WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.580
(upbeat music)

2
00:00:02.580 --> 00:00:05.980
In this analysis video,

3
00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:08.760
we're gonna take a look at the iron swing of Matt Wolf

4
00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:12.440
and why he's ranked fifth in approach shots of the green.

5
00:00:12.440 --> 00:00:13.680
We're gonna talk about a couple keys

6
00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:15.160
that you can apply to your own game

7
00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:18.240
to help with your iron consistency right away.

8
00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:20.960
Whenever I'm analyzing an iron swing,

9
00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:22.480
I always wanna start at impact.

10
00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:25.480
I don't wanna look at basically the impact line

11
00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:30.480
or roughly a spot or a line about four inches

12
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:32.000
in front of the golf ball.

13
00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:35.240
And what we'll see is with really good iron players,

14
00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:37.840
typically you'll see the left leg, left shoulder,

15
00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:40.760
hands and club shaft kind of all in line

16
00:00:40.760 --> 00:00:42.820
with that line after impact.

17
00:00:42.820 --> 00:00:47.120
That tends to lead to really good ground contact

18
00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:48.920
and bottom swing control.

19
00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:51.060
The most common issues for amateurs

20
00:00:51.060 --> 00:00:53.240
is that they're too far behind the line

21
00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:55.960
or on this side over here.

22
00:00:55.960 --> 00:01:00.520
Either the upper body, the hands or the hips

23
00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:02.960
don't get enough ahead of the golf ball.

24
00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:04.960
And so they have a hard time controlling

25
00:01:04.960 --> 00:01:07.000
the bottom of the swing.

26
00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:08.520
If too much is behind the line,

27
00:01:08.520 --> 00:01:12.680
you'll typically have more of a picking of the golf ball

28
00:01:12.680 --> 00:01:15.640
or you'll bottom out an inch or two behind the golf ball.

29
00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:18.600
So you'll hit lots of fat in thin shots.

30
00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:21.440
So Matt Wolf does a great job

31
00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:25.720
of getting his hands into this good impact position.

32
00:01:25.720 --> 00:01:27.560
And even though his hands are ahead,

33
00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:31.880
you'll see that he takes a nice shallow divot

34
00:01:31.880 --> 00:01:34.720
and the shallow divot comes from having

35
00:01:34.720 --> 00:01:39.020
the body position of rotation and side bend

36
00:01:39.020 --> 00:01:40.040
on the way through.

37
00:01:40.040 --> 00:01:42.360
So we can see that better from this point of view,

38
00:01:42.360 --> 00:01:44.960
which is as he's making contact,

39
00:01:44.960 --> 00:01:48.840
you'll see that his left shoulder continues to go up.

40
00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:51.840
So he's going into side bend and kind of lengthening

41
00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:56.400
this left side to help bring the arms around.

42
00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:58.680
That pattern tends to create, again,

43
00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.320
this nice shallow bottom of the swing

44
00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:04.240
with the hands out in front of the golf ball.

45
00:02:04.240 --> 00:02:06.920
In order to get into that good impact line,

46
00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:11.560
we're gonna look at this kind of lag checkpoint

47
00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:14.480
where basically you'll tend to see good iron players,

48
00:02:14.480 --> 00:02:16.360
good ball strikers, get the hands out

49
00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:21.120
in front of the shoulder just before impact.

50
00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:24.160
Many amateurs will have their hands

51
00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:27.440
compared to their shoulder back in this space here.

52
00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:30.540
And that, with the momentum of the club releasing,

53
00:02:30.540 --> 00:02:33.280
it's typically going to bottom out there

54
00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:36.760
or at the very least it's going to be

55
00:02:36.760 --> 00:02:38.560
kind of sweeping on the way up

56
00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:40.720
or the only way you could have your hands there

57
00:02:40.720 --> 00:02:42.600
and get the bottom of the swing out in front

58
00:02:42.600 --> 00:02:45.200
would be a swing way from the outside.

59
00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:48.600
So it causes a host of ground contact problems,

60
00:02:48.600 --> 00:02:49.920
which is one of the biggest skills

61
00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:52.080
for being an elite level iron player.

62
00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:54.480
Now, in order to get into this position

63
00:02:54.480 --> 00:02:58.000
where you see the elbow, the trail elbow

64
00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.280
or the right elbow continuing to work across the body

65
00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:04.720
as it extends, in order to get into that position,

66
00:03:04.720 --> 00:03:06.360
you need to make sure that your rib cage

67
00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:08.560
is physically out of the way.

68
00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:12.360
What that means is you probably shouldn't stand up too much

69
00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:13.600
on the downswing.

70
00:03:13.600 --> 00:03:16.040
So in order to get into this position,

71
00:03:16.040 --> 00:03:18.360
I need to physically have the space

72
00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:20.680
for my elbow to fit in front of me.

73
00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:22.680
If I start standing up,

74
00:03:22.680 --> 00:03:25.880
then if I had my elbow in front of me like this,

75
00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:29.800
it would tend to throw the club too far out into the golf ball.

76
00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:31.800
I might start shanking it.

