10 biggest golf swing killers, according to state-of-the-art technology

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Wondering why your golf swing is lacking power and pop? It might be because you have one of these 10 golf swing killer moves.

I'll list each one of the ten below, with their title and their picture, and then write a bit about it myself.

1. “Sitting” at Setup

I don't care about the measurements above… I like people to get the center of their hips over their ankles somewhere. Most people can do this — unless they're really bent over or something. Is it an absolute requirement? No. You can set up with your weight in the heels a bit, stay there, and still hit the ball well. There are a number of PGA Tour players who do just that.

But, as with many things… why make it harder on yourself? They grew up with that setup, most likely, but it's also their job, so they've grooved what they do. You? You should just make things as easy on yourself as possible.

2. Swinging the Club Inside

I don't think we have a specific thread on this, but if you combine it with number four, you'll see a link there that applies somewhat. Players who roll the clubhead in often also roll the face open and the momentum of the clubhead almost pulls their hands in (or lead arm in) too much, too. I generally prefer a lead arm that's thrown "up" a bit more early in the swing. I'm good with a clubface somewhere within a few inches of the hands on a good Down-the-Line view at A2.

3. Overly Shut Clubface

This clubface IS overly shut, but look at the left wrist — seeing this move from golfers is rare, IMO. I once had two golfers on back-to-back days who complained about hooks… and the leading edges of their club faces were literally horizontal to the ground at A2… but it's still rare. I'm generally okay with, assuming nothing else is super weird, a clubface that's somewhere between toe up and matching the spine angle at setup here ~A2.

4. Fishing For Depth

Arms = Up, Body = Around. Your shoulders lift your arms some, which early in the swing (before you've turned much) keeps the lead arm OUT… and if you combine that with the "right" amount of turn… your hands will often appear to gain almost no depth from A1 to A2.

5. Collapsing Your Trail Arm

BIG one here. It's why we have The Tube. It's what I work on with a LOT of golfers, all the time. The Tube® is great at showing you what you then have to be able to do on your own. It makes you do it, which makes it both good and bad. You want to use The Tube® so you know what to do, not to let it force you to do it without you doing anything.

6. Making a “Level” Turn

This is usually paired with a too-level shoulder turn, though there are occasional golfers who will just side bend a LOT to get down to the ball. Sometimes this is paired with a sway, too, as hips that sway have a hard time turning. Other times, the golfer's legs are almost like "stilts" — they don't do anything to really "dig into the ground" by spiraling (trail hip raises as trail knee extends a bit, lead knee flexes so the lead hip digs down and back).

7. Late-Loading Backswing

I see this fairly often, too. The golfer knows they need to get back a little. It feels powerful. But the golf swing is a shift, then a turn, then a shift, then a turn. Thing is… the shifts overlap the turns. Something like this (for a righty from face-on):

⬅️⬅️⬅️______➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️
__↩️↩️↩️↩️↩️↩️↩️__↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️|↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️

The vertical bar is roughly where impact is.

The timing is similar to how we do a lot of things: a quarterback is taking the arm back while stepping forward (or anyone throwing a ball will often step forward while the arm is still traveling back).

The first shift back happens very early, too, almost before the backswing has really begun.

8. Thrusting Your Hips

I don't entirely agree with the text on this one… because I see a lot of thrusting (center of pelvis toward the golf ball) during the backswing. They say in the text that they see it during the downswing because of what the golfer does on the backswing, but… it's often a bigger issue on the backswing. Ultimately, it's an issue during both.

9. Passive Arms

I don't really like the name of this, but I get what they're going for here. I might have named it "hand path travels out prematurely" or something like that. The trail elbow stays bent too long while the golfer turns, carrying the hands out rather than down quite as much as they should. It may be a combination of the over-bending of the trail elbow and the idea that "the downswing starts from the ground up" that has lead to "passive" arms, but… Yeah. This is a problem for many.

10. Chasing Lag

I've said "Lag Happens" as a result of doing a bunch of other things well, and I still believe that to this day. Lag is a result of sequencing, moving the hands fast at the right time, squaring the face the right way, etc. This bullet point in their list is more about how shallowing the club properly can lead to an illusion of sorts, but that feels like a small point to make in the larger whole.

