WEBVTT

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In this concept video, we're going to discuss losing distance with the driver

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compared to

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the irons.

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So I had a member question come in about how come he hits the ball far, so

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comparatively

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as far as some of the people he plays with, he hits the ball just as far with

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the irons,

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but with the driver he's a good 20, 30 yard short.

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So why would some golfers hit the ball proportionately further with their irons

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compared to the

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driver?

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That's what we're going to investigate in this concept video.

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There are two major reasons why you might be disproportionately longer with the

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irons.

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One I call a speed plateau, and then two would be your launch numbers or your

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angle

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of attack number and spin numbers and launch are probably two iron based.

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So I talk about the goal with the driver is to have more of a sweeping blow

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where I'm

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going to hit flat or at the worst one degree down, maybe two degrees down.

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But ideally, if I'm trying to maximize distance, I want to hit closer in the

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three to five

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degree up range.

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In order to do that, most pros have a axis tilt of about 20 degrees or their

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upper body

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is a good four inches behind their lower body at the point of contact.

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Good rough kind of guideline for that would be at impact.

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The left leg is pretty vertical, but compared to that, the left shoulder is

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just slightly

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behind the golf ball.

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That would be a good position for sweeping the golf ball and hitting slightly

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up on it.

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That can either come from playing with ball position, for a lot of golfers who

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play it

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too far back, or playing with axis tilt, the Jackson five movement or the

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amount of hip

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tilt in the golf swing.

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So that one helps solve if I'm hitting too much down on it.

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Because what can happen is if I'm hitting too down and with a, let's put it

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this way,

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if I hit too down on the ball, let's say I hit four or five degrees down with

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my irons

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and I hit four or five degrees down with the driver.

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Well, if I squared the club face, then the, because the driver only has nine,

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ten, maybe

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twelve degrees of loft on the high end, if I'm hitting down on it, it would

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launch really

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low.

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So what most golfers do is when they hit down on it, they tend to add loft

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either by bringing

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the handle back with a big flip movement, or by just leaving the club face open

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.

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Either way, that produces more of a spinny ball.

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And so you lose a lot of the distance that you could get to that spin.

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So I forget the actual calculations, but I remember from an article back in

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2000, The

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Trackman put out that if you go from hitting three degrees down to three

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degrees up with

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a ninety five mile per hour club head speed, you could gain up to forty two

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yards or something

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like that.

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So without changing your speed, perhaps you're losing distance just because you

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're hitting

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down on it too much like you are in iron.

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But the other option, the speed plateau sometimes sneaks up on golfers,

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especially, I've seen

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it a lot with my older golfers.

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So I'll post up a picture of the Tour Pro average distances put out by Trackman

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, and

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you'll see that as they go from their irons to their fairway wood to their

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driver, there's

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a speed jump in how fast the club head is traveling.

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That's largely because they're swinging their hands close to the same speed,

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but the club

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gets longer and longer and so the club head ends up moving faster and faster.

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What I tend to find with some of my golfers is they reach a plateau where after

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a certain

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point they can't swing the club any faster because as the club gets longer,

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they actually

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unconsciously can't swing it any faster so their hands slow down so the club

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head ends

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up traveling about the same speed for a couple different clubs.

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This is a really common complaint of golfers who say that they hit their three

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wood further

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than their driver.

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Often times when I put them on Trackman, you'll be able to see that they swing

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the three

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wood and the driver the same.

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The three wood they launch a little bit higher and with lower speed, the higher

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launch gives

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them extra distance so they also tend because the club is a little bit shorter,

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you'll hit

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the ball more in the center with the shorter club than you would typically with

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the longer

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club so the ball speed with the same club head speed might even be a little bit

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higher

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with the three wood compared to the driver other than when they just hit that

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driver perfectly.

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So unfortunately the second opt that speed plateau, you're not going to know

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unless you

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get on some type of launch monitor device but I don't think it has to be a top

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of the

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line one.

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I think you'll be able to see anything that's measuring club head speed

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relatively accurately,

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whether it's off by a little bit as long as it's consistent.

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It'll help you see if you're reaching a speed plateau and you're just not

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swinging the driver

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any faster than the three wood is that can easily cause you to lose distance

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compared

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to golfers who might be able to swing their hands the same speed and increase

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the club

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speed with the longer club.

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If however it's more from the angle of attack so you are increasing speed but

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you're noticing

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that you're not hitting it further, then I would investigate either getting two

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upper

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body dominance so the club getting a little bit more outside or getting too

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much of a

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lunge so that the shoulder is past the ball and having to have more of a flip.

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Both of those could cause too many of a ball with too low of a launch and that

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combination

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is typically going to cost you a good bit of distance.

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So if you're struggling understanding why you might hit the driver, not quite

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as far

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as you hit the irons proportionally, hopefully this video gives you a little

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pathway to investigate.

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Figure out which of those two it is, if it's more the speed plateau, then you

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're going to

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have to do some a little bit of speed work.

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If it's more the angle of attack, then that can be accomplished with a lot of

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our drills

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that focus on getting more of this flat spot or sweeping bottom of the swing as

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opposed

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to more of a downward strike which we promote with the irons.

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So with a quick little demo with the iron, we're going to tend to be more on

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top of it

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in order to strike down, but if I did that with a driver, I would either pop it

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up, launch

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it really low or launch it in a spinny fashion.

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So if I do that same thing, which is hard for me to override, but if I do that

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same thing,

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I'm going to tend to lose it off a little bit to the right because I needed

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that extra

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loft and it had a little bit more of a climbing ball flight compared to, let's

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get a little

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bit better ball position.

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So I'm going to play that more towards my front shoulder, I'm going to have a

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little

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bit more lower body sweeping action.

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If I try to swing about the same speed, you'll see that that takes off on a

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much more kind

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of flat flight, gets to its apex and really cruises, I'm probably swung a

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little bit faster

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because I was more comfortable in that position, but that ball went about 40

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yards further

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than the first one where they felt like I swung about the same speed.

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I just transferred a heck of a lot more energy into the golf ball with that

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second technique.