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Early Extension - 3 Core Moves

The 3 core movements that drive the early extension pattern are: 

  1. Lower body moving in towards the golf ball
  2. Chest moving up or away from the golf ball
  3. The arms straightening early

The lower body could be driven by the foot action, the ankle, the way the body pushes against the ground, the back, starting too much in the heels, moving too much towards the toes, etc

The chest moving away from the golf ball could be driven by lots of issues as well. It could be driven by the back powering the swing, a lack of side bend movement, the closeness of the yes to the ground and the size of the golf ball appearance, a way to shallow out the club, etc

The arms straightening early could come from the lead arm pulling, the trail arm throwing, the wrist not unhinging, an attempt to shallow out the club, an early timing of swinging at the ball instead of through the ball.

While the reasons could be many, this video outlines the three basic patterns to work through to eradicate the pattern.

Tags: Standing Up, Concept

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In this concept video, we're going to discuss the three key pieces to early extension.

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So some golfers struggle with the early extension pattern.

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We're basically the hips are going in and there's a little bit more of an arm throw.

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There's a bunch of different components that can relate to it.

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But in my opinion, there's three key ones that you have to tackle in order to correct

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this problem and usually getting one of them to work better will help improve the other

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too.

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So the three big pieces are either the lower body moving in towards the golf ball.

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So pushing with my feet in towards the golf ball too much, especially from that trail

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knee where that trail knee gets in towards the golf ball or pass the foot and the hip goes

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past the middle of the foot kind of like this.

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The second component would be the upper body going backward.

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So the upper body pulling back away from the golf ball or getting more vertical from

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the down the line camera angle.

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And then the third one is going to be the timing of the arm extension.

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So typically what happens is in order to make this all work, the hips go forward,

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the upper body goes back and the arms extend kind of like this.

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And you'll see I can pick the ball, I can hit it pretty straight, but it becomes a limiting

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pattern when I start to add more speed or when I try to time it up with the longer clubs

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or it can become a low point problem for the shorter clubs.

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So if you're working on it and one of these areas isn't clicking, let's say you're

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trying to do some hip back drills and you're just feeling like you're kind of stuck and

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they're not rotating, you can always focus on more the chest being closer to the ground.

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Or working the chest closer to the ground.

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If you're in this chest closer to the ground position and you went forward, you would fall

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over or if you were in this chest down position and you straighten your arms, you would

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hit behind the golf ball, you'd hit it fat.

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So the chest being down or the hips being back get your body closer to the golf ball.

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So then it would require a delayed timing of that arm extension.

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Kind of like that.

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So it would require this arm to be a little bit more bent as I'm getting into impact

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in the next standing through the shot.

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Now there are a couple, let's say, complimentary movements such as if the body has gotten

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more steep like this, I might have to do some arm shallowing, either with kind of some

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of this actual rotation of the arms or a little bit more owner-deadiation.

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Because I'm down and have more body rotation on the way through, the club face may be

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more open than I'm used to.

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You can see that from the overhead view as the hands go forward, the club face gets open.

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So I might have to feel a little bit more motorcycle component to it.

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So the big pieces are lower body in or upper body up or timing of the arm straightening.

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If you work on one of those three and you're just trying to dial in some contact

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and ball flight, then you might have to go after some arm shallowing or club face control.

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But if you're struggling with early extension and the associated either block hook, thin

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divot, consistency with the longer clubs and contact with the shorter clubs, then I recommend

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targeting one of the big three until you get a change on video.

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That can provide the platform that you can then build some of the other movements

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around.

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Alright, so demoize, let's work through a couple of these common ones.

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First one, I'll focus on the hip-scowing backward.

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Oftentimes what can happen is if the hips go backward and I still kind of straighten my arms,

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I'll have a really exaggerated feel of the stall pattern.

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So when the hips go backward, I want to now feel a little bit more body rotation.

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So I'm making sure that even though my hips went backward, my chest is facing the target.

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Alright, let's try one of the other components.

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So now let's say I'm going to focus on the chest being more down.

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So if I focus on the chest being more down, if I straighten my arms early,

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you'll see I hit way behind it and the divot is quite deep.

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So that's a really frustrating one.

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What I'm going to focus on during this next one,

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chest is going to stay down, but I'm going to get either a little bit more arm shallowing,

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or I'm going to feel a little bit more of my body rotation.

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I did a little bit of both because I wanted to decrease the depth of that divot

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and move the low point a little bit more forward.

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Okay, then third combo would be I'm used to straightening the arm into the ball.

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Now it's going to feel like I'm kind of stuck here.

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Now if I don't have enough older diviation and I keep this in here,

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then I'm going to be well above the golf ball. I might actually top it.

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So if I feel like I'm keeping this in and I'm hitting a lot of shots like this,

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you saw I stood up and I didn't give any older diviation.

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So on the next one, trying to keep the wipe or trying to keep that arm a little bit more

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in, now I'm going to feel at the same time a little bit of body staying lower and letting

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a little bit of that older diviation happen.

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So the challenging thing with the early extension pattern is that there's a couple of components

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and you have to do it at least two of them usually to have some really good success.

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But in order to do two of them comfortably, you'll have to work on each piece,

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maybe for a couple of practices before you can add them both at the same time.

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But it is a pattern that when you get through it and you've improved it,

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you'll typically experience much greater consistency and overall enjoyment of your ball strike.

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