WEBVTT

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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at the swing of Dustin

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Johnson.

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Now Dustin Johnson is a driving machine and put on an amazing display this year

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at the

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US Open, winning his first major.

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Last year at Chambers Bay, he put on an equally impressive round in terms of

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ball striking

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and his putter just let him down a little bit.

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This year he made enough quality putts to really capitalize on his brilliant

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ball striking.

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In this video, we're going to take a look at a few things that he does in the

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downswing

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that make him such an exceptional driver of the golf ball and ways that you can

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emulate

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some of those key movements and put them in your own swing.

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Everyone who plays golf loves to drive the ball far and straight.

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Dustin Johnson is able to capitalize on his physical abilities and drive the

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ball better

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than anyone in the modern game.

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This year at the US Open, he was averaging about 20 yards further than

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everybody else

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in the field, yet he hit a staggeringly high percentage of fairways given how

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far he hits

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the golf ball.

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So what does Dustin do that make him such a great driver of the golf ball?

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We're going to talk about three things that he does.

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He's going to power the swing primarily from his body.

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He's going to close the club face and he's going to shallow his arms in

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transition.

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Before we take a look at Dustin's swing, we're going to compare him to someone

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who's more

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of an arm-swinger so that you can see some of the differences in how they might

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apply

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to your game.

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So if we look at Dustin's backswing, we can see that he gets into a really good

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athletic

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position up at the top of the swing.

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You can see that for all intents and purposes, he's kind of maintained his

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spine angle or

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he's rotated the large muscles as he's created this backswing pivot.

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So he's loaded the muscles in his core, his hips, and his trunk so that he can

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use those

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muscles to start the downswing.

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Basically his arms are going to be a lot more passive during the downswing or

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during the

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early part of the downswing while his body is responsible for creating the

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initial thruster,

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the initial amount of speed.

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So as he starts into his downswing, you'll see that while he has tremendous

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sequencing,

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you're going to see that his lower body tends to initiate the downswing

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followed by his

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core, followed by his trunk, and then you won't see his arms really extend

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until he

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gets very close to making contact with the golf ball.

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This will make a little bit more sense when we take a look at John Sandin and

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compare the

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arm swing of John Sandin to the body swing of Dustin Johnson.

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So one of the key movements to this body swing is the arm shallowing component.

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And here's what I mean by the arm shallowing component.

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So at this point in his swing, we're just going to make a little note of where

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his posture

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is.

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And you can see that his arms or his elbows, if we were to kind of connect the

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bottom of

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those, are at a slight angle compared to his spine angle or his posture.

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Now what we'll see is as he goes into the downswing, you'll see that he bends

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forward

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and actually steepens his spine angle.

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How much?

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You can't really tell by a 2D video, but you can see that he has steepened his

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spine angle

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or his upper body's bent more forward towards the ground.

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Now at the same time, you can see that his arms have slightly flattened.

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So the right elbow is slightly lower than where it was at this point in the

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backswing.

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So he's done this rotational arm shallowing movement, which allows for his

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upper body to

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flex closer to the ground so that he can continue rotating through the shot.

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That key component of the upper body flexing and the arm shallowing allows his

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body to

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rotate so that when he gets the impact, you can see that his body is in that

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tremendous

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position facing more out towards the target and less at the golf ball.

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The more that the body is facing out towards the target and less at the golf

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ball, you'll

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tend to see more of this rotation side bend.

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You'll tend to see that the right elbow or sorry the right shoulder is going to

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be closer

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to the golf ball.

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And as a result, you'll see that the right elbow is going to have some flex in

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it.

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So that body powering the swing is going to allow that right arm to really

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straighten

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through the shot instead of approaching into the shot.

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That allows him to have a really good wide arc width after the golf ball, which

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I've

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seen with my research looking at 3D graphs to have a high correlation between

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driving consistency.

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Now the other piece is since he's rotating his body so much, that's going to

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create impact

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happening more behind his body or towards the right half of his body.

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As a result of the club not catching up in front of his body until after impact

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, he has

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to have the lead wrist flex, he has to have the club face rotated more closed

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than it

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was at setup.

