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In this analysis video, we're going to look at the difference between the iron and the driver swing.

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And while there are lots of little subtle differences, we're going to focus on the two primary differences,

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which is going to be the difference in their axis tilt and the difference in what I call the chop

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versus the lift movement of the arms. From the face on view, the easiest way for us to look at

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the axis tilt is if we were to take a golfer to just about impact and then draw a vertical line up from the golf ball

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and then another one down from their shirt buttons. Now because of the color of Adam's shirt on the left,

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we're going to use the edge of his hat instead. So if we were to draw a vertical line down from his shirt buttons or

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the edge of his hat, with the driver, you will see that the head is going to be or the shirt buttons

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is going to be a significant amount behind the bottom of the swing or behind the golf ball.

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With the iron, you're going to see that the shirt buttons will typically be around

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on top of the golf ball. But the biggest thing is you will see that they are further forward

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with the iron than they would be with the driver. Primarily, primarily with the upper body.

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The lower body has shifted just about the same amount regardless of whether they're hitting a iron or a

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driver. Now one of the other pieces to this axis tilt puzzle is with the driver, you will see that

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they will initiate transition with the upper body shifting just slightly forward. And then once they

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get to about delivery position and they start going into the release, you'll actually see the head

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and the upper body back up. I'll go through that a couple times and we're going to look at a variety

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of different touring and amateur golfers so that you can see this pattern. But you will see basically

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as they start this release that upper body is going to drift backwards. The difference that you'll see

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with the iron is as they start into their downswing, the upper body is going to drift forwards and then

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instead of backing up significantly, it's more or less going to stabilize. What I see on 3D

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is that with an ideal iron swing, the upper body from the top of the swing is going to move a few

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inches forward and then move just slightly backward from there so that when you are making contact with

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your iron, your upper body is actually about two inches closer to the target than it was at the top

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of the swing. With the driver or the ideal driver swing, you'll see a slight shift forward of about an

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inch and a half and then you will see a slight shift away to the point when they're making contact

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with their driver, their upper body is actually on average a little bit behind where it was at the

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top of the swing. This helps create that axis tilt which helps support the angle of attack

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and the loft characteristics that we're trying to create for the driver swing. Now let's talk about

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the difference between the arm movements and the chop versus the lift pattern for the driver

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versus the iron. So here we have Adam again and we're going to take him down to roughly

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delivery position which will be somewhere about like so. If I bring him down with the iron

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to somewhere about like so, you'll see a similar looking pattern with the shaft somewhere around that

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right forearm in both cases. Now even though their bodies look like they're in identical positions,

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we know from looking at the face on view that on the iron swing, Adam is actually a little bit

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more on top of the ball where in the driver swing Adam is actually starting to work back towards us.

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Here's where that's going to show up in what the arms do. So as he goes through his release with the

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driver, you will tend to see the arms working a little bit more up to the point where when he gets to

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shaft parallel in the ground or the follow through position. If you had a line straight out in front

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of his shirt buttons, the driver swing will be out up into the right where if you had him swinging

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his ideal iron, the arms would continue down in as a result when they get to that waist-type position.

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They're actually going to disappear because they will be more or less in front of his shirt buttons.

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This is one of the critical pieces to the difference between the ideal iron and the ideal driver

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swing and one that many Tor pros seamlessly integrate. Now let's take a look at another golfer.

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This is Jason Day. So on the left we have his driver and we can see that from the top of

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swing that upper body is going to have a slight shift forward followed by a shift backward during

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the release and you'll see that when he makes contact with the golf ball, his shirt buttons

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are a good 4 or 5 6 inches behind the golf ball. Here on the right we can see with the iron. He's

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going to have a slight shift forward with his upper body and then less dramatic shift backwards

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or what I call more of a stabilizing action. When he makes contact with the golf ball,

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his camera angle may not be perfect but you can clearly see that his upper body is further

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forward compared to where it was with his driver. Now let's take a look at the chop first lift

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from the down the line view. So over on the left we'll see as the club comes down. We're going to

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get him both to delivery position. So now if we come down with the iron we will see

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he may be hitting a cut shot that's hard to tell but you can see there's definitely a little

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bit of a difference in his shaft plane here at the delivery position. But as we come down

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we will see we know that his upper body is moving backward at this point and it's behind the golf

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ball and so what you will see is the arms reach more up and out and you will see when he gets to the

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follow through position that if you had a line even with his body or if we were looking to

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the shirt buttons the club would be off to the right of that line or to the right of his body

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and his shirt buttons. If you were to look at him over here on the left with the iron you'll see

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that as he comes through the club when it gets to that waist height position has disappeared

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because it has been working more down low and left or what I consider more of a chop movement

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because the height compared to his belt buckle would be lower and the path would be more left

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as if I were executing a chop. Here the handle is quite high compared to his belt and further

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out to the right as if he is conducting a lift. Now let's take a look at another example here we have

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Jason Duffner. So from the top of the swing we are going to see the upper body

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drift slightly forward and then start working back away during the release and you'll see that

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when he makes contact with the golf ball his upper body or the edge of his shirt buttons kind of

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right around here is going to be again six inches or so a significant amount behind the golf ball

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with the iron you'll see his upper body working forward and then more or less stabilizing

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or in his case working more up but it doesn't have quite the amount of moving backward as he has

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in the driver and now let's look at his chop versus lift pattern from the down the line. So on the

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left we have the driver let's get him into delivery position where we'll see that club shaft

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roughly in line with the forearm here on the iron we can get to a somewhat similar looking position

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now if we continue moving the driver down through impact you will see the club exit a little

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bit more up and you can still see the handle when the club is parallel to the ground.

