WEBVTT

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(upbeat music)

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In this analysis video,

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we're gonna take a look at the driver swing of Matt Wolf.

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So we're gonna take a look at what Matt Wolf does

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to make him such an exceptional driver of the golf ball.

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We're gonna talk about a couple keys

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that you can apply to your game.

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Matt has a great combination of distance and accuracy,

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and there are a few things that you can learn

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to apply right away.

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Now when it comes to the driver swing,

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there are three main keys that we like to look for.

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We wanna create a flat bottom of the swing.

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We wanna have earlier face rotation rather than later,

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and we wanna have a body driven swing or body driven pivot.

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We're specifically gonna look at that third piece

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with Matt Wolf 'cause he does a great job of using his body.

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Okay, let's get those first two kind of out of the way,

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and then we can talk exclusively

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about what's going on with his body and his pivot.

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So first one, we're looking at the flat spot.

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From the face on camera,

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I like to look for the height of the club

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had to be close to the height of the golf ball

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from about right foot to left foot.

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You'll typically see poorer drivers of the golf ball

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will be coming in a little bit higher

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or exiting a little quicker.

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So if we take a look, we can see that Matt

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does a pretty darn good job of getting the club

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down low to the ground,

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and then having this kind of sweeping action

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on the way through,

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and it's really not until after here

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that you start to see the club get higher

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than the height of the golf ball.

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That gives him a pretty good margin of error

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in terms of solid contact.

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Now, Matt has a weaker grip,

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so we would expect to see a fair amount

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of bowing of the lead wrist,

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and the trail hand really getting on top

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to help square the face.

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So over here on the right,

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take a look at kind of the unique transition movement

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a lot of people like to discuss,

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but if we just hone in on the club face,

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we can see in this position,

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the club face is pointing way out to the right

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or way up towards the sky.

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That's quite an open position.

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But now, once he gets down to about here,

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the club face is pointing more at the golf ball.

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So really between right around here

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and right around there,

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you can see the club face rotate.

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I have other specific videos where we focus on that,

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but getting the club face to rotate

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into a more closed position allows you to have more lag

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and still have the club face pointing at the target

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instead of out to the right.

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So it seems to be much more consistent

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to get that squared up earlier,

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and really as long as you start that rotation

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before the club gets to about parallel,

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you should be in good shape.

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Matt does it early enough to allow

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for his excellent body driven pivot.

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Matt Wolf starts with his little preset move,

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which is just a reminder to himself

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that he wants to get his body open.

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It's a kind of built off of a drill

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that he did with his coach for a long time

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and it just stuck in as a pre-shot trigger

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to remind him to get his body open.

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Now, as he goes up towards the top of the swing,

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we'll see that the arms and hands

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really haven't changed a whole lot

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from where they were at setup.

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So at setup here, the club is basically

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perpendicular to his spine.

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As it gets up here, it's still perpendicular to his spine

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and you can see that his trail wrist,

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that right wrist, hasn't really changed yet.

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Now, we know that when he gets down

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into this kind of loaded position during the downswing,

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he's going to be reaching his maximum extension

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of the wrist somewhere around here.

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What messes a lot of amateurs up

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is that they over set the wrist.

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They get up to the top of the swing

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and they hinge up as much as they can

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and there's no slack.

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There's nowhere for that wrist to go.

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And so we'll tend to start casting

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or early releasing the club early in transition.

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One way to guarantee that you're not going

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to early release the club is to never set it

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during the backswing.

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And by not moving him in the backswing,

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he's using exclusively the transition

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to make that movement.

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Now, if you're going to have a body-driven swing,

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if we're gonna get the legs and the core

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and the chest all involved,

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this is a great model and a great swing to look at.

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One of the reasons I really like his move

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is you'll see that he does a great job

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of maintaining the centeredness of his upper body,

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even though there's a lot of dynamics happening

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in his legs and at his core.

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So from the down the line,

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you can see a lot of hip rotation

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and he picks his foot up to help serve as a trigger.

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It allows him to make a full backswing with the hips,

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but it also serves as a trigger for him

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to start the downswing,

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similar to, say, a Jack Nicholas or Bubba Watson.