Lag isn't often something you actively or directly work on, it's more a result of doing other things better. For example, when I put players in The Tube®, they often have more shaft lean and more lag at A6 than they do without The Tube®. Which blows their minds, often, but it's a result of the trail elbow not being stuck anymore.

Which of these do you like the most? Which do you struggle to perfect or improve the most?

1. “Sitting” at Setup
2. Swinging the Club Inside
3. Overly Shut Clubface
4. Fishing For Depth
5. Collapsing Your Trail Arm
6. Making a “Level” Turn
7. Late-Loading Backswing
8. Thrusting Your Hips
9. Passive Arms
10. Chasing Lag

I work with a lot of golfers who want more shaft lean at impact, who currently have AoAs that range from +2° to -2°, and who love to see the handle lower and more "in front of their trail thigh" from face-on at P6.

And a lot of these golfers try to solve the issue by working on the downswing. They do something to drag the handle forward. Or they just leave their right thigh farther back so the same handle location "looks" farther forward. Or they move the ball back in their stance. Or they push themselves down into the ground to get the handle lower and increase (decrease?) their AoA (to be more negative).

The real fix is often to get wider in the backswing. To do LESS in the backswing. To hinge less, fold the trail arm less, abduct the trail arm less.

I had a case of this over the weekend. Before, the player had 110° of trail elbow bend, "lifted" his trail humerus only a few degrees, etc. The club traveled quite a bit around him, and he tended to "pick" the ball from the fairways.

In the "after" swings below (which are mild exaggerations — this golfer does not need to end up at < 70° of elbow bend. These were slower backswings with "hit it as hard as you normally would" intent downswings), you can see that he bent his elbow about 70° instead of 110° and lifted his right arm an extra ~15° or more. You can't see how much less this moved his hands across his chest (right arm abduction), but it was also decreased. His hands stayed more "in front of" his right shoulder rather than traveling "beside" them so much.

The two swings look like this:

The change at P6, without talking about the downswing one little bit (outside of him telling me that he tends to pick the ball), is remarkable:

Without 110° of elbow bend to get out (which he gets to 80°, a loss of 30°), the golfer actually loses slightly less elbow bend (70 - 50 = 20), but delivers 30° less elbow bend, lowering the handle and letting the elbow get "in front of" the rib cage… because it never got "behind" or "beside" the rib cage.

If you look at this video showing the before/afters of P6, you'll note the handle location (both vertically and horizontally) and the shoulders (the ball is in the same place in these frames).

This golfer's path was largely unaffected (still pretty straight into the ball, < 3° path and often < 1.5°), but his AoA jumped to -5° ± 2°.

I've always said, and in talking with other instructors they agree and feel similarly, that we spend a lot of time working on the backswing. This is another example of why.

The website is here:

Episode 1 is here:

We're going to keep all the episodes to less than 20 minutes, ideally around 18, so you can listen to them on the way to the course (or to work, if you must…).

Please do a few things:

1. Subscribe. There are links at the top of every page and on each episode page to various podcast apps/platforms.
2. Listen! The podcasting world actually tracks listens now, so listen to the podcast.
3. Provide feedback. I'd love to know what you like and, the way I'm wired, I'd love even more to know what you don't like. Share it here, as a whole or per episode… all feedback will help us shape future episodes to make them better.

The text is:

Rory Mcilroy. What do you see? 2 images of the same player. Masters Champion Rory Mcilroy. One is a still photo from a video, the other Is an AVATAR from a 3D system of the same player. The 3d system AVATAR fails to represent the reality of the trail shoulder, arm, or wrist position. Or much else for that matter.
This raises the question, Which is a more accurate representation of reality the still photo or the cartoon? Next, To demonstrate the value of systematically comparing still photos I have included 2 images of Rory to train your eyes. Is the trail shoulder the same? The trail arm? The trail wrist?

:sigh:

I love when people think they’re punching back, but they’re just punching themselves in the face.

