WEBVTT

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

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ieth.

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Specifically, we're going to take a look at Jordan Spieth's release,

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and what he does that makes him such a consistent ball striker,

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and what you can learn that you can apply to your own swing.

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So for those who've been kind of following my swing analysis videos,

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the first one I did was Jordan Spieth,

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and I actually did it right before he kind of went on a little bit of his tear

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and gained a little bit more popularity.

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And it was the first video I did.

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It was a little bit more negative in terms of just,

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"Hey, here are a bunch of things Jordan's doing wrong."

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So what I wanted to do was refilm it and help you understand

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what Jordan does so well in his release that you can learn from

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and apply to your own swing.

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So if we kind of breeze through his backswing,

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you can see very good kind of one-piece takeaway,

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not a ton of linear movement in the backswing.

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Good pivot, you know,

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all the planes and angles look pretty solid.

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He does have a little bit of an unconventional grip

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with a weaker left hand that results in the big bowing movement

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that we see on the downswing.

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But for all intent and purposes, his backswing looks fairly normal.

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Other than he's got a little bit of that bent lead arm.

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Now, I'm not a huge critic of the bent lead arm.

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I think he can be very helpful in terms of what you want to do in the release

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as long as it's not kind of forced one way or the other.

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So let's get into the downswing, which is where I think Jordan really excels

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in what he does with his golf swing.

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So in transition, he does a lot of really good things.

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He sequences with his lower body.

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So one of the checkpoints we use is when did the thighs get parallel

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to the target line, and you can see that he does that right about

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when his left arm is parallel, which is a clear indication that he's using his

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lower body.

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Even though from the face on view, you can see that there's a little bit of

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upper body

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kind of lunge or drift where the upper body is getting well on top of the lower

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body.

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Not dramatically so, but more so than we would see with kind of the average

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tour pro.

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But at the same time, we can see that he has a really good arm-shallowing move,

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and so the club is flattening nicely and setting him up for a really good

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release position.

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We'll also see that at the end of his transition,

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you can see that his left shoulder is still higher than his right.

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So he hasn't gone into this right side bend too early in the golf swing,

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which can mess up low point angle of attack.

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He's going to do that more during the release.

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So one of the things that is frequently highlighted in his release is how,

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from the face on camera angle, you will tend to see a little unorthodox lead

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arm bend.

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Now, it's not a true chicken wing because you'll see that his hands stay out in

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front of his chest,

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so the arm isn't really working around him.

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He's not pulling and bending the arms in order to help square the club face.

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It just seems to be the way that he stabilizes with his shoulder.

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But from a good perspective, what we see is some tremendous right arm extension

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without collapsing or flipping his trail wrist.

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So that right arm really extends through the release,

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which helps keep the wide point or keeps the arc width increasing through the

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ball,

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which tends to help build the flat spot for consistency.

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So his release pattern really begins right about here,

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and we'll see a couple key characteristics.

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One, we can see that he's able to create a fair amount of shaft lean,

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but he does so without taking a deep divot.

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So you'll see that he's able to create the shaft lean and not take a deep divot

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based on the combination of what he's doing with his arms and what he's doing

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with his body.

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I've frequently heard that if you do everything right in transition,

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that the release will happen almost automatically,

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but there's a lot of guys who have a similar transition look

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to what we're seeing over here on the right,

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who have very different release patterns.

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So it can't quite be as automatic as some other instructors tend to lead you to

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believe.

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So let's talk about what he does actively during the release that works so well

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.

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So one, he shallows out with his body by having his upper body,

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his thorax move away from the golf ball as he's pushing through the ground,

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causing that side tilt to initiate.

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So what you'll see is during the release,

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his body is doing what I call bracing,

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where his body is starting to go into right side bend,

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and it's going to max out the right side bend right around there.

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So from this down the line, you'll see from impact,

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as he continues through the follow through,

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you can see that the tilt of his shoulders continues to slightly increase

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between impact and follow through.

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So that's a trademark that I see with a lot of really good solid ball strikers.

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It helps set up for the shallow angle of attack.

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If you also include really good arm movements,

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one in particular that I refer to as the white.

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So when he's doing this upper body or he's doing this body bracing,

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what we'll then see is we'll tend to see the arms work more across his body

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like so.

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In fact, put a horizontal line roughly when the shaft's vertical,

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you'll see that the hands work very much across his body.

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That's how he's able to have shaft lean but not take a very deep divot.

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A lot of amateurs at this point here,

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when the shaft is roughly parallel with the ground,

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would have their hands higher up closer to the belt height.

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And so what will happen is the hands will be moving down,

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and so if they had that shaft lean, they would tend to take very deep divots.

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And that can be a big problem either with contact or creating hooks and snap

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hooks.

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Now one of the other pieces that I really like with Jordan's release

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is as that right arm extends,

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you'll see that he does a great job of keeping the elbow pointed down.

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So even though that arm is extending,

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it's not going into what we call internal rotation.

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Even though it's not going into internal rotation,

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from this down the line view, you can see that the club continues to rotate

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compared to the plane.

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So the club is rotating even though his elbow or his shoulder is not internally

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rotating.

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Basically what we're seeing is that his trail forearm and lead forearm

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are rotating from the start of the release through to the end of the release

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in order to allow him to have shaft lean but still have the club face not point

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open.

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So he's squaring the club face with more of this shaft rotation

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unless with a flip or what I call in-plane shaft movement.

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So that shaft rotating is getting the club face to point at the target,

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but the body position is allowing him to do so without taking a really deep div

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ot

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even though he has this shaft lean.

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I'm going to keep saying those, stressing those three points.

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How can you create shaft lean so that you get a heavy hit and hit kind of

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higher up

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on the face with the irons, but not take a super deep divot?

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You have to do that with bracing with the body

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and wiping with the arms during this release pattern.

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So again, as it applies to your release,

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don't be afraid to let your upper body back up through the shot,

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especially if it's coming from pushing that lead leg into the ground.

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That's actually a trademark of great ball strikers,

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a movement that we teach that we call bracing.

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And if you do so and you hit a lot of fat shots

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then it typically means that you have a problem in your release pattern,

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specifically not enough of the white movement.

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So here's a great camera angle showing a combination of those.

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You can see that Jordan is extending that right arm

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without really extending that right wrist.

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The right wrist is going to rather flex or straighten that right wrist.

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That right wrist is going to straighten and flexed more from the speed

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than an active movement in the wrist.

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So because his body is going this way as his arms are going with the club this

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way,

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that'll tend to cause the trail wrist to come out of extension.

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Jordan does a great job of sequencing the arm movements before the shoulder

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movements,

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and that's part of why he's been such a consistent ball striker the last few

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years.

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He's the defending champ this week at the Masters.

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Hopefully he can find his putting on the greens and return to form that he

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demonstrated last year.

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So if you have any questions about your release,

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feel free to sign up for a free membership over at golfsmartacademy.com.

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If you want to work on the release and understand how Jordan is releasing the

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club the way that he does,

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check out the movements of the bracing in the release section,

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as well as the movements of the wipe in the release section, and hopefully that

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will help you with your game.