Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in
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Getting into Delivery Position
- Weight into left heel
- left shoulder down
- chest down
- right elbow in
- wrists set
This is one of the most important moves in the golf swing and one of the biggest differentiations between elite golfers and high handicappers. I like to use the analogy of stepping into a pitch with a lot of my students. The swinging of the club has a lot of similar transition moves to the throw. You want to shift your weight by pushing off the trail foot. It is important that the trail foot pushes off the inside of the foot (toward the target) vs pushing toward the golf ball. When you shift your weight, you want to sequence movement from the lower body first. When the weight shifts, you are going to let your left shoulder stay down and keep your chest down. At the same time you are going to bring the clubhead close to you. To do this, you are going to flex your trail elbow, you are going to extend your right wrist, and you are going to flex, or bow the left wrist.
The forearms rotate to flatten the plane while the body stays over the ball. A big problem for novice golfers is standing up with the body, and steepening the arms. We want to do the opposite, flatten the arms and steepen the body.
Understanding the head drop - the spine is a flexible rod of a fixed length. When you go to the top of the swing, this is going to lengthen the spine. if you then shift your weight by moving your pelvis 4 inches or so toward the target, then the head will have to drop unless it goes with the hips. The larger the lower body moves backward and toward the target, the more the drop, the more the lower body stays put and goes toward the golf ball, the more the head will rise.
Playlists: Keys To Transition, Beginner Program, STS - Swing Phases
Tags: Transition, Concept
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This concept video is the overview of the transition.
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So the transition is going to be blending the backswing into the down swing and that's
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why we call it the transition.
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Now, we describe it as the transition, but really there is a transition for my feet,
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for my hips, for my trunk, for my core, for my arms, for the club, and these are all
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slightly different times.
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So that's why we don't like to describe just a top of backswing position.
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We'll train that occasionally, but the movement should be more of a blend from a backswing
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to a down swing.
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Similar to if I was throwing a ball, there's no real finite end and start on the down.
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It's kind of this blend from back to through.
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So to execute a proper transition, there's a few key movements that we want to pay attention
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to.
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The first one is going to be getting my weight into my left side.
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Similar to when I'm throwing a baseball or hitting a baseball or hitting a tennis shot or
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basically any rotational sport, I'm going to shift my weight
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onto that or my pressure onto that front foot before I then rotate around it.
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It's very hard to throw before you step.
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Golf is no different.
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So one of the first things we're going to try to do is we're going to try to get our weight
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over this left leg or into this left side.
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Pretty much before those arms reach parallel to the ground, kind of like so.
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So it's a very kind of quick and subtle movement to get that weight into that left side.
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Now during that same movement in order to maximize that pressure, my left shoulder is actually
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going to continue to work down.
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Now this is actually a side bend movement, but most of you will feel just like your chest
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stays closer to the ground kind of like so.
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Where if I face this way, you can see that movement right there.
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That movement like this helps prepare my legs for what I want to do during the release
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to kind of maximize my body's capabilities.
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So while my lower body is leading this transition and while my body is kind of preparing,
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my arms have two key roles.
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The first one is they're going to flatten slightly and the second one is they're going
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to try and start squaring the club face.
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So essentially what's going to happen is from the top of the swing as I'm shifting and getting
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into that position, my arms are going to apply a slight flattening move towards the club.
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Now what happens is then when I go during the release, if I applied this flattening move,
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it actually helps square the club face where if I pull it straight down on plane, now when
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I pull in, it's not going to close the club face nearly as effectively.
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So the second piece that we're trying to do, one is the flatten and two is squaring the
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club face, which is the movement that I refer to as the motorcycle move.
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So TPI is probably the biggest proponents or they did the initial research on this 3D stuff.
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And one of the things that we saw was that that left wrist is going to go like this or
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almost like it's giving a motorcycle gas in reverse.
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What that does is that essentially helps close the club face so that now that club face
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isn't a closed position and that can have shaft lean and the club face is still pointed
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at the target.
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If I don't do that movement, then typically during the release, I'm going to make some major
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adjustments in order to try to account for that in order to square the club face.
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So the quick recap.
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During transition, we're going to get into that left side.
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We're going to compress against the ground or use that left shoulder to kind of help
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get my core involved.
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We're going to flatten the arms and we're going to start squaring the club face.
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All of that is going to get us ready for what our body is going to do during the release.
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For details on each piece, check out all the drills here in this section.
