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Exploring The Como Flat Spot

The Como Flat spot, is named after Tiger Woods' golf consultant Chris Como, and the work he has done since 2011. It is the idea that elite golfers develop a flat spot in their club arc, that helps produce more repeatable swings. This flat spot is both high to low, and in to out, In this video, you can see how our system coaches a swing that develops a good flat spot, how to visualize what in the swing makes it so, and some 3D graphs to help you see the practical goal of the concept.

Tags: Fundamentals, Not Enough Distance, Concept, Advanced, Intermediate

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The Struill is exploring the Komoflatsbyte.

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So one of the models for repeatability that I really like comes from a good friend of mine

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named Chris Komof.

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As far as I know, he's the first person to really study this.

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So I call it the Komoflatsbyte.

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But basically it's looking at the path of this clubhead through impact.

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And his hypothesis is that which does have some data that supports it from Enzo.

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And then what we can see on 3D of what the handles doing kind of validate it as well.

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So it seems like it's a great idea as something that relates very highly to consistency.

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So basically what it's talking about is if I was to just have a fixed point that this club

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kind of swung around like so, like if I just froze this handle in space and just swung

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it around that, then the path of the club would follow almost the perfect circle.

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You know, ignoring shaft flex and things like that.

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But it would follow almost the perfect circle.

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So if I had that perfect circle trying to contact the ground, well you would see that it would

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only touch the ground for a split second.

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So this Komoflatsbyte idea is in order to have a bigger margin of error.

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Instead of having the club touch the ground for just a second, I want to take this circle

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where the club is swinging around me and I want to kind of flatten it out down the

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bottom kind of like so.

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So it doesn't change too much of the shape of the sides, but down at the bottom it's going

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to get as much of a straight line as we can somewhat in the direction of the target.

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Well that's a neat little high level thing and we'll talk about that in greater detail

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in the second half of this video.

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But the first part is the fun part which I call the lab, you get to go explore it.

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So you'll see that we have a number of drills in this in the release section and in the

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follow through section working on getting the club to kind of brush along the ground.

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So I use this concept of brushing the club on the ground to as a practical way of applying

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this 3D flat spot.

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So what you can do is you can try to experiment with different impact body positions, try

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to experiment with different timings and just try to get the club to brush along the

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ground.

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Now there's three ways that I want you to absolutely try this.

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You can add in your own but there's three ways and three things that I want you to explore.

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So one would be if I was too cast.

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So if I have my arms really straight like so, how am I going to get?

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Because you'll see the club barely brushes the ground unless I kind of have to have my upper

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body almost drag with it in order for me to figure out how to get it to brush the ground.

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Now you may be able to figure out a way with kind of early extension or something else

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in order to get it to do even better but that's one option.

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Option two is going to be with early extensions.

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So if I take my setup position and I get tall and now I'm going to, you'll see I get

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it to brush but you can see I'm only getting it to brush for a very small amount of space.

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So those are the two most common swing errors and you can see how they both make developing

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this 3D flats but a little bit trickier.

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So then the third one is I'm going to do a good merry-go-round so that I have a fair amount

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of rotation and side bent and my arms are kind of delayed and now what I'm going to do

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is I'm basically going to extend those arms and you'll see that because my arms, because

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my body is kind of in this rotation and side bent position, when my arms extend even though

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when my arms extend basically that's going to help that club kind of brush along the

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ground.

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So this is part of the reason why you'll see better players having 30 degrees of rotation,

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30 degrees of side bend somewhere out in that range so that when you extend your arms,

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the club just brushes against the ground.

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If I had zero rotations, zero side bend and I extend my arms, here the club just slam

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into the ground.

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So the body position that we teach, this powering it from your whole body, all of this

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stuff is to help you develop this 3D flats, the coma flats, which will help you ultimately

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be more consistent and have a more repeatable swing.

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If you're a novice golfer, I recommend you turn the video off now but if you're really

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into the details, you're an instructor or just what I consider the golf nerds, the guys

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who love this study, this stuff, then I'll help you understand this 3D flats but a little

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bit better.

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So I'm just going to bring this in.

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This is just going to represent the ground and hopefully it's pretty close to you know

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down camera line.

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So let's just say that that is roughly our target line and then here's the ground like

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so.

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In order for me to get and I'll do this facing you first, so in order for me to get

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this club to kind of slide along the ground, there's a couple different ways I could

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do it.

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One, if I keep the shaft the same and I just drag the grip across kind of like so,

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well that creates this club staying flat against the ground but you'll see that from

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practical standpoint, it wouldn't, it would be very, very difficult for me to keep this

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the same and drag it across like so.

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My body's just not set up to do that and it would be hard for me to create a lot of speed

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in doing that.

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So the second option would be I'm going to create an exaggerated amount of lean and then

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instead of just dragging it across, I'm going to raise it up kind of like so.

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So you'll see that the handle here compared to my finger is basically going to be raising

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up so this fixed length shaft is essentially going to be changing its pivot slightly as

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that club raises up which helps keep this club moving along the ground.

