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Motorcycle
There are three major things that we have to do with the club when we make a golf swing.
- We have to create speed with the club
- We have to control the path of the clubhead
- We have to organize the face in relationship to that path
For the most part, amatuer golfers have the clubface more open than tour professionals by the time the club gets to shaft parallel in the downswing. There are only a few ways to change the clubface position by that point in time. You could do the exact same movements but set up with a stronger grip. Or, you could do the motorcycle movement (with either the left or the right wrist). Most commonly, this movement is done with the lead wrist. You can either do this movement to end the backswing, or to start the downswing, but if you haven't done it enough by shaft parallel, then you have made it almost impossible to get your body open at impact.
There are a number of videos on this site that relate to the motorcycle movement because it is such a key movement to solid ball striking. If I had to pick one movement to teach a random golfer, this would be the movement that I would teach. To see how it fits with the body, be sure to check out all the motorcycle videos and the other key drills for transition.
There are three major things that we have to do with the club when we make a golf swing.
- We have to create speed with the club
- We have to control the path of the clubhead
- We have to organize the face in relationship to that path
For the most part, amatuer golfers have the clubface more open than tour professionals by the time the club gets to shaft parallel in the downswing. There are only a few ways to change the clubface position by that point in time. You could do the exact same movements but set up with a stronger grip. Or, you could do the motorcycle movement (with either the left or the right wrist). Most commonly, this movement is done with the lead wrist. You can either do this movement to end the backswing, or to start the downswing, but if you haven't done it enough by shaft parallel, then you have made it almost impossible to get your body open at impact.
There are a number of videos on this site that relate to the motorcycle movement because it is such a key movement to solid ball striking. If I had to pick one movement to teach a random golfer, this would be the movement that I would teach. To see how it fits with the body, be sure to check out all the motorcycle videos and the other key drills for transition.
Video Transcript
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.400
This drill is the motorcycle drill. Now the motorcycle drill is basically the
2
00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:11.440
term that we use for shaft rotation. So TPI was the first place that I heard
3
00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:14.920
talking about it but I know that it's been in in golf instruction for a long
4
00:00:14.920 --> 00:00:20.680
time. Basically what it's looking at is if we have the club in space kind of
5
00:00:20.680 --> 00:00:26.600
like this, how is the club face oriented? And it's called the motorcycle move
6
00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:31.520
because basically if I was holding the club like this and we imagine that I was
7
00:00:31.520 --> 00:00:36.560
on a motorcycle then if I took my left wrist and I twisted the club like this
8
00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:41.680
well that's you know you don't actually do that on a motorcycle motorcycle you
9
00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:45.680
would rev it the other way but that movement there is similar to the pattern
10
00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:49.970
that we'll see on 3D when we're looking at what's happening with the lead wrist
11
00:00:49.970 --> 00:00:50.080
.
12
00:00:50.080 --> 00:00:56.880
The basic thing is compared to where they most pros are at setup, the shaft or
13
00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:57.080
the
14
00:00:57.080 --> 00:01:02.930
wrist will be twisted about 20-25 degrees more at impact than they were at
15
00:01:02.930 --> 00:01:03.200
setup.
16
00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:09.520
So basically here I am at setup and I've got some extension in my lead wrist
17
00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:09.760
and
18
00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:14.200
then I'm going to flex that lead wrist so I'm basically going to straighten it
19
00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:18.440
and that would close the club face like so that's twisting the club like that
20
00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:23.760
motorcycle that would close the club face but my body is in a very different
21
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:27.880
position at impact so that twist is necessary in order to hit the ball
22
00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:30.960
straight if I'm going to have shaft lean and if I'm going to have body
23
00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:35.440
rotation. So basically any golf swing that's getting a lot of body movement
24
00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:39.200
or the body is more open at impact and I've got some shaft lean is going to
25
00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:39.360
need
26
00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:46.800
this shaft rotation in order to balance that out. So what I find is that many
27
00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:51.760
amateurs when you first teach them how to do this motorcycle movement they
28
00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:55.540
naturally start getting their body more open so that they don't hit it way left
29
00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:55.580
.