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That's what allows the club face to point in the general direction of the

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target, even

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though the club is well behind his body as it swings around the circle.

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The club being well behind his body allows it to continue in a wider position

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through

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the follow through, which again helps with some of this flat spot as well as

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consistency

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that he's able to produce with his both path as well as angle of attack.

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So now we understand that having this great sequencing, having the arm shallow

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and having

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the club or the lead wrist more flexed during the downswing than it was at

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setup.

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Those are all good keys to having a body driven athletic movement just like

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Dustin Johnson.

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Now if you decide that you don't want to have this athletic body driven

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movement, then

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you want to swing more like a John Sandin.

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So what we'll do now is we're going to compare the body swing of Dustin Johnson

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to the arm

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swing of John Sandin so that you can see how these pieces fit together and

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which ones

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might apply most to your own swing.

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So if you're going to be more of an arm swinger, you will tend to see a couple

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common characteristics.

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A, you're going to see the height that they set up stay a little bit more

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consistent and

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more stable.

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It's one of the things that kind of drives me crazy is when you hear the announ

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cers on

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TV talk about how a lot of Tiger shots, a lot of the bad shots were caused by

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the upper

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body dropping, but they fail to talk about how Dustin Johnson and Rory McRory

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and some

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of the Adam Scott, some of the more amazing drivers of the golf ball in our era

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have

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significant upper body drops.

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If we were to place the club at impact and just kind of lock it in a vice so

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that it's

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a certain distance away, you can see that both of these two golfers roughly

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have the

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club in a similar position, but their bodies are in totally different positions

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.

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The more that I'm going to rotate my body towards the target, the more that I'm

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going

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to tend to side bend.

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As this right shoulder gets more down towards the golf ball, you'll see that

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the right elbow

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is going to externally rotate and bend in order to accommodate for that

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distance.

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The more that your head stays the same height, the more that your upper body

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backs away,

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you're going to tend to see that right arm straightening to accommodate the

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increased

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distance between the shoulder and the golf ball.

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When the shoulder is closer to the golf ball as Dustin is demonstrating here,

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you'll see

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him be able to extend his arms on the way through where with someone like John

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Sandin

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you'll see the arms are pretty much straight just after impact and then as a

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result you'll

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see the club pass and the body just kind of support the movement.

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If you're going to be more of an arm driven swing or have more of an arm driven

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swing then

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you really want to swing easy and within yourself or else you're going to tend

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to have face

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control issues and tend to hit shots that start well offline.

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The good thing about the body driven swing that we see with Dustin Johnson or

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Rory McRory

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or Adam Scott is that they are able to swing harder while still controlling

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their path

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and face to path relationship.

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So if you're going to go more of this arm swing where you're using your arms to

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power

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and create the speed from the top you're going to tend to see less body

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rotation and impact

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you're going to tend to see less head drop and you're going to tend to see a

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straighter

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arm and impact.

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So the less head drop more arm driven straight arm and impact tends to give you

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a little bit

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more difficulty creating a real long flat spot at the bottom which does produce

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some consistency

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issues with the driver especially if you air on swinging harder.

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So if you're going to swing hard you want to be more like Dustin Johnson.

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If you're okay swinging easy possibly playing a shorter club you'll probably do

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better and

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fit better into more of a John Sandin model.

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Now the neat thing is that it's not a one to one it's more of a spectrum.

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So if you are in this John Sandin model where you're more of an arm swinger the

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more that

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you can relax your arms in transition power it more with your body and get

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closer towards

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this Dustin Johnson move in general the more consistent your ball striking is

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going to

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become especially with the longer clubs late driver and three wood.

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So if you're not quite sure about these pieces and how they fit you're welcome

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to subscribe

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to our YouTube channel so you can see more video analysis as soon as they're

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uploaded

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or you can head over to Golf Smart Academy and get a free membership where we

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have over

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500 videos helping you understand the key movements and micro movements that

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help produce this

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tour model whether it be the Dustin Johnson swing or the John Sandin swing and

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how you

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can apply those key movements to your own game.