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

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Now Matt Kuchar is one of the prime examples used for the one plain swing

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technique.

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He works with Chris O'Connell.

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I'm going to take a look at his driver swing and show you a few things he does

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in transition

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and one thing you can learn from his release and impact

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that you can apply to your own game to help you with your ball striking

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consistency.

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So on the left, we have Matt Kuchar hitting a draw with a three wood.

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Great filming work here by Terry Rolls and his team.

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So first thing we're going to look at is transition.

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So you can see he's got kind of some of his normal

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hint, keep the club head well outside the hands, work that elbow back

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as if you were starting a lawn mower.

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But as we get to the top of the swing, we're going to pay attention

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to what's happening with the trail shoulder.

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So now that I've been here in Houston for a little while,

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I've worked with more and more golfers who tried the one plain method.

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So nothing, this won't be a bash one way or the other.

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Really what I want to do is highlight what he does in his trail shoulder

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that allows him to play from such a flat position at the top of the swing.

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And for comparison, we're going to look at this iron swing over here on the

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right

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where it appears that he's playing less of a draw, more a straight shot or even

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a fade.

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So you'll have a lot of the similar characteristics to what we're going to see

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over here on the driver.

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But I want to highlight a couple little changes that we'll see that vary from

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whether he's hitting a

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draw three wood or a straight/fade iron.

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Okay, so as we look at this transition at the top of the swing,

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the right elbow has worked a little bit more across his body.

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That's kind of away from his body, I should say.

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It's kind of working more along the side of his body instead of staying well

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out in front of his chest.

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Because his chest is kind of pointing out in this space here.

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That's kind of characteristic for Matt Kuchar's swing.

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Now as he starts down, you'll be able to see that that right arm tends to start

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working into external rotation.

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Or if I was to zoom in here, basically what we'll see is as he starts down, you

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can see that the elbow leads

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the hand slightly, and you can see that the club starts working a little bit

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more shallow.

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Even when he's working on this slightly steeper pattern when he's trying to hit

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more of a straight shot

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or a little bit of a fade, you'll see that the elbow is there.

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It's kind of out away from his side, kind of more towards the side of his body,

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or out away from the front of his chest, more towards the side of his body.

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And then as he starts down, that elbow is working in the direction of his belly

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button or sternum.

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It's kind of working back in front of his body as it goes into a little bit of

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external rotation.

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I'll bring up an amateur real quick just to show you the comparison of the

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danger of that arm getting too much behind your body.

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Zoomed in, here's a golfer who had that right arm working a little bit more

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into that flying elbow position

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a little bit more along the side of his body.

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Now the danger from here is as you elevate with the arm behind your body,

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you'll quickly run out of external shoulder range of motion.

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So part of the benefit of what Matt Kuchar does, or part of the reason why Matt

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Kuchar is able to make a good transition shoulder move

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with that external rotation, is that he keeps his elbow close to, if not

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connected to his rib cage.

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If he were to raise it up there, he'd be very restricted in terms of going into

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more external rotation.

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So here we'll see the normal tendency.

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When that shoulder runs out of external rotation, it's frequently going to

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result to going into internal rotation

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as this gentleman is demonstrating there.

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And that internal rotation can create a massive steepening of the shaft, as you

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'll see by the very vertical position over on the right

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compared to the external rotation of the shoulder, creating a much more flat

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shaft angle,

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which will allow for him to make his good body pivot and have really good

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sequencing as he gets into the downswing.

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So key number one for you is to make sure that your trail shoulder goes into

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external rotation as you start the downswing.

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For key number two, we're going to take a look at what Matt Kuchar looks like

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at impact.

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So over on the left, as we take him down, we can get towards impact.

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We can see, well, just to be fair, we'll go one frame past so that it doesn't

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skew it that much.

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So frequently, golf instructors will talk about kind of keeping your shoulders

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parallel at impact while getting your lower body open.

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And typically, we'll use the down the line camera angle, or the golf

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instructors will say that.

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So we'll use the down the line camera angle in order to demonstrate that

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relationship.

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Because from down the line, you do want to see this right arm a little bit

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underneath the left.

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That's indicating that you had good, shallowing arm movements during transition

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and good arm timing.

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The release was a little bit more of what I call a white and then kind of

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extend as opposed to going into internal rotation

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and really just kind of turning that club over through impact.

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So this is really good form/shoulder alignments here at impact.

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Now cautioning you again, some danger can happen if you try to keep your

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shoulders closed.

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So what will sometimes happen is trying to keep your shoulders closed will

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limit the ability or the rotation amount in the rib cage.

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So this 3/4 face-on view is one of my favorites for showing where the chest is

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pointing as we reach impact.

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It's also a good way to look at the sequencing.

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So during his downswing, you can see his lower body is starting, but you can

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see that as soon as his lower body starts,

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his rib cage is actually doing a good job of transmitting that force right

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through there

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and then it gets into the shoulder girdle pretty quickly.

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So you'll see there's a little bit of relaxation in this lead shoulder.

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As the hips and the rib cage kind of work together rotating towards the target,

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you'll see that his shoulder blade, which is kind of in line right there,

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basically works a little bit towards the into protraction.

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So it basically works a little bit away from the target that way, kind of

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stretching some of the muscles in the posterior shoulder.

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So then as he starts down, we're seeing that upper body, that lower body

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continue to rotate, kind of lagging behind with the arms,

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and then here we have him pretty much at impact.

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So now from this down the line view, it does look like his shoulders are close

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to square, right?

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We can kind of see there are his shoulders.

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From his face on view, you can see that his chest or his pelvis is pointed well

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out in front of the target,

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somewhere in that 40-45 degree range.

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We can see that his upper body is pointing well out in front of the target,

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kind of down along that target line,

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somewhere in that 30 degree range.

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And as a result, the arms kind of look like they're more behind or toward the

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right half of his body.

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You can also, we can imagine how it would look from down the line.

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We can see this right forearm is kind of underneath the left, so we know that

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this left arm is closer to us than the right.

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Keeping that perspective, you can see how that right side is kind of underneath

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the left,

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but it's more this side bend that creates that look of the shoulders staying

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closed,

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not actually lack of rotation.

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I find that a lot of golfers who try to restrict their rotation of their core

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ends up with significant issues when hitting the longer clubs

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and can frequently have early release of the arms, hit it fat, have lots of

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contact misses.

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So, two great keys you can learn from looking at Matt Coucher's or how the

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trail arm works into external rotation

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as he goes into his downswing and how he sequences his body, or his transition

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from the ground up,

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enabling him to reach this really classic looking impact position,

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regardless of the little nuances that he has in his takeaway and/or backswing.

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So, if you're struggling to understand how to shallow your arms

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or what a good impact position should really look at,

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feel free to check out our other videos here on the YouTube channel

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or go over to Golfsmart Academy and get a free membership

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where you can learn about some of the science-based instruction

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and what 3D research as well as current golf science trends

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can help you understand about how to simplify your goals when you're practicing

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your golf game.