Centered Pivot

3h 10m

34 lessons

Core Course

Course Progress

A centered pivot is the most important key for solid contact

There are a handful of issues that can create poor contact with the finesse wedges. Most of these are arm related, but there is a common body pattern that can also be detrimental. This pattern usually involves a significant lateral shift to the front leg during the downswing. This shift moves our "center" too forward of the ball and is usually accompanied by a strong pull of the arms in order to compensate. This then creates a large amount of shaft lean or the need for a sudden and aggressive release. To combat this lateral shift, a simple "T" setup (using alignment sticks) and the cue for a "centered" pivot is a great starting point.

Video Transcript

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This drill is centered pivot finesse shots. So there are a handful of issues

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that create really poor turf contact for the finesse wedges. A lot of them have

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to do with what the arms do but there is one common body pattern for a lot of

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golfers who struggle with these wedge shots and that would be when they get

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to the top of the swing they tend to have a really big shift into their front

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leg

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and they tend to have a really big kind of pull on the club forward like so. So

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they get this shift on top and then they typically have to kind of throw the

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club

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down at the ground and hit bad contact there or they really keep going and hit

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have a ton of shaft lean and hit really poor pattern. So one of the ways to go

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about that is by using more of a simple tee setup with the shaft fairly

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vertical

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you're going to try and make some swings where you have where you basically

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imagine that your tailbone or your spine is just spinning in place over the

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ground. So if you had a shadow and the sun was straight over knee over above

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you're not going to have any shift during the downswing. Now as you know I

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like to have a little bit of a shift towards the target in the backswing but

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in this drill there's no shift if anything it's going to shift a little bit

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away

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during the downswing. I mean your head and upper body would shift just a tiny

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bit away in order to keep your spine a little bit more centered. So you can

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focus on this either from feeling the feet being really quiet and staying

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centered or you can focus on the spine and if you had a shadow creating a very

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limited amount of shift. So a little high on that one maybe a little bit extra

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speed on that but if you're struggling with ground contact especially if you're

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getting leading edge there's a very good chance that you're having kind of a

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pull towards the target this way and the big shift into that front foot try to

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keep your your pressure a little bit more centered just over the middle of kind

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of

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the inside heel just a little bit ahead of the ball but as you swing and pivot

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you're going to feel like you just spin the body around that spot not a big

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Jackson 5 like we like to do in the full swing.