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So we'll see that as he starts down,

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in the timing where he's rotating his pelvis back to square

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and planting that foot into the ground,

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you'll see that his arms have not lowered

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anywhere down compared to his chest.

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The relationship of the left arm compared to the chest

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stayed at the same height

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during that initial transition phase.

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Now, whether he feels like he's pulling down on the club

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or he feels like he's holding his arms up,

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that's a field thing.

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But we can see that if you're going to rotate your lower body

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and you're gonna rotate your core,

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it would make sense that the arm wouldn't pull down

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aggressively away from the chest

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or down vertically compared to the body.

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Because he hasn't done very much action

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with his arms and hands in the backswing,

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you'll see that that initiation,

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his lead foot is starting to press down

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and you'll see that the club is still kind of

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working its way to the end of the backswing.

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So he does a great job of sequencing

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the lower body moving first before his core gets involved.

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Now, I'm gonna cue in on one little thing

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that I haven't seen a lot of people talk about

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that I think is helpful for understanding

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how he's able to do this massive arm-shallowing

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and body-powered transition.

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And that is if we look at his trail hand,

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so if we look at his trail hand,

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it gets a little grainy as we zoom in,

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but I want you to watch his right index finger right there.

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So as he gets up towards the top of the swing,

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you'll see that right index finger come off the club.

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I'm not saying that in order to use your body,

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you have to have your hand come off the club.

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What I am saying is that in order to power things

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with your body, you're going to have to have

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a little bit more softness in your forearms

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compared to if I was really going to pull down on the club,

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I would tend to have a little bit stronger hand tension.

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And so what you'll see is that hand,

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that finger stays off of the club

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until he gets down to right around there.

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So we'll see that during this massive rotation,

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a lot of that is happening from rotating his body

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while having a relaxed or softer arm and forearm

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position while his shoulders,

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his shoulder is going into external rotation

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and his lead form is pronating or rotating this way.

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So a lot of that movement there is happening

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from having a softness in the arms

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rather than holding it really tight

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and trying to pull it down that way.

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If you were to hold it really tight

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and pull it down that way,

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it would typically mess up your sequencing.

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But if you feel it falling,

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then you'll tend to still be able

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to aggressively rotate your body,

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which Matt demonstrated really, really well.

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Okay, the last piece we're going to talk about

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is the use of the lower body.

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So we can rotate, we can push side to side

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or we can push vertically.

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To hit the ball far, you want to use a blend

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of all three of those and we're going to see Matt

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use a really good sequence of them.

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So as he starts his rotation,

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you'll see that the center of his pelvis

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moves from right around there to right around there.

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At the same time, it's rotating,

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but there's a little bit of the lateral movement

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initiation before the rotation really kicks in.

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But for all intent and purposes here during transition,

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he has more of this lower body slide and rotation.

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But you'll see that the belt height stays about the same.

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Now, I'm going to put a couple little indicators here

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just so we can see what happens

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during the rest of the downswing.

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Now is when he's right around this point here

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is where he's going to really start getting vertical

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with that left leg.

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So you'll see that left leg straighten

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and you'll see that right leg straighten.

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He's pushing against the ground to raise his pelvis up.

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Now, you will see that when he does that,

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you can see that the height of the pelvis tends to go up,

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but you can see that the height of his head

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tends to stay about the same.

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So while he's doing all this dynamic stuff

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with his lower body to help create speed,

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his upper body stays in a pretty stable location

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compared to the golf ball.

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In fact, if we go up towards the top of the swing,

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we'll see a minimal amount of shift of the upper body.

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A lot of higher handicap amateurs

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try to use the whole mass of their upper body

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either by kind of swaying side to side

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or by really lifting up.

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And that tends to limit speed,

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even though you feel like you're creating a lot of force

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at limit speed,

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it also tends to make a consistent contact

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a little harder to do.

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So if you're trying to get your body involved,

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this is a great pivot to study

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where you're able to rotate that lower body,

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but then when you go vertical with the lower body,

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it creates this hollowing out of the core

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as opposed to a vertical movement of everything.