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Over here on the right where he's making contact with it iron you will see

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that you are just starting to lose the handle. So again here's where his shirt buttons are

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here's where his shirt buttons would be you can see that the hands are further left with the iron

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but not quite as significantly as with some other players but there is clearly a difference in the

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handle height if you were looking compared to the belt line and the location of the club. So his

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is not quite as exaggerated as some other players and we can get into that in his personal evaluation

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but in general he is going with more of a lift pattern on the left and more of a chop pattern on the right.

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Now before we go over any more pros let's take a break and look at a few amateurs. So here we have one

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of my students who has more of a driver based swing and what you'll see is that with the driver

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you're going to see the club work excessively up and out to the right so that if you had that

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line in front of a shirt buttons we can clearly see the handle off to the right. Now with the iron

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he executes more or less the same pattern so that when he comes through that club is still up into the right.

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He's using the lift pattern and as a result he tends the struggle a little bit with consistent

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contact with his iron and battling hooks with the driver. If we look at this driver based pattern

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from the face on view what we will see is that when he starts his downswing he's going to have

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the slight shift forward and then a very pronounced shift backward. Now if you remember the Tor pros

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the adjustment that they made with the driver was it was going to come a little bit more or

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the upper body was going to drift a little bit more on top of the golf ball. Here what you'll see

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is a very similar pattern to his driver where his upper body shifts back more behind it or away

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from where it was similarly to what he's doing with the driver. So even though he is further behind

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where the golf ball was with the driver than with the iron he is executing a version of the

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driver pattern with his iron which part of the reason why he has a little bit of struggle.

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Now we will look at a few amateurs executing more of the iron pattern. So here we have a higher

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handicap and what you'll see is with the driver you're going to see the same overall pattern

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that we see with his iron. So we'll get him more or less down to delay reposition if you'll see

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a similar looking club path. Now as we take the driver to contact and then to the follow-through

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position you will see that when he gets to that follow-through position the handle of the club and

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the club head are clearly in front of his chest. If we do this with the iron we would expect to see it

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more to the left but what we're actually seeing is it's about the same. So he's executing the same

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pattern with his iron that he's demonstrating with his driver and it's more of an iron base.

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Now from the face on view we're going to see the iron based pattern of the upper body drive

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forward and then more or less stabilize. So when he's making contact if we were to draw a line

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down from his shirt buttons or sternum we can see it's just slightly behind the golf ball.

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Now with the iron we'll see that similar pattern of upper body driving forward and then stabilize

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to where his upper body is more or less the exact same place compared to where it is with the

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driver. So while Torpro's seemed to make these adjustments whether it's conscious or unconscious

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they're able to make these changes of how they're swinging the club within iron and how they're

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swinging the club with the driver that produces the successful strike with each end with each club.

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And now let's take a look at another iron based swing but this time with a low handy gap golfer.

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So we'll take him up to the top of the swing and draw a line vertically up from the back of the golf

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ball just as a reference. So we're going to go up to the top of the swing, draw a line vertically.

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Now you'll see from here we can't really tell if this is going to be an iron or driver based swing

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because in the in the driver he's definitely further behind the golf ball. What we'll see is if we

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establish that line from where the upper body is at the top of the swing you'll see during transition

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a prominent shift on top of the golf ball and never really moving backward but just stabilizing.

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Now when he makes contact he is slightly behind the golf ball but you can see that it's more

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of an iron based pattern with the upper body kind of linging forward. Now on the iron you'll see

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a smaller version of that shift and then the same stabilization pattern. Now this is he did not

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actually break the shaft it's it's it's a it's an effect of what's called a rolling shutter

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but what's happening with his body and his arms is something that you can clearly pay attention to

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and it's what he's doing with his arms and his club that have caused him to have consistency issues

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and trouble mostly with the driver because he's a very good iron player.

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Lastly now that we've taken a look at what's different between the two swings let's take a look at

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what's similar or consistent between your iron and your driver swing. The two main things that we're

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going to look at here are sequencing and the release. So here we have Jason Day and to look at

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sequencing it's easiest to do from the down the line view and we're going to look for checkpoints

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as far as when movements are occurring from different parts of the body. So during transition

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you will see that a lot of the focus is on a subtle movement of the wrist but the majority of the

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movement is going to come from the lower body. You'll see during transition whether it's with

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the iron or the driver the transition movement is going to be driven by the lower body.