30
00:01:55.580 --> 00:02:01.040
So this is a key movement to train and there's a couple ways to think about it
31
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:05.840
or train it. I've got a variety of videos on this site addressing the
32
00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:10.280
different components of the motorcycle movement but I wanted to do this kind of
33
00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:16.320
overview to help tie them all together. So the main timing that you'll see are
34
00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:20.520
the most common timing that you'll see this motorcycle movement happen is at
35
00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:25.520
the top of the swing as we're starting down. So basically between the top of
36
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:30.160
the swing and almost by the time the left arm's parallel you'll see a fair
37
00:02:30.160 --> 00:02:34.400
amount of this motorcycle movement starting and then it will continue that
38
00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:38.760
movement and that twisting will continue all the way down until the club is
39
00:02:38.760 --> 00:02:43.040
just before impact kind of like so. So they're twisting the club for the
40
00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:49.000
majority of the downswing but it starts well up here. What many amateur golfers
41
00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.640
do and what works really well with wedge shots is to not really twist it so to
42
00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:58.080
not do the motorcycle move and just bring it down kind of in the same
43
00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:02.680
position that you had it at the top of the swing and then try to do it all down
44
00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:08.480
at the bottom. But with longer clubs where the moment of the inertia of the
45
00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:13.520
club is greater it's harder to change it very rapidly down to the bottom. So
46
00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:17.960
there's an advantage to starting it earlier and working it more gradually. So
47
00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:22.160
to practice this movement you're just going to take your left wrist and you're
48
00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:26.100
going to imagine that you're flexing it almost like you're twisting a screw
49
00:03:26.100 --> 00:03:26.160
driver
50
00:03:26.160 --> 00:03:31.760
or screwing in a light bulb or just flexing that lead wrist. So then you can
51
00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:36.560
do that in either transition pump style drills or you can do that just as a
52
00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:41.020
concept feeling but you're going to go to the top of the swing either to end
53
00:03:41.020 --> 00:03:41.080
the
54
00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:45.020
backswing you'll start flexing it or as you start down you'll start flexing it
55
00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:45.120
but
56
00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.570
you'll keep flexing it all the way until you get into your bracing pattern
57
00:03:49.570 --> 00:03:50.440
during
58
00:03:50.440 --> 00:03:58.010
the release. Now doing it early gets you into the position where we preset a
59
00:03:58.010 --> 00:03:58.200
lot
60
00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:02.240
of this movement when we're doing the release drills or what I mean is during
61
00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:06.520
the release drills you do a lot of patterns where you've preset and got
62
00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:10.200
that left wrist into more of a flex position than where it was at setup. So
63
00:04:10.200 --> 00:04:14.640
we know that you want it to be there in that position during the release. This
64
00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:18.040
trains the timing of when it gets there which is more up at the top of the
65
00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:18.280
swing
66
00:04:18.280 --> 00:04:22.740
or during that early stage in transition. So I can go up to the top of the
67
00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:22.840
swing
68
00:04:22.840 --> 00:04:28.120
and I can feel like I'm just twisting that cues my brain that I've closed the
69
00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:31.840
club face I've closed it early now I don't have to do it quite as much down at
70
00:04:31.840 --> 00:04:37.440
the bottom I can just keep turning my body and extend those arms out and the
71
00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:42.440
club face will already be square because of this motorcycle movement.
72
00:04:42.440 --> 00:04:56.440
Then I can do it more dynamically in a full swing kind of like that.
Have questions?
Ask Mulligan for helpMotorcycle Move Training
Motorcycle
There are three major things that we have to do with the club when we make a golf swing.
