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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Case Study On Practice Swings

Watch this golfer go through the progression: Practice swing, practice swing brush the ground, then swing with a ball. You can really see the changes this golfer makes and it highlights a useful test for most golfers. If you try this test, it could help reveal where you are controlling your swing from and why you can't take your practice swing to the course.

Playlists: Practice Strategies

Tags: Mental Game, Concept, Intermediate

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In this video, we're going to take a look at a common complaint, which is, why doesn't

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my practice swing feel anything like my full swing?

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Or rather, why am I able to do this in my practice swing when I can't do it in the full

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swing?

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So we're going to take a look at one of our members who is going through a series of

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progressions of trying to take a practice swing and make a move, trying to then make contact

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with the ground and then trying to hit the ball.

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Hopefully you'll learn something about your own game from watching this call for struggle

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with making those transitions.

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So part of the reason why I stress, figure out the movement, try and find the ground and

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then let the ball get in the way.

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I hope we'll be explained by watching one of our members go through that progression.

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So it sent me an email basically saying, why can't I do what I do in my practice swing?

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And I explain him that what he did in his practice swing wouldn't work.

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So here he is making a practice swing and he sent this to me and he said, how come I can't

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get this amount of kind of side bend and rotation?

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And I said, well, if you were to look at the club face right there, you can see that

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it is pointed way off to the right and it's about three inches or so, you know, it's above

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the ground.

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So basically the only way this would work is if he was trying to hit it over there and

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the golf ball was well above the ground.

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Otherwise the brain hasn't done what I've called solve the equation.

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It hasn't figured out how to get the path of the club to hit the golf ball with a face

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and having the side bend.

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So the next thing I did was I respond to I said, okay, now take a practice swing and I

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want you to try and make contact with the ground.

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So this is his next attempt, which is trying to take a practice swing and make contact

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with the ground.

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So now if we get it to about the same point, you can see that the club face is a little

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bit open as well, but you can see that the major change has come from his arm.

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Basically the only way that his brain knew how to find the ground was to abort what he was

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doing with his body and extend that right arm.

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So then the last piece I said, okay, why don't you go ahead and hit a golf ball, so I'll

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bring that over here on the right.

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And now this is him making his swing at the golf ball.

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And so what we can do is we can compare the practice swing and look at the real details

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of the timing and the movements and what's going on.

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But we can kind of get this general picture that here he's making contact and the club

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face is pointing in the direction of the target.

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So he's not doing what he did in the practice swing because if he did, he'd miss the

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net.

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The issue is that with this practice swing, he's figured out how to make a really good

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efficient path.

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But the problem is his brain hasn't figured out how to get a club face that works for

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that path or a club face orientation that works for that path.

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So when he goes back to hitting a golf ball, his brain figured out to stop rotating and

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release the club, which gets the club pointing at the target, but not using that motorcycle

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or that rotation of the club.

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So he squared it by kind of casting or slightly scooping, not by motorcycle.

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So this tells me that this is a clear club face issue because he can make a good path.

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He does so sort of with this practice swing.

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But when he makes a good path, the club face is an unusable position.

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So if you're having hard time taking the movements from practice swings to full swings,

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I recommend video taping yourself and really looking at what is different and you'll

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start to see how your brain is controlling where that club is and how your brain is controlling

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how you're creating the speed.

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In this particular golfer's case, you can see that yes, what he does with his practice

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swing does look better from the body standpoint.

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The hand pass better, the club path is all better, but the problem is the bottom of the

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swing is not in the right place, so it wouldn't strike the ball solidly and the club face

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is not in a good position, so it wouldn't hit the ball even close to straight.

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So until you figure out how to take a practice swing, getting the bottom of the swing to

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brush the ground, even with the golf ball or slightly ahead of it and get the club face

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to be square through that phase, you're going to have a hard time taking it from your

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practice swing to your real swing.

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