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Analysis - Shaft Lean - Pros Vs Ams
Shaft lean is one of those staples of a good tour golf swing. The key is to make sure that you get shaft lean without creating a steep angle of attack. In this video, I show how pros and ams use shaft lean to either compliment a shallow angle of attack or to save it from being steep.
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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at comparing shaft lean and setup to
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shaft lean impact.
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So as we work through the program, we're going to paint a picture of what we want the
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club to do and how the body is going to do it.
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So this video is hopefully going to help you see where we want the club to be different
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at impact than it was at setup.
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So to give us some references, I've got a vertical line drawn on the outside of Adam Scott's
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hip on the outside edge of his hand and the back of the ball.
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And the ball is really just to give a reference because very few videos are taken with
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tripod anymore.
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So you'll typically see a little bit of movement just from the camera.
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So you'll see that as he comes back down towards impact, his lower body is shifted
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about a half to a third of a pelvis or somewhere in that four to six inch range.
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And you can see that his hands have gone possibly even a little bit further ahead compared
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to how much his hips have moved even though the golf ball stayed the same.
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So you can take a little snapshot and you can see that he's got his hands significantly
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ahead of where they were at setup.
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But if I play it forward, you can see that the club is just barely brushing the ground.
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Now the way that he's accomplishing this is by having his hands working fairly flat or even
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slightly up through the hitting area.
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We'll look at some amateurs later and we'll see how that movement there is going to
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have a big impact on how much shaffling and golfer is going to be able to have.
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So now over on the right we have Jordan's B-thinning and Iron.
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And you can see as a little forward press move so just to be fair, I'll put that extra
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line in.
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And we will see that camera moves tiny bit but the back of the line stayed on the golf
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ball most of the movement was more in the up and down direction.
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So you'll see that if we get Jordan just to impact, you'll see that his hands have moved
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significantly more ahead of where they were at start, especially when we compare them
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to the hit movement.
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So this white movement that we teach during the release is how we get the hands to actually
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be ahead of where they were compared to the body at setup while the hit movement accounts
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for some of the shaffling, the arm movements are going to account for some of the other.
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And again in order to not take a really really deep divot and have the club working in
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an extremely steep fashion what we'll see is through impact the hands are working slightly
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up as you can see as the hands are moving slightly away from this line.
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That's what gets the club to just brush against the ground instead of slamming down
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into it when the hands are that far forward.
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Having the hands that far forward is what helps us hit get compression basically hit the
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ball higher up on the face and utilize the sweets butt.
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So now we can take a look at someone like Graham McDowell and it's hard to see the golf
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ball on this left one so I'm just going to put a line on the edge of the bag.
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You can see that that line on the edge of the bag stayed about the same but you can
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see that his hands are significantly more forward compared to where they started as his
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hips are as well.
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Now the amount of hip rotation is going to make that linear movement a little bit tricky
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to interpret so we're just using it to get a general reference not really an exact amount.
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Now over on the right we're going to take a look at a driver so that we can see that this
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pattern is not just iron dependent.
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So over here on the right you'll see that his hands compared to where they were it
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set up which was this line here are actually a little bit further ahead.
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Another reason why is that white movement that we teach in the release is really critical
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for getting side bend and when you have a little wider stance with the driver and your
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upper body more behind the golf ball your arms working a little bit more ahead will
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help prevent you from drop kicking it or hitting the ground behind it.
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If we draw that the line of the hands you can see that they are working significantly
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up through the hitting area in order to not have the club slam into the ground having
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with having chef lean and the hands that far ahead compare they were it set up.
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So now let's take a look at a few amateurs to see the general tendency for them to bring
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the hands back to the same location which may be a concept or it may just be a technical
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error but we'll demonstrate or we'll look at amateurs demonstrating it in a couple different
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ways.
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Okay so over on the left we have a higher handicap and we'll see that one of the general
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tendencies with the higher handicap is they're not going to have nearly as much lower body
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shift so you can see that that's already going to make it harder for him to get his hands
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ahead but even though the lower body has shifted a little bit ahead you can see that the
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back of the left hand for all intent purposes pretty much comes back to the same place.
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So part of this is a concept issue of the golfer believing that the hands should come
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back to where they were at set up where the professional golfer is demonstrating that
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that is not one of the trade marks that they're using to the ball well.
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Now if we compare the hands kind of working up and through you can see that his hands are
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actually approaching that line and they're not starting to work up kind of rate up until there.
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So what you'll see is his hands are a little bit higher in this position and then they're working
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more gradually down into the hitting area and so if he did have his hands ahead with that
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hands moving down descent the club would slam into the ground and he would have a lot of contact
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trouble. So now over on the right we have a lower handicap golfer but someone who also has this
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cast pattern and isn't going to have nearly as much half lean so complaints of compression distance
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complaints of not being able to hit the driver well. So what we'll be able to see from this is
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this golfer is trying to get more shaft lean or was when he came to see me and so he would tend to
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set up with his hands well in front of the golf ball. So if we imagine it more in a kind of neutral
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position compared to his body it would probably be closer to that line there and what we'll see is as
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he comes back down his lower body has shifted ahead of the golf ball but because of this club
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they squaring ideas you can see that his hands kind of get roughly back to where they started or
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even a little bit behind where they started. Now again he started them significantly more forward
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than a torque rope but you can see that compared to the amount of hip rotation his arms are not working
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as much across his body and creating that shaft lean he's kind of having this cast release and
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coming in with the shaft a little bit more vertical. So if we put that line as just a reference
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you can see that his hands will be working pretty much down until just before impact right around here
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where the torque rose were working a little bit flatter in order to have the hands work flat
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that's where we get this good kind of rotation side bend that we teach in the merry-go-round drill.
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So one more example over on the right they hire handy cap golfer and he had that same
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symptom of setting up with the hands well ahead and so what you'll see is even though the hips
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have had about the right amount of lateral movement because of his cast pattern because of his
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release you'll see that his hands are coming in forward if we put that little reference line we can see
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that it would be not doing too bad here working a little bit more up but he's one who tends to
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struggle with club face issues so he uses the straightening in the shaft more as a way to get the
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club face pointed at the target as opposed to to not hit really really steep because he actually
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still gets fairly steep and now we have a very low handicap golfer who had a typical
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real reaction of basically you know I've a flip and kind of a scoop through impact and so they'll
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tend to think that their swing doesn't look nearly as well as it does but if we if we use
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some of these kind of big picture criteria you can see that his hands are well ahead of where they
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were at set up very good um white movement and arm extension if we put the little line in there
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we can see that they're working pretty straight across so even if he doesn't have all the pivot
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things that a tour pro does you can see that he has the general shape and he is the the right impact
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conditions to hit the ball fairly well so if you're struggling with your impact position
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hopefully this video gives you a a visual to help you understand how some of these drills are designed
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to help you create shaft lean without creating a really steep angle of attack