WEBVTT

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This concept video is the Arm Shallow Checkpoint.

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I always get a question at least once a month or so of, "Hey, am I shallowing

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my arms enough?

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What's my transition look like?"

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I want to give you a quick single image that you can use to evaluate your steep

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and shallow

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balance.

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Now, granted that that steep and shallow balance is going to continue for the

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whole downswing,

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so sometimes you could have a perfect position and still mess it up.

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But this in my years of coaching has been one of my tried and true places to

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look for

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first.

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And basically what we're looking at is from the down the line camera angle, we

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're looking

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at the angle of the shaft compared to the body kind of early in the downswing

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right

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around when the arm is parallel or right around p5.

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So somewhere around here looking for the angle of the club compared to the body

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.

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And I say that because compared to the body is how we'll see if it's shallowing

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more

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from the arms or from the body.

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To get into the shallow arm position, we pre-build this into the delivery

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position.

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So the shallow arm position is a rotation of the left arm and a rotation of the

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right

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arm.

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The left arm is primarily from the shoulder with a little bit of forearm from

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the right

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arm or the trail arm.

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It's primarily from the shoulder because the forearm is actually as it goes

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into extension

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is actually going into a little bit more of a steepening move.

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So as you'll see, we'll look through a number of examples here, just kind of

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rapid fire.

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And as you'll see, there's some variants, there's some people who are a little

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bit more

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up and down compared to the body, this would be more steep.

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And there are people who are closer to parallel.

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You have some extremes like Morikawa and John Rahm who are actually maybe even

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flatter

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than parallel.

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I think that in general, the shallow arms can be a bit of an advantage.

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One kind of example that I use is if I had the club straight up and down and I

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just dropped

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it down to the ground, you can see it kind of hits the leading edge really hard

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and bounces

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off the ground.

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Now in order to not make that slam into the ground, I would have to pull up

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away from the

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golf ball, either with my arms or with my body.

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So I would have to time this stand up move with the arm swinging more

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vertically.

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If I swung the arms in more of a horizontal fashion, now the club is going to

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skim along

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the ground simply because it's coming in a more shallow angle.

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So in my book, the stock tour swing, I use the example of landing a plane.

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If the plane is coming down vertically like this, it's going to have to pull up

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perfectly

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or else it's going to bounce off the runway or miss it.

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Where if it's coming down on more gradual pattern, it's got more margin of air.

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Also, it's easier to do this little pull up move in a light airplane than it

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would be

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in a giant, you know, international plane, 747 or 777.

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I can't say I know those numbers very well, but hopefully you get the point,

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which is

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with the longer clubs, especially like the driver and the long irons, if this

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gets steep,

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it becomes harder to time that stand up pattern.

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So let's take a look at a number of examples all taken from the same tee so we

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can see

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kind of the spectrum of what we're seeing here in transition with this arm

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shallow checkpoint.

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Hopefully you saw the pattern there.

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If you're looking at your arm shallow checkpoint, I'm going to give you a

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couple little key

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keys to look in on.

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One from the body, you're looking at basically how well you've maintained your

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spine angle.

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So if this has gotten really flat or you might have to add the face on camera

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to see if you're

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tilted way behind.

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Because oftentimes that steep arm pattern will be accompanied with a shallow

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body pattern.

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Now it looks like the club is on plane, but I'm going to have a low point

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nightmare trying

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to balance that steep arm and shallow body pattern.

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So if I'm shallow or if I'm steeper in this body position, so I'm more on top

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and down,

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then the arms are going to have to be in more of a shallow position.

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Looking at the trail arm, that will look like the arm is more in front of the

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body as opposed

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to behind the body.

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Looking at the lead arm, if you're looking at where the elbow is pointing, the

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elbow

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will be pointing more out towards the golf ball instead of down towards the

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ground.

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So if the lead elbow is pointing more down or the trail elbow is pointing more

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back,

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that's more of a steep arm pattern and you will have to shallow that with your

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body.

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If the trail arm is more in front and the lead arm is pointing out, that's more

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of a

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shallow arm pattern and you will have to steepen it by staying in your posture

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and turning

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through.

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Those are typically helpful complimentary patterns.

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Even though this is a concept video, let's do a real quick demo.

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So if I have the arms in a steeper pattern like this, that club is going to

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slam into

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this mat unless I stand up at the right time, but we'll see some armben, some

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stall, and

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that felt pretty jarring, doesn't feel like that would be something I could do

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really

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consistently.

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As opposed to, if I get this into more of a flatter arm position from here, now

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this

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should have very little timing, all I have to do is extend the arms and stay

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down and

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turn my body and the club is just going to slide along your ground.

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So this arm shallowing is one of the ways that Torpros build in some

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consistency to their

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pattern, a thing that most amateurs are complaining that they wish they had

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more.