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One way that you can clearly see this is his legs or his thighs will reach parallel to the target line

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kind of like so roughly when the left arm is or the left upper arm is parallel to the ground

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which it is in both of these swings. That's going to be consistent during all of your stock full

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swings. The next checkpoint we're going to look at is delivery position or when he's come to

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about shaft parallel to the ground in the down swing. What we will see at this position is the arms

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are going to be more or less still in the orientation they were at the top of the swing and his

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chest is going to be facing the golf ball or pointed out in the general direction of the golf ball.

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Then finally what you'll see is during the release from this down line view you'll see that the arms

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are going to basically take the club the last part of the downswing. You will see with the iron

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because it's more of because the upper body is a little bit more or less tilted behind it.

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The right arm will be a little bit straighter than it is with the driver but the overall release pattern

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is going to be the same. Now for the general release stuff I'm usually referencing 3D but we'll do

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what we can and look at a few things with the video. So one of the things that's really easy to look at

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if you have a good frame rate and a good high speed video is the angle of the wrist roughly as they're

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making context with the golf ball. Now it's going to be a little bit harder to draw the one here on

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the right because of the fact that he's wearing all black but if I were to draw a line basically down

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his forearm and then down the grip you can see the number right here which is about an 85 degree

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angle between these two. If you were to draw for the driver you're going to see about 82.

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Erily even though his upper body is well behind the golf ball his wrists are in the same

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orientation compared to his body more or less are compared to the golf ball. Even though he's got a

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lot less chef lean with the driver than he does with an iron the reason for that is because of the amount

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of side tilt being slightly more with the driver than it would be with the iron giving the

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illusion or appearance of less chef lean compared to his body his hands are more or less doing the same

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thing which is what you're working on in your stock full swing. So now we'll look at a few more golfers

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putting all of this together so here we have Justin Rose and I'll draw some of our different reference lines

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so from the top of the swing I'm going to draw one line up from the back of the golf ball

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just like so and now during transition you will see the slight shift forward followed by the shift

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backward during the release you can see by his head now this is a three wood it's not a driver so

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he's going to be a little bit more on top of it than he would be if he were truly striking up

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if we take it to the frame just before impact we can get an idea of where his wrist is so we'll say

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that's roughly around 70 now the iron you'll see a little bit more of the shift forward followed by a

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little bit more of the stabilization not quite as much a shift back and it's going to be a little

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bit trickier to get the grip but we'll give it our our best so I think that's the grip kind of

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somewhere right about there so 7077 it was look pretty close to me again just looking at some of the

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similarities as well as some of the differences between the driver and the iron swing now for fun

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let's look at a few of the less traditional swings so here we have Lee Westwood and he's not

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hitting a driver so it's going to be a little less in the spectrum but as he goes through you'll see

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even with his tendency to bend his arm when the club is roughly parallel you can see you can still

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see the club head over here the grip is going to be more or less there it's slightly to the right

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at least when we compare that to the short iron that he's hitting over here on the left or sorry

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on the right so as he comes down you'll clearly see the handle working a little bit more left

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and when he gets to that follow through position the club is more or less bisecting his body or

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straight out in front and here we have second Johnson and to say the camera on the left isn't

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very good but we can see the slight shift forward followed by the stabilization on the right you can

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see from the top of the swing slight shift forward followed by a much more prominent shift back

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now whether or not that change is conscious is totally debatable but it's important to understand that

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that change is happening now one last little point or one last way to look at this is

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we can highlight it by using Roy Macquarie as an example in order to create this access to

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in order to have the upper body going backward you're going to be using your legs to push against

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the ground you'll see that as he pushes his left leg that's what causes his upper body to go backward

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that also helps trigger the arms working up so more or less a good driver of the golf ball is going to

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use the lower body as their main power source where good iron player is typically going to use the

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shoulder in lat as their main power source what we'll see with the examples is as Roy goes through

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you'll see his left foot is going to actually spin and be a little bit elevated

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all right so it's lightly off the ground allowing it to spin because he's pushing so hard against

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the ground with the iron there's going to be a less dramatic push from the lower body and a little

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bit more of an upper body dominant movement so you won't see the same amount of of gap between

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or movement of his foot as he goes into this release so I hope that helps clear up what we're trying

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to do with your stock full swing the stock full swing is going to help you build a swing from the ground

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up of moving your lower body positioning your hands for the proper release and then helping you

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figure out how to transfer all that energy into the golf club during the release the things that

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are going to adjust are going to be the direction of where you're applying that force with the

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driver you want to be more of a sweeping motion with an iron you're going to be hitting the ball

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before the ground or a little bit more of a chopping or downward motion if you can figure out how to

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build one or two thoughts to make that simple transition from driver to iron it will help you

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immensely be a consistent not only just driver or iron player but a consistent golfer