Playing with Low Point

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This drill is playing around with low point.

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Low point control is one of the key skills for making really solid contact.

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You frequently see golfers or tour golfers at the US Open, the British Open,

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where the

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grass is really bare and they tend to be on a little bit more slopes.

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You see them take a number of practice swings, just kind of feeling how the

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club is going

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to hit the ground.

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I find that many amateurs are avoiding trying to hit the ground, where most

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good golfers

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are trying to hit the ground and they're trying to hit the ground in a specific

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spot.

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Now, what you do with your swing, how much you bump your hips or keep your

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posture or

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use the wipe or the motorcycle, that all influences both how you create speed

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or how

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you create speed, how you control the face-to-path relationship as well as the

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path.

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Low point control is one of the parameters of the path.

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So I'll bring the camera in and we'll take a closer look, but I've pretty much

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just drawn

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a box with the spray paint.

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What I normally do for students is I'll have them get in their setup posture

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and then I'll

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take a T and I'll place lines in the ground.

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I'll just kind of drag and create lines so that they can see it.

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Roughly, let's say about eight inches to a foot on both sides of the golf ball.

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So about four inches, four to six inches on one side versus the other.

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And then what I'll ask them to do is I'll ask them to take practice wings and

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just kind

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of see where the club hits the ground.

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Then here's where the drill comes in.

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The challenge is I'm going to ask you to move it with one of two different ways

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.

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You can either move it forward or backward using your arms or your body.

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If you're doing the arms, I want you to try to keep your body movements the

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same.

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So I can move, here I'm making contact, I can keep pretty much the same body

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movements.

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And just by changing my arms, I can move the low point from well back by my

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right foot to

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well out in front of my left foot.

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Then if I want, I can challenge myself to move the low point around keeping the

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same arm

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movement and just adjusting the body.

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So now I'm going to make basically that release and I'm going to try to shift a

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little bit

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more so I can hit the ground back there or early extend or I can spin.

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But now I get the low point or the path getting a little bit too much to the

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left.

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But it's a great way to kind of play around with low point.

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If you struggle with heel toe contact, so shanks or lots of toe shanks, toe

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shots, then

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I would also want you to play around with how can you move the low point away

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or towards.

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And so that way you'd want to put lines going towards the target parallel lines

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towards

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the target so that you can see where you're making contact.

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And then what I'll find is, okay, I might be releasing like that and it's going

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out

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a bit and now I bend more forward, keeping the same release, it starts to move

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more

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back towards me, or I might find if I lead more with my body, it brings it back

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towards

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me.

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If I really go early with my arms, it gets, you know, a good four inches out

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that way.

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So I might find that I can control and move around that low point doing

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different arm

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movements, doing different body movements.

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The big body movements that are going to help you move the low point are either

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the

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Jackson five, so getting a little bit of pressure shift into that front foot.

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The merry go around getting more flexion and body turn, or potentially a little

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bit more

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of the side bend.

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And this is a great way to confirm if you are getting side bend while going

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into extension

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because that will move the low point way back.

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Or if you're getting side bend while going into flexion rotation, that will

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move the

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bottom of the swing forward.

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So you'll see if I side bend, but then rotate that hit the ground there.

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If I side bend, but then extend, that hit the ground way back here.

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So if you want to work on your low point skill, trying to do it perfectly every

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time is the

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worst way to work on a skill.

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I've talked about the Goldilocks drills and trying to do too much one way, too

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much the

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other way, and then finding the middle.

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This is a great way for you to practice that skill working on low point.

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So now you can see from kind of the overhead view, I'm just going to move the

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ball towards

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the front of that so that you can see roughly there's where my ball position

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would be.

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And now here's just kind of setting a baseline, trying to brush the ground

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right about where

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the ball is.

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Now I'm going to do body stays the same, and I'm going to change it with my

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arms.

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And so you'll see I can, there's a little bit more outside in, there's a little

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bit more

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movement, I can really move it forward with that white movement without getting

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too much

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out, the path getting too much outside in.

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Or if I cast, I can really move that low point backward.

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Now I'm going to try and keep the same release, so we're going to get that

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release going,

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and I'm going to use my body rotation to move that forward and use some early

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extension

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to move that backward.

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I'm going to flex a little bit more to move that forward in steeper.

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I'm going to cover the ball, but stay a little bit more back so I can just play

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around with

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different options and try and control where that's hitting the ground.

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You can put tees in the ground as different objects, or you can just do it spat

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ially.

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Now I'm going to try to move it forward backward.

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So I'm going to set my baseline of just hitting the ground, kind of like that.

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Now I'm going to flex more forward and turn, and you see that moves the bottom

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of the swing

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closer to me.

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Now if I early extend and early release that right arm, it moves it backward

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and further

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away from me.

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So now I can control where that bottom of the swing is hitting, and then

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ultimately do

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it with some golf balls.

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So here I've got set up, there I've got the low point just ahead.

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Now I'm going to challenge myself, same stance.

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I'm going to set up here and I'm going to try to use the wipe and staying down

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so you

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can see I just got the grass, and now same stance.

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If I found that I was really bottoming out here, I'm going to try and control

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low point

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with a little bit more early extension, now it gives me a little bit more hook.