left foot pretty close to that pattern.

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Here's John Rahm, some different looking elements to match up.

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But again, you'll see pretty close to the same height or a relatively flat

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bottom of

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the swing compared to what we'll see with some of the poorer driver's golf club

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or what

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you might see with your own swing analysis.

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So again, in Van Dam, height at about the same height as the golf ball, all the

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way through.

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When you're doing your studies and kind of analyzing videos, this is where I

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want you

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to start with your driver analysis.

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Okay, so now here's Luke Donald.

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We can see that compared to height of the golf ball, the club is a little bit

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higher

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and then it comes down and it starts coming back up very quickly.

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If you look at this on video and you kind of slow it down, it has more of a

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look like

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this where it never really flattens out compared to someone like Rory where it

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kind of has

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a look like that where there's more of this flat part of the swing.

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Luke Donald is a little bit more armsy.

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You can see in this shot, he tends to have a little bit more stand up so he

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doesn't create

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quite as good of the impact alignments from the down the line as well.

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And that creates more of this change down at the bottom.

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Historically, he's a really good wedge player, but he hasn't been one of the

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elite drivers

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of the golf ball.

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Perhaps this is one of the reasons why.

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So here we have another good example, Tommy Fleetwood, where the club travels

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relatively

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flat.

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He hit that a little on the toe if you slow down the video and so you'll see it

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spins

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a little bit more open.

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But lots of tilt, you'll notice that the arms structure tends to stay more

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similar from

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there to there as opposed to having a lot of straightening like we might see

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with an

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iron.

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That's part of what creates this flat spot.

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So from the down the line, if we know that we want the club to have this flat

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spot, it

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would make more sense that we'd want to kind of stay more in our posture.

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In general, with the iron guys who have more of this flat spot tend to be a

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little bit closer

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to the ground with their chest than where they started, where people have more

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of the

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Luke Donald style or the high to low will tend to have a little bit taller

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chest position

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compared to where they set up.

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Also what you'll see on video is oftentimes the club will be a little bit more

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inside

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the hands.

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That gets the swing direction a little bit more out to the right.

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In the slice and hook videos, we talk about those two positions being good

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checkpoints

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for looking at your path, but they depend a lot on the camera setup and the

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camera angle.

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But in general, having the club a little bit more inside the hands to a little

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bit more

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outside there will be a little bit more shallow or sweeping or hitting slightly

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up on the

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ball.

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So this gives you just a quick place to start when you're analyzing your driver

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video.

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If you're struggling with getting into a good delivery position where you have

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enough tilt

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or maintaining your posture, then we can expand on what's going on in the back

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swing or in

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transition.

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But whenever you're starting to analyze your driver's swing, start from this

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impact position

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and then work your way backward.

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If the club is too high at that right foot position, then I want you to

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investigate,

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am I too far forward, have I had more of a forward lunge, am I too high, have I

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had

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more of a stand up, or my arms straightening, which usually goes hand in hand

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with that.

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Or if the club is coming up a lot on the way through, then perhaps am I too far

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behind

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or have I early extended and my chest is behind the ball, causing the club to

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have to swing

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up.

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I have too much arm action and not enough body turn.

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Those will influence the general shape.

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If the club faces in a wide open position coming into this point, or if it's

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really

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closed, then it would investigate what's happening earlier, either looking at

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my grip

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and my setup or looking at the top of the swing.

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But what you'll see is if I'm struggling with my driver performance, take a

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look at

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your flat spot.

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If you're struggling with your flat spot, then investigate deeper to figure out

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which big

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movements are causing you to not get the club flat at the bottom of the swing.

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By following that recipe, you'll probably have your best chance at being able

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to find

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your big ha moment or finding a new driver key as quickly as possible.