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Beginner Program

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Impact - Moving Through Key Points

  • More flexed than set up
  • Side tilt
  • Rt elbow bend but straightening
  • left wrist flat or bowed, right wrist cupped
  • Weight Left
  • Pelvis is not closer too much closer to the golf ball

While Impact is a tiny interval of time that happens during a flurry of movements, it’s position of alignments are so critical for success that we are going to spend a whole section on this checkpoint position. We will go over the movements of HOW we get to impact in layer 201, but many people have had success by intuitively connecting the dots from understanding what impact is designed to do. Essentially, at impact, your goal is to transfer energy as efficiently as possible into the golf ball. For this to take place, there are a few key desired positions and movements taking place. The spine will be more flexed than set up. There will be a significant amount of right side bend. The right elbow will be bent but straightening. The left wrist should be 20-30 degrees more flexed than set up. This will usually result in a wrist that is flat or bowed. The right wrist will be cupped 20 -30 degrees more than it was at set up. The vast majority of the weight will be on the left leg, which will be a result of having the pelvis over the left foot.

Playlists: Beginner Program, STS - Swing Phases

Tags: Impact, Concept, Beginner

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In this concept video, we're going to go over the keys to impact.

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Now, impact is really just a blur within a movement.

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And the timing that the golf ball is actually on the face is 4100 or sorry,

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41000s of a second, like it's minus fuel.

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It's not something you can ever think about.

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So it's something that you have to train.

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But it is a key reference frame for the brain.

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So when you're practicing your drills at home,

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or when you're working on the range,

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it's good to give the brain visuals and fields of what you're going to feel during that blur.

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So, if you're a beginner, there are only two things I want you to focus on.

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So, if you're a beginner, if you're a high handicap or if you're novice,

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I want you to focus on trying to get your weight into your left heel,

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while your upper body stays more or less on top of the golf ball,

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and you're going to try and get your hands ahead of the golf ball or head of your body.

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The more important position there is with the hands slightly ahead of your body,

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as opposed to inline with the club and inline with the body like so.

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So, again, one last time, you would check to make sure that your weight is in that left side,

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and you would get your hands ahead.

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And that's all I want you to focus on if you're a relatively high handicap or a beginner.

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Now, if you're a little bit more advanced,

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we're going to go over six keys, because we can kind of break down this impact

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all different positions, all different keys, but we're going to go over what I think are six major ones

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that you should be focusing on when you're doing your slow motion drills or training at home.

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So, the first one is going to be that weight left.

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And what I mean by weight left is if you were to draw a vertical line off of each ankle,

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so here's off of my right ankle, here's off of my left ankle,

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you can see that the hip socket is going to be roughly over that left ankle for right hand to golfer.

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So, there's that weight.

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The second one is going to be the rotation of your pelvis and your shoulders, right?

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So, if you were to set up like so, then at impact, your lower body is going to be rotated somewhere down target line,

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and your shoulders are going to be rotated down target line.

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What I see with the best golfers in the world is that they tend to have a difference of somewhere around 20 degrees

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between where their lower body is pointed and where their upper body is pointed.

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Now, their shoulder blades, where the shoulders are going to be closer to square or slightly open.

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So, there's kind of this gradient of at impact.

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My shoulders are a little in front of the ball.

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My chest is more in front of my ball and the hips are well in front of the golf ball.

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Those will give you the orientation for your arms to then extend out in front of the golf ball in control where the bottom ear swing is.

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The next one is going to be looking at the spine in terms of flexion and side bending.

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So, again, if when I bend from the hips, my spine is relatively neutral.

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As your approach impact, it's going to be a little bit more flexed, mostly from your pelvic tilt or from your lower body.

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In addition, it's going to be bent slightly to the right.

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This helps get the arm path a little bit more out to the right and gets your arm extension more along the ground as opposed to if I was straight up and down when my arms extend that would bring the club down very, very steep.

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So, with the push ball drill or with the impact fix, you'll have a good opportunity to get a sensation of those body positions.

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Now, the last three, let's look at your arms and your wrists.

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So, if you were to go to that impact position, if my body is turned and my shoulder is closer to the golf ball, there's virtually no way that this arm could be completely straight yet.

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So, it's going to be coming off of your side and straightening, but still airing more towards bent than more towards straight.

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Lastly, if we were to look at your wrists, in order to get your hands ahead, like I said for the beginners, you're going to want to have your left wrist to be flat or slightly bowed.

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And your right wrist to be cuffed pretty much as much as you can.

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So, that would be elbowing towards your side, wrists ahead like so, weight in that left, slightly turned and side bent.

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This gets you that proper impact position, which will allow you to then apply the force into the golf ball the proper way.

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Now, again, this is way too much to ever think about during the downswing, so that's the importance of why you need to train these movements as opposed to try to think them.

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I have drills in all the different sections to help you train them chunk them together and make it somewhat automatic, so that you can just go out there and be athletic, instead of going out there and trying to think your way through the swing.

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