WEBVTT

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

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Thomas.

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Now, Justin Thomas is one of the young bombers on tour.

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He's won twice in the last calendar year, but what everyone wants to understand

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is how

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does he drive the ball as far as he does.

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Obviously, he looks like he's giving it a good lash, but we're going to talk

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about some

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of the things that he does to maximize his club head speed that might help you

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with your

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driving distance as well.

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So Justin Thomas's club head speed is about 117, so he's not one of the fastest

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guys on

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tour.

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The guys who tend to lead club head speed on tour typically are in the mid-120s

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.

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At 117, he's currently ranked 24th on tour in club head speed, and there's

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another golfer

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who he's tied with, and that golfer hits the ball about 12 yards further or

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shorter on

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average off the tee.

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So the question is not so much how can you steal a few extra miles per hour of

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club head

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speed, but how can you maximize the club head speed that you're getting?

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Because if two golfers can have identical club head speeds and one hits it

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about 12

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yards further, you want to figure out how you can make the same adjustments

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that will

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allow you to maximize your club head speed.

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A golf biomechanist by the name of Rob Neal did a video on Justin Thomas and

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talked about

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how his smash factor was consistently over about 17 balls, 1.52, so basically

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he's hitting

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it in the middle of club, but one of the things that was the biggest note to

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Rob was

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that Justin's angle of attack was about five degrees up, giving him a launch

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angle about

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14 degrees.

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So he's got that high launch low spin category that you typically see with more

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the LPGA or

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the long drive tour where people are really trying to maximize their driver

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distance.

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We're going to talk about two things that he does in his swing to help maximize

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that

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driver distance.

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So many of you are afraid of hanging back.

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That's been one of the swing things that I frequently hear in lessons,

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especially when

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I'm doing the initial interview.

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Golfers say they need to get on their left side and they are constantly told

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that they're

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hanging back.

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Now we're going to look at what Justin does that might be interpreted as a hang

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back move,

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but it's a good hangback move that's common among long drivers of the golf ball

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.

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Let's look at the relationship between the center of his pelvis and the center

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of his

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upper body.

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So here we can see kind of the rib cage right around there is going to be about

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the center

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of it and there's the pelvis right around there's the center of it.

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You can see that he's got a little bit of a lean towards the target at the top

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of the

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swing.

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Now, all the magic is really going to happen during the downswing.

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So when we get him through to the end of transition, so somewhere between those

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two frames, we'll

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see that if we take those two points again, we're pretty much looking at a

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square pelvis.

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So the center of it's going to be right around there.

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And then if we look at his rib cage, the center of it is going to be right

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around there.

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So they're pretty close to on top of each other.

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You can see that there's a little bit of a tilt away from the golf ball, but

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not very

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much.

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What we're going to see during the release or during the remainder of the down

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swing is

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his lower body is going to shift this way and his upper body is going to shift

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this way.

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With a hangback move, the danger is when both the lower body and the upper body

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kind of stay

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well behind the golf ball.

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And the problem with that is it tends to lead to an overly leftward path or a

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path of the

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club going way to the left kind of like that.

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What we're going to see with most long hitters of the golf ball is this axis

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tilt move during

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the release where the upper body is working away from the target as the arms

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are extending

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out towards the target.

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So what we'll see is if you use the trees in the background or I'll remark

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those upper

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body and lower body positions, if we now take him down to around impact, and

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that's the

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closest frame to impact, we can see there's his rib cage, so his upper body is

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moved backwards

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and we can see there's his pelvis, the center of it's probably about there.

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So we can see that his lower body is continued to move forward while his upper

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body is moved

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backward.

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That sounds like a weird move, but we'll break down a little bit how he's able

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to accomplish

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it.

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That pattern is typically going to continue until about shaft parallel.

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So all the way up until here, you'll see that the upper body, there's kind of

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the center

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of his rib cage, it's pretty close to where it was at impact, but it's a little

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bit further

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and the lower body is probably going to be pretty close to about where it was

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at that

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impact.

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So you can see by creating that axis tilt, it allows him to extend his arms

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more parallel

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to the ground or even up.

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If his upper body was directly on top of his lower body, then when he extends

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his arms,

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that's going to tend to cause the club to come down in more of a steep fashion

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and create

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more of a negative angle of attack, which is definitely going to rob you

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distance.

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Now he does some things with his body that allow him to create this axis tilt,

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and that's

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what we'll look at from the down the line camera.

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So from the down the line camera, we're going to look at clubface control.

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So when we get to this waist height position in the backswing, you can see that

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he's got

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that left wrist in a slightly extended position, right, somewhere probably

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around 20 degrees

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or so, maybe a little bit less, and you can see that the clubface is just

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closed compared

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to vertical.

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Now if we take him up towards the top of the swing and then get him back down

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to about

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the same point in the downswing, we're going to notice that both of those have

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changed.

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So we don't have that exact frame where the shaft is parallel, but we can see

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just before

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then, you can see that the lead wrist is in more of a flex position.

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So the wrist has probably changed a good 30, maybe even up to 40 degrees.

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Trail wrist has more extension, and the clubface is actually more vertical.

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So even though he's flexed his wrist, which should rotate the clubface close,

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because he's

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shallowed with his arms and the club is well behind him and the body has

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powered the early

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part of the swing, it appears that it's more open compared to the target.

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That combination of having shaft rotation from the wrist and shallow arm

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movements allows

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him to power the downswing with his body while still maintaining clubface

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control.

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It also allows him to delay the timing of his arm so that he can get in this

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really

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good access tilt or delivery position so that when he extends his arms, the

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club is coming

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slightly up through impact with a club that is closed to the relationship of

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his body,

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because he's bowed that wrist, he's closed the clubface or delofted the club

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face, but

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because of what he's doing with his arms and body, the path and this now deloft

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ed clubface

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are moving in the direction of the target.

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And that's what helps produce a really ideal compression or smash factor, which

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helps him

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hit the ball as far as he does.

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So now over on the left, let's just do a quick comparison.

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We can see a golfer who's got pretty much a similar relationship that we saw

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with Justin

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at the end of his transition, kind of right here.

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But what we'll see is during the release, his upper body and his lower body

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pretty much

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stay in about the same relationship.

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That's going to cause more of a negative angle of attack and you'll see that

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this golfer

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has some low point control issues where he tends to top the ball.

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But you'll also see that this golfer was told that he needs to get more into

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his left side.

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You can see that his upper body and his lower body are behind that left leg, so

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it gives

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the impression that he needs to get more into his left side.

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But if we compare that to where Justin is at about the same point, even though

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Justin's

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pelvis is further forward and into that left side, his upper body is much

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further behind.

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So if you're struggling mostly with just the driver, this access tilt thing is

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a key component

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to creating the proper path.

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Now in order to do that, you have to have a solid release and usually I like to

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build

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that first.

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So if you're unsure on what's supposed to be going on in the release, I'd

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recommend

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checking out some of our videos in the release section.

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You can head over to GolfSmartAcademy.com and get a free membership and check

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out a number

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of the different concept and drill videos to help you understand how Justin

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gets into

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that position with the arms and the hands and how that release movement helps

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support what

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he's trying to do with his body.

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If you're looking for more breakdowns of Tour Swing models, feel free to like

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and subscribe

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this video on YouTube.

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And if you have any questions or video suggestions, please don't hesitate to

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contact us at support

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at GolfSmartAcademy.com.