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Shoulder Chop Vs Lift - Driver Vs Iron

Good iron play and a fade biased swing will have more of a chop to the left shoulder, while good driving and a draw biased swing will have more of a lift to the left shoulder. It's important to be able to do both and stay within a range of lifting or chopping. Too much of one or the other can cause major contact issues with one part of your game or another.

Tags: Iron, Driver, Intermediate

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In this concept video, we're going to talk about chop-verse lift and how it applies to

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driver versus iron.

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So in the wedge section, I have a video on chop-verse lift.

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I want to do one for the iron section, because I think that it can have a big impact on

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your driver versus your iron ability just as it does with the wedges.

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So in simple terms, the chop-verse lift is going to look at this angle between the lead

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arm and my body.

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If I was to lift, it's going to go more up.

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If I was to chop, it's going to go more down and behind me.

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So one of the things you'll see with good wedge players is it's very much a chop movement

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where in that finished position that trail elbow will almost be behind their body, where

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with good drivers of the golf ball, you will tend to see that elbow more in front of the

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body and almost working up like so.

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So this would be more of that lift movement which helps produce a more in-out path.

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This would be more of the chop movement which helps produce an out-to-in path.

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Iron play can kind of be either, but I want you to know how to identify what you're doing

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as well as what the tendencies are going to be.

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One of the easiest places to look for if you chop or lift is past the follow-through position.

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So what a concept that we call the exit plane.

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So if you were to go from impact in that follow-through, you can look at kind of the angle

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that the club is on somewhere out there.

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The more that the club is airing towards vertical, you will have a tendency for that

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arm when I go into that finished position to finish very high compared to my body.

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This would be a lifting motion of that trail arm.

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The more that it is horizontal, you will tend to see that elbow work a little bit more

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down and so now compared to the shoulder height, that elbow will be much closer or more

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of a chop pattern down around the side like so.

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Now you can get away with doing either as your main power source from the shoulder, but

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it's important to be able to vary it if you want to be really elite and really good at

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golf.

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A lot of people, a lot of tour golfers kind of do it naturally without really thinking about

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it, but sometimes it's helpful especially for adults to pay attention to.

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So if you're trying to work on more of your driver swing and that lifting motion, you will

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tend to feel a little bit more of the club swinging out towards the right and a little bit

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more up trying to finish vertical.

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If you're trying to get that elbow to work more behind your body and get more of that chopping

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motion, the club will work more around your body and a little bit more horizontal.

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These will have big impacts as far as where the bottom of your swing is going to be and

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what your miss is going to be.

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So pay attention to your exit plane because it may give you an idea as to if you need

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to put more attention into your driver, more attention into your iron and while this

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axis tilting what the body is doing is one of the big differences between the ideals

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of the iron swing, what this shoulder is doing and the overall kind of path of the hands

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is also going to be an important factor because they're going to adjust differently depending

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on where the upper body is.

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