77
00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:34.960
So most amateurs or most golfers,

78
00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:38.200
if the elbow comes up or the body comes up this way,

79
00:03:38.200 --> 00:03:40.480
you'll tend to see that elbow almost connect

80
00:03:40.480 --> 00:03:41.720
and become a pivot point.

81
00:03:41.720 --> 00:03:44.560
And then it'll swing like so.

82
00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:46.840
As opposed to what Matt is demonstrating there,

83
00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:50.000
where his body is physically out of the way

84
00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:52.320
by staying a little bit more down and back,

85
00:03:52.320 --> 00:03:55.040
that allows him to get that elbow in front

86
00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:58.480
and get into that really good impact position.

87
00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:01.760
So if you find that trying to feel like

88
00:04:01.760 --> 00:04:03.720
you're holding the leg doesn't work

89
00:04:03.720 --> 00:04:07.280
and the hands continue to be back behind the golf ball,

90
00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:12.360
then the next place you want to look is, well, am I raising up?

91
00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:14.920
Am I standing up on the way down

92
00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:18.480
compared to where I was at the end of my delivery position?

93
00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:22.200
'Cause that's gonna typically cause my arms to get more behind

94
00:04:22.200 --> 00:04:24.760
or it's gonna cause a lot of contact issues.

95
00:04:24.760 --> 00:04:27.200
So if we take a snapshot of Matt Wolf at Impact

96
00:04:27.200 --> 00:04:29.760
and we put a line at the top of his head,

97
00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:34.080
we will see that if we compare that to where he was at setup,

98
00:04:34.080 --> 00:04:37.160
he's closer to the ground at impact

99
00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:40.280
than where he was at the start of the swing.

100
00:04:40.280 --> 00:04:42.320
That helps create the slack

101
00:04:42.320 --> 00:04:44.920
to allow for the hands to get forward.

102
00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:48.000
Basically, in order for me to get my hands ahead

103
00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:51.240
and still have the club on the ground,

104
00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:55.120
if I start here and then I move my hands ahead,

105
00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:58.360
you'll see that the club actually comes closer to me.

106
00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:00.200
So if I bring it this way,

107
00:05:00.200 --> 00:05:01.640
it's coming a little bit closer to me.

108
00:05:01.640 --> 00:05:05.480
I have to account for that distance more with my body down.

109
00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:07.160
So if my body's down, I have the slack

110
00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:08.760
to still have the club on the ground

111
00:05:08.760 --> 00:05:10.560
and get the hands ahead.

112
00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:13.680
If my body is, if I have the club on the ground

113
00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:17.560
and my body is too tall, then I don't have any slack

114
00:05:17.560 --> 00:05:20.280
to physically get my hands far enough forward.

115
00:05:20.280 --> 00:05:23.360
So many good iron players will actually be closer

116
00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:27.080
to the ground at impact than where they were at setup.

117
00:05:27.080 --> 00:05:29.000
In addition to being down,

118
00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:33.320
you'll tend to see that his body is creating enough space

119
00:05:33.320 --> 00:05:35.960
by working away from the golf ball.

120
00:05:35.960 --> 00:05:38.320
When I speed up the club and get it moving really fast,

121
00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:41.160
it's going to tend to pull out towards the golf ball.

122
00:05:41.160 --> 00:05:43.200
Well, I'm gonna have to pull back on that with something.

123
00:05:43.200 --> 00:05:46.120
I've referred to that in our program as bracing.

124
00:05:46.120 --> 00:05:49.880
If I'm bracing with my arms, they'll tend to pull in,

125
00:05:49.880 --> 00:05:52.080
that's kind of more of your chicken wing pattern.

126
00:05:52.080 --> 00:05:54.040
If I'm bracing more with my body,

127
00:05:54.040 --> 00:05:56.520
my body moves away from the golf ball

128
00:05:56.520 --> 00:06:00.040
and my weight tends to move more in towards my heels.

129
00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:05.040
So that allows golfer to extend the arms

130
00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.400
and not lose balance and get pulled over,

131
00:06:07.400 --> 00:06:10.440
especially if I've increased the flex in my body.

132
00:06:10.440 --> 00:06:13.200
If I've increased the flex and gotten down closer

133
00:06:13.200 --> 00:06:15.320
to the golf ball than where I was at setup,

134
00:06:15.320 --> 00:06:18.120
I have to move a little bit away to account for that space.

135
00:06:18.120 --> 00:06:21.960
So if you are really working on trying to get your hands

136
00:06:21.960 --> 00:06:24.760
in front, which is helpful for being a good iron player,

137
00:06:24.760 --> 00:06:26.920
and you find that at that lag checkpoint,

138
00:06:26.920 --> 00:06:29.080
your hands are just a little bit too far back,

139
00:06:29.080 --> 00:06:32.400
then see what you can take away from Matt Wolf's wing

140
00:06:32.400 --> 00:06:36.440
about maintaining or keeping your body angles.

141
00:06:36.440 --> 00:06:39.440
That'll help create the space to get your arms at it.

142
00:06:39.440 --> 00:06:42.020
(upbeat music)