- We have to create speed with the club
- We have to control the path of the clubhead
- We have to organize the face in relationship to that path
For the most part, amatuer golfers have the clubface more open than tour professionals by the time the club gets to shaft parallel in the downswing. There are only a few ways to change the clubface position by that point in time. You could do the exact same movements but set up with a stronger grip. Or, you could do the motorcycle movement (with either the left or the right wrist). Most commonly, this movement is done with the lead wrist. You can either do this movement to end the backswing, or to start the downswing, but if you haven't done it enough by shaft parallel, then you have made it almost impossible to get your body open at impact.
There are a number of videos on this site that relate to the motorcycle movement because it is such a key movement to solid ball striking. If I had to pick one movement to teach a random golfer, this would be the movement that I would teach. To see how it fits with the body, be sure to check out all the motorcycle videos and the other key drills for transition.
There are three major things that we have to do with the club when we make a golf swing.
- We have to create speed with the club
- We have to control the path of the clubhead
- We have to organize the face in relationship to that path
For the most part, amatuer golfers have the clubface more open than tour professionals by the time the club gets to shaft parallel in the downswing. There are only a few ways to change the clubface position by that point in time. You could do the exact same movements but set up with a stronger grip. Or, you could do the motorcycle movement (with either the left or the right wrist). Most commonly, this movement is done with the lead wrist. You can either do this movement to end the backswing, or to start the downswing, but if you haven't done it enough by shaft parallel, then you have made it almost impossible to get your body open at impact.
There are a number of videos on this site that relate to the motorcycle movement because it is such a key movement to solid ball striking. If I had to pick one movement to teach a random golfer, this would be the movement that I would teach. To see how it fits with the body, be sure to check out all the motorcycle videos and the other key drills for transition.
Video Transcript
1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.400
This drill is the motorcycle drill. Now the motorcycle drill is basically the
2
00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:11.440
term that we use for shaft rotation. So TPI was the first place that I heard
3
00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:14.920
talking about it but I know that it's been in in golf instruction for a long
4
00:00:14.920 --> 00:00:20.680
time. Basically what it's looking at is if we have the club in space kind of
5
00:00:20.680 --> 00:00:26.600
like this, how is the club face oriented? And it's called the motorcycle move
6
00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:31.520
because basically if I was holding the club like this and we imagine that I was
7
00:00:31.520 --> 00:00:36.560
on a motorcycle then if I took my left wrist and I twisted the club like this
8
00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:41.680
well that's you know you don't actually do that on a motorcycle motorcycle you
9
00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:45.680
would rev it the other way but that movement there is similar to the pattern
10
00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:49.970
that we'll see on 3D when we're looking at what's happening with the lead wrist
11
00:00:49.970 --> 00:00:50.080
.
12
00:00:50.080 --> 00:00:56.880
The basic thing is compared to where they most pros are at setup, the shaft or
13
00:00:56.880 --> 00:00:57.080
the
14
00:00:57.080 --> 00:01:02.930
wrist will be twisted about 20-25 degrees more at impact than they were at
15
00:01:02.930 --> 00:01:03.200
setup.
16
00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:09.520
So basically here I am at setup and I've got some extension in my lead wrist
17
00:01:09.520 --> 00:01:09.760
and
18
00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:14.200
then I'm going to flex that lead wrist so I'm basically going to straighten it
19
00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:18.440
and that would close the club face like so that's twisting the club like that
20
00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:23.760
motorcycle that would close the club face but my body is in a very different
21
00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:27.880
position at impact so that twist is necessary in order to hit the ball
22
00:01:27.880 --> 00:01:30.960
straight if I'm going to have shaft lean and if I'm going to have body
23
00:01:30.960 --> 00:01:35.440
rotation. So basically any golf swing that's getting a lot of body movement
24
00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:39.200
or the body is more open at impact and I've got some shaft lean is going to
25
00:01:39.200 --> 00:01:39.360
need
26
00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:46.800
this shaft rotation in order to balance that out. So what I find is that many
27
00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:51.760
amateurs when you first teach them how to do this motorcycle movement they
28
00:01:51.760 --> 00:01:55.540
naturally start getting their body more open so that they don't hit it way left
29
00:01:55.540 --> 00:01:55.580
.
