Driver vs Iron Overview

WEBVTT

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All right, in this section, we're going to discuss adjusting your swing for the

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driver

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versus the iron.

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So it would be great if you only had to learn one swing and it would work for

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the same for

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every single club.

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Unfortunately, that's not the case.

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What I've seen with 3D motion and anecdotally with students is that you have to

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learn how

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to adjust your swing, at least for driver, the longer clubs, and then perhaps

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one for

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the shorter clubs.

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But in this, we're going to talk mostly about kind of a mid-iron, let's say

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like a seven

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iron compared to the driver.

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In general, there's a few different changes that we're going to see.

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And in this series, we're going to go over some stations you can create and

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ways that

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you can practice so that you don't get too fixated on just one swing, whether

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the driver

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or the iron swing.

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So in general, the club is going to follow a little bit more of a flat swing

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with the

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driver.

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So from, let's say we're hitting it in this direction here, the iron is

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typically built

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on an angle somewhere around 60 degrees where the driver is built on an angle

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somewhere

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around 45 degrees.

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The driver is also longer and we're going to tend to sweep more up on it.

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In order to do that, we're going to tend to use more of our body for speed.

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We'll talk about that here in some later videos.

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But the general idea is with the driver, we're going to try to get a little bit

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more of a

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flat or kind of squished circle like this, where the iron is going to be a

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little bit

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more circular or universal.

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One other thing that can be useful to think about is the contact location

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compared to

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the swing bottom.

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So in general, with the iron, we want to strike the golf ball just before the

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bottom

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of the swing.

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So we're going to make contact with the golf ball kind of right around there,

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where with

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the driver, we're going to make contact with the golf ball after the bottom of

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the swing

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where the club is traveling slightly up.

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Now when we're looking at the widest point, with the driver, the widest point

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tends to

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happen even later.

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So if I power the swing more with my body, that allows me to extend those arms

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even later.

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So even though I'm hitting the ball up, that's not because I've hit it before

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the widest part

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of the swing.

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I've just hit it after the widest part of the swing.

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I've hit it after the lowest part of the swing.

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So we've got a few different ways to look at.

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You've got your low point, location changes, the power source can change, and

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the overall

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shape can change a little bit.

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Luckily, we've got a couple of stations that we can use, and if you try the

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drills over

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on the right, we'll walk through the different drills of how to kind of simply

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visualize the

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differences that you need to change when going from your driver to your iron

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swing, as well

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as a couple ways to practice so that you don't fall into the practice habit of

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just hitting

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the same club over and over again, and not knowing how to adjust the swing from

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club

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to club.

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When it comes to the basic adjustments, with the driver, we're going to

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typically have

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a little bit more of this tilt behind the ball, or Jackson 5, at impact the

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upper body

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is going to be a little bit more behind the lower body, kind of like this.

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So when we look at this low point line, it looks a little different when golf

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ers are

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hitting their driver versus hitting their iron.

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In order to, because the club is longer, if I imagine, if I had a horizontal

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club, let

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me just grab a stick, so if I had an object that I was swinging horizontally, I

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could

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turn my body and create a lot of power.

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So the driver being a longer club built on this flatter angle, yields itself

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more to

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body rotation.

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If I was trying to swing something vertically, well body rotation wouldn't

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really work a

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whole lot or work very well with that model.

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So the irons, which are more upright, not vertical, but more upright, lend

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themselves

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to having a little bit more vertical or arm dominant swing.

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So with the driver, we can have more lower body power because the club is

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further away

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from me.

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When I swing it fast, it picks up a lot of momentum.

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Unfortunately, once it has that momentum, it's essentially going to take more

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effort

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to try to square the face.

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So in general, better drivers of golf ball tend to close the face a little bit

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earlier.

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The analogy I give is imagine that you had a couple different tennis rackets,

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one being

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really light and one being really heavy.

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With the light racket, you can just kind of flick your wrist and square it up.

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You can be quite precise with the light object even with very late face closing

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timing.

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But if the racket was heavy, then it would take a lot of force for me to square

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it up.

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And if I did it too soon, it would over close.

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So what would make more sense is with a heavy racket, I would kind of get it

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going in the

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right direction much earlier and allow it to kind of continue traveling in that

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direction

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through contact.

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It would be very hard to just square it last minute.

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So that's essentially what's happening with the driver.

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When you get it swinging very fast, it has more inertia, it has more momentum.

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It tends to be harder for golfers to get away with squaring it late.

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So what I've seen on 3D is the more consistent drivers of the golf ball tend to

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have an earlier

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and more gradual face closing.

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The other thing is because it's more body driven, you will tend to have that

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trail arm

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stay bent longer and even be bent a good bit at impact, averages somewhere

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around 40 degrees.

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And then straighten through impact to create that width on the other side of

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the golf ball.

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With the iron, it's basically the shorter the club yields itself to the

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opposite of those.

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So I don't need as much tilt, in fact that makes it hard to get the low point

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ahead of

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the golf ball, so I'm going to tend to be more stacked on top of that front leg

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.

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Because the club is built more upright, it's going to yield itself more to

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getting the swing

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happening more from my ribs and upper body or shoulder girdle, less so from big

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rotational

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hip movements.

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I can get away with, because the swing is a little bit more circular and I'm

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more on top

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of it, I can get away with more arm extension coming into the ball instead of

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having to

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extend it much later.

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So in general, if your swing fits into one of those categories, you will tend

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to perform

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better with the club that matches your natural swing.

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But if you want to be a really good golfer and you want to master at least two

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of those

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four core skills, you want to be able to be a good driver of the golf ball as

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well as

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a good iron player, then you're going to have to learn how to adjust your swing

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given these

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parameters here.

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So we've got three basic stations that we can set up for exploring the

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difference between

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the driver and the iron.

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One is with the T's, so you'll try the one that helps you visualize and see the

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different

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low points, whether it's the two cheat drill or the three T drill.

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The second station is the tilt station, so looking at am I more behind or more

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on top,

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where is that visual compared to space or compared to the golf ball?

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So similar to what we did with learning to master the face and the path, we're

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going

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to create some spatial awareness by using some visuals.

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And then the last is looking at more skill training, which is I'm essentially

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going to

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go from hitting a driver to hitting an iron, maybe throwing in a hybrid, maybe

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throwing

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in a wedge, but going back and forth between the clubs.

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So I have to kind of use my brain and run through the set up process each time

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I swing

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the club.

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So it's important to understand the differences between these clubs, because

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oftentimes you

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will struggle more with one end of the spectrum or the other.

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You want to look at the low point and the flat spot changes, the overall shape

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change

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for the different swings.

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The biggest factor is am I trying to sweep it, hit up on the ball, or am I

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trying to compress

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it and get the low point ahead of the golf ball?

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In both of those, keep in mind the low point ideas as far as monitoring depth

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as well as

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3D or contact location.

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I can simplify it by looking at either the tease and getting the visual of

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where I want

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the club, or the tilt station to help you visualize the differences of where

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you want

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your body for the clubs.

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In the next series, we're going to cover tempo.

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Now I should say, if you haven't mastered it, don't worry, we're going through

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two

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more rounds, we're going to go through some more details, and we're going to go

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through

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some troubleshooting.

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As you go deeper and deeper into the program, a lot of these pieces are going

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to come more

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together.

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In the next class, we're going to talk about tempo, which is another way of

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looking at

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sequencing, which as we saw, the sequencing or the tempo for the driver swing

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and the

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iron swing can vary a little bit.

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If you're struggling a little bit, especially with the pivot and especially

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with the driver,

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don't give up yet, maybe the tempo section will help you dial it in once and

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for all.