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So this rotation and side bend causes this phenomenon that when I extend my arms, because

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my upper body is slightly going back and rotating and this left shoulder is rotating

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away like so, you'll see that that causes the grip to actually come up and in and that

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coming up and in creates this flat spot of both high to low as well as into out because

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it's a 3D flat spot.

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But understand that one of the other important things and ways to develop this is to make

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sure that your arms are extending through the shot.

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The more that these arms kind of bend through the shot, the more that my flat spot is

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going to be right along where the golf ball is as opposed to starting at the golf ball

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and working a ways past it.

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We'll go all.

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I'll show you a couple 3D graphs of the way that we can get our closest measurement to it,

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which is arc width.

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I'll work with this measuring the distance between the center of the grip and the

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center of my torso or my thorax kind of right in here.

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And what we'll find is that if you look at the best players in the world, they tend to have

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the distance between this and this increasing almost until follow through position.

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Some of them actually do it all the way until follow through position where many amateurs

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will have it pretty much it's wide as point right before impact and then decreasing.

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And some very high handicapers will actually have it that it's wide as point well before

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impact.

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And then increasing.

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So it matters how you're pulling in.

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The best way to do it is have this combination of rotation and side bend so that you

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can delay when those arms are extending.

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The whole purpose of that is to develop this 3D flat spot which helps with your consistency.

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So if you're working on early extension, if you're working on casting and you just get lost,

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you can always come back to can I brush the ground for a long period of time starting

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at about where my ball position would be.

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If you can do that then what you're working on in your swing is going to help you be more

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consistent.

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If you can do that with a lot of speed that's everything you pretty much need to be good

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at golf other than controlling the club face which is that third piece.

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So hopefully this helps you see why we spend so much time working on the arm's shallowing

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during transition.

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And then those arms extending during the release because that combination of movements with

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a really good body pivot helps produce this flat spot which has been shown to be predictable

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for increased levels of consistency with your stock full swing.

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So what you see now is a sample arc width graph, a firm a tour pro.

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Basically the arc width graph is simply measuring the distance in inches between the thorax

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and the middle of the grip or the midhand's point.

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So what you'll see is during this timeline the arc width graph during the take away stays

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about the same and then the distance starts to decrease as they make the rest of their backswing.

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You'll see that continues to decrease through transition and then starts increasing fairly

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rapidly up until impact continues to increase until some point after impact usually somewhere

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around the follow through position because this is actually how I define the follow through

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position.

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And you'll see that that second peak is equal to or greater than where they were at address

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and there's a fairly rounded look to it.

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That's kind of the main two criteria that I'm looking for when I'm looking at one of these

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arc width graphs is going to be that timing of the peak at the top of the swing or transition

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and then the timing of the peak and the shape of the peak and the location of the peak after

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impact.

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Generally tour pro is going to have this peak be more gradual or rounded and later after

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impact which is kind of demonstrating that they're able to keep that club moving away from

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them through the impact interval which wouldn't happen without a good flat spot.

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So here we have a different professional and you can see that it's kind of got that similar

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pattern so if we look at the the peak near the top of the swing you can see that it happens

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after transition and then if we look at the peak after impact we can see that there's a steady

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increase until kind of a rounding peak after impact.

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So those two graphs look fairly similar but let's take a look at a couple amateur graphs

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and see what we'll typically see with the higher handicapper who struggle with this flat

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sub.

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So now here we have a high handicap golfer and what you'll see is the peak at the top of the

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swing is actually happening before the top of the swing so this is indicative of a cast

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pattern they're starting to kind of get that club working away from them before they transition.

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And then you'll see that there's a very sharp peak right at impact and that peak is significantly

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lower than where they were at address and then right after that peak it drops back off indicating

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that they're bending their arms and or chicken winging and kind of collapsing through the

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hitting area.

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Typically this is going to be part of a cast lunge pattern which is a lot less repeatable

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than the graph that we were demonstrating for the tour process.

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Let's take a look at another one.

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So here's kind of a medium handicap golfer you know somewhere in that 10 range but you'll

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see that has the similar characteristics of the higher handicap.

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His peak is right at the top of the swing instead of the downswing so it's not quite

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it's not as bad a cast but it's still slightly in that cast category and then you'll

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see their peak is right at it just after impact so it is widening through impact but

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just barely and then it kind of has a gradual decline instead of a sharp one like that

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higher handicap golfer that we were just demonstrating.

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But you will see that compared to where they are it's set up the impact peak is lower

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than the setup peak so they're not getting quite as much arm extension and width which

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will limit their flat spot and consistency.

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Now let's take a quick look at a before and after with a skilled golfer that I work with.

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So here you can see on the right is the before and basically you can see that the peak

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at the top of the swing was happening just before the top of the swing and then the peak

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at impact was fairly sharp right at impact and then there was kind of a little plateau

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afterward.

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You can see that after working on some transition and release for a season his next 3D revealed

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a delayed peak so now the peak is happening just into the downswing and then the peak

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is now happening after impact and much more gradual.

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This is helps him with his consistency as far as contact and ball striking and now we're

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shifting more into shwerking.

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But hopefully that understands you understand the coma flats spot how we measure it what

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it is and why it helps with repeatability and why it's something that you should strive

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for with your game.

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