30
00:01:55.580 --> 00:02:01.040
So this is a key movement to train and there's a couple ways to think about it
31
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:05.840
or train it. I've got a variety of videos on this site addressing the
32
00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:10.280
different components of the motorcycle movement but I wanted to do this kind of
33
00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:16.320
overview to help tie them all together. So the main timing that you'll see are
34
00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:20.520
the most common timing that you'll see this motorcycle movement happen is at
35
00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:25.520
the top of the swing as we're starting down. So basically between the top of
36
00:02:25.520 --> 00:02:30.160
the swing and almost by the time the left arm's parallel you'll see a fair
37
00:02:30.160 --> 00:02:34.400
amount of this motorcycle movement starting and then it will continue that
38
00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:38.760
movement and that twisting will continue all the way down until the club is
39
00:02:38.760 --> 00:02:43.040
just before impact kind of like so. So they're twisting the club for the
40
00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:49.000
majority of the downswing but it starts well up here. What many amateur golfers
41
00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:54.640
do and what works really well with wedge shots is to not really twist it so to
42
00:02:54.640 --> 00:02:58.080
not do the motorcycle move and just bring it down kind of in the same
43
00:02:58.080 --> 00:03:02.680
position that you had it at the top of the swing and then try to do it all down
44
00:03:02.680 --> 00:03:08.480
at the bottom. But with longer clubs where the moment of the inertia of the
45
00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:13.520
club is greater it's harder to change it very rapidly down to the bottom. So
46
00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:17.960
there's an advantage to starting it earlier and working it more gradually. So
47
00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:22.160
to practice this movement you're just going to take your left wrist and you're
48
00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:26.100
going to imagine that you're flexing it almost like you're twisting a screw
49
00:03:26.100 --> 00:03:26.160
driver
50
00:03:26.160 --> 00:03:31.760
or screwing in a light bulb or just flexing that lead wrist. So then you can
51
00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:36.560
do that in either transition pump style drills or you can do that just as a
52
00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:41.020
concept feeling but you're going to go to the top of the swing either to end
53
00:03:41.020 --> 00:03:41.080
the
54
00:03:41.080 --> 00:03:45.020
backswing you'll start flexing it or as you start down you'll start flexing it
55
00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:45.120
but
56
00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.570
you'll keep flexing it all the way until you get into your bracing pattern
57
00:03:49.570 --> 00:03:50.440
during
58
00:03:50.440 --> 00:03:58.010
the release. Now doing it early gets you into the position where we preset a
59
00:03:58.010 --> 00:03:58.200
lot
60
00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:02.240
of this movement when we're doing the release drills or what I mean is during
61
00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:06.520
the release drills you do a lot of patterns where you've preset and got
62
00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:10.200
that left wrist into more of a flex position than where it was at setup. So
63
00:04:10.200 --> 00:04:14.640
we know that you want it to be there in that position during the release. This
64
00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:18.040
trains the timing of when it gets there which is more up at the top of the
65
00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:18.280
swing
66
00:04:18.280 --> 00:04:22.740
or during that early stage in transition. So I can go up to the top of the
67
00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:22.840
swing
68
00:04:22.840 --> 00:04:28.120
and I can feel like I'm just twisting that cues my brain that I've closed the
69
00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:31.840
club face I've closed it early now I don't have to do it quite as much down at
70
00:04:31.840 --> 00:04:37.440
the bottom I can just keep turning my body and extend those arms out and the
71
00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:42.440
club face will already be square because of this motorcycle movement.
72
00:04:42.440 --> 00:04:56.440
Then I can do it more dynamically in a full swing kind of like that.
Have questions about this video?
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