Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in
America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America.
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Alex Noren is currently the 13th ranked player in the world and over the last two years has become one of the best ball strikers on the PGA Tour. Early in his career, he was not nearly as strong from "tee to green", but he has been able to steadily improve by successfully tying together a few small changes. If you look closely, you will notice that Alex's somewhat unique pre-shot routine is in fact a rehearsal for the swing changes that have made him so successful. Of course, the key to this routine is that it combines all of the new moves into one "feel" or drill for him to focus on. This really simplifies things and makes it possible for him to transfer his new skills to the course come tournament time. Ultimately, what every golfer can learn from this is that any meaningful swing change is likely going to involve a number of variables; too often players believe that there is only one move or change preventing them from swinging well. The real secret to making lasting change is to properly identify all of the patterns that must be re-worked and then doing enough repetitions to find the one playing "feel" or drill to tie them together.
Playlists: Swing Analysis Videos
Tags: Transition, Release, Analysis
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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at the swing of Alex Noron.
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More importantly, we're going to take a look at this practice move or this rehearsal swing
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and what you can learn about it in the plight of your own game.
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Now Alex Noron has been a great putter, but in the last few years he's found something
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that's really improved his ball striking and he's climbed all the way to 13th in the world.
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In this video, I'm going to help you understand how his practice routine is helping his
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ball striking.
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So, over here on the left we have an older swing and over here on the right we have
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a more current swing.
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This is prior to his big jump in World Golf rankings in ball striking improvement.
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This one over here on the right is demonstrating the swing that has helped him climb close
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to the top 10.
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Now whenever I work with a new student, I always show them their video or take a video of
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their swing and ask them what do they see.
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And they always key in on one or two things.
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They may say, I've got a flip or a scoop, a chicken wing, I've got a cast, I'm not turned
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enough, I'm standing up, whatever it is they always focus on one thing.
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And then what I'll usually ask them is, okay, if we change that, what else would we have
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to change?
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And that's where sometimes I get the kind of frozen look like I'm sure if I just make
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that one change, I'll hit the ball better.
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But Alex pre-shot routine and rehearsal swing helps us understand is that usually there's
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like four or five things that you would have to change when you make one change.
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The key is finding one drill or one feeling that allows you to combine some of those things
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into one playing field.
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So if we look over here on the left, we will see a few of the things that he wanted
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to change and why they use that rehearsal drill.
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So at the top of the swing, you'll see his initial movement is a little bit more of a pull
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of those arms down.
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He does have some shift of his lower body, but his lower body doesn't really start
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to get going until down somewhere in this zone.
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So that first transition move is more of a pull down of the arms.
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Now when he pulls down with the arms, you'll see right about halfway that right elbow
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gets kind of stuck on the side of his body and becomes just kind of a pivot.
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You'll see that right through there that right elbow doesn't come across his body too much.
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It stays more behind his body as he releases the club out.
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The momentum of the arm kind of pivoting around that elbow back there then causes more
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of a scoop action on the way through.
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If we look over here on the right, you'll see from the top of the swing it's a little
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bit more of a blended or a unified transition movement.
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You can see that his lower body and his core are helping bring his arms down into position.
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And then you can see down here his elbow is much more in front of his body and it continues
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to move in front of his body all the way during the release.
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So instead of having a look of the arms pull the elbow gets stuck and then the hands flip,
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he has more of a unified pull arms getting front and then whole arms release together
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not just the wrist.
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These are some of the differences that have helped him elevate his ball striking the
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near top 10 status.
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Here's an older swing from down the line.
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It's not a great camera angle but it was one of the best I could find.
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And then here's that same practice session from about a year ago.
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Now many golfers also would look at this and they might have looked at the face on and
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they might have said that the swing looks pretty much the same.
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And I would keep in on in that face on view is somewhat subtle or unless you know
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what to look at.
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But sometimes it's those subtle differences that really create the difference between
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your quality shots and your bad shots.
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You don't always need a complete swing overhaul.
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Sometimes you just need a few movements to work a little bit better together.
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So now if we look at the down the line there's where we can see more of that arm pull
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and you'll see that as he does that arm pull, this left shoulder is actually looking like
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it kind of elevates.
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Now over here you'll see that that left shoulder stays down a bit longer.
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That's what helps create some of the space for that right elbow.
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Here you can see that right elbow gets stuck behind and then right through there is where
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he's releasing more of his wrists instead of his whole arms.
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From this view he's able to shallow the shaft a little bit better with his arms and then
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he's able to release everything through the arms, the wrists and kind of the body together.
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Here because that arm got stuck and had to work more out towards the target or work more
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out towards the golf ball you'll see a little bit more of a stall pattern accompanying
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a little bit more of a hand flip.
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Here there's a lot more connection going on during his release.
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So now if we look back at his practice swing we might understand a few of these pieces a
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little bit better.
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You'll see that that left shoulder stays down to help create some of the space that
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right elbow gets well in front and the body, the lower body and core is rotating through
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that early transition point.
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You'll also see that he's organizing the club more with the forearm so he's creating
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nice that little shallow movement with his forearms and you'll see that there's a little
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bit of variety in that one.
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You can see this, he's focusing where it appears that he's focusing more on the body,
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the lower body portion and he lost the club shaft just a little bit coming down through
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here.
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So it appears that he's able to focus on a few different areas with this one unified
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drill.