The rest of this post is a compilation of some text conversations. 😄 

Andy, and all of S&T have, for years now sought to diminish the role of measurement tools in the game. Whether that's force plates, 3D, perhaps HackMotion, etc., they continue to rely on their interpretations of 2D photos and video to "show" what the game's best players do. In reality, they do very little of what S&T teaches, and often do the exact opposite of what S&T teaches.

With the post above, Andy continues to find new ways to demonstrate his stupidity. With this post, he's effectively comparing… a 2D photo to a 2D photo of a 3D avatar.

GEARS owners/users know… it's not about the avatar. It's about the numbers, the measurements, etc. GEARS doesn't capture your exact body dimensions. The trail elbow has been a little goofy for a long time. But you can compare one swing to another, and compare the data. And the data continues to show that golfers do not move like S&T or Andy Plummer insist that they move.

Either Andy doesn’t know that, which is a big concern, or he’s lying about what he’s saying. Andy is essentially saying that no numbers are good because no avatar will match his random still image.

Who can blame him? The last time Andy tried to use numbers, we got… stuff like this:

How do S&T "network" folks and GEARS owners like Manavian and Sales feel about being pooped on by their "leader"? How will Andy (or will he at all) moonwalk this one back with them?

How do GEARS users use GEARS? To get the numbers, to compare the numbers. Occasionally you can compare a "before" avatar against an "after" avatar, but in those cases, you know the "camera angles" are perfect and, more importantly, consistent or uniform.

With GEARS Hybrid, too, you can put the numbers right on the actual person. My two color cameras are pretty close to FO and DL views, so… I see the pretty common angles.

Other times, you're just looking at the data, and the avatar is "just for show."

To put that together: The GEARS Avatar is a representation. Occasionally you compare the “before” avatar to the “after” avatar, and you can rest assured when doing that the camera angles are perfect and consistent… but that it’s more about the measurements and data/numbers.

I'm reminded of this quote: It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It (or variations at the link). It doesn't fit perfectly, because outside of a shrinking band of devotees, S&T has a horrible reputation amongst golfers and golf instructors. It likely has more to do with a desire to "be right" than to "get it right." And a healthy dose of good old-fashioned stupidity.

I hate poor golf instruction. It grinds my gears, no pun intended. It works against what I've spent the last nearly 20 years of my life doing: helping golfers to play better golf. I hate it when people do not advance their knowledge. They dig in, insist that they "got it right" fifteen years ago, and ignore all advances in technology. They keep their heads in the sand and reject everything that doesn't match what they think they saw years and years and years ago. They don't adapt or grow. They make up "data" and hold golfers back from getting better. It's sad, and frustrating as a golf instructor trying to help golfers to battle the misinformation put out by the stubborn and ignorant.

And… that's enough time spent on this.

No comments except to encourage everyone here to watch and take notes.

What do you think?

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/5-golf-dads-advice

I followed:

• Ian Poulter
• Mike Thomas
• Johnson Wagner
• Kevin Van Valkenburg

Apparently the series was only five parts long, as they wrote up a summary article on it.

Golf Dad Part 5: Erik Barzeski on how to switch between father and instructor

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Podcast Episode · Golf IQ · March 2 · 35m

Golf Dad Part 5: Erik Barzeski on how to switch between father and instructor — Golf IQ

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Erik Barzeski, Director of Instruction at Golf Evolution, is the father of a golf pro and an author, but also has the perspective of someone who works with juniors. The ability to switch between wearing those different...

Do you have an overly long backswing that ruins sequencing and leads to poor shots? In nearly 20 years of teaching, I've found 5 common faults. You don't have to swing like Jon Rahm, but a shorter swing will probably help you #PlayBetter golf. Which is your fatal flaw?

#1 - Trail Elbow Bend

Average golfers ♥️ bending their trail elbows. It can feel powerful! Tour players bend their trail elbows MUCH less. A wider trail elbow creates a longer hand path and preserves structure. It also forces more chest turn; not everything longer is bad!

Overly bending your trail elbow can wreak havoc on your swing. It pulls your arms across/beside your body. It requires more time to get the elbow bend "out," ruining your sequencing. The lead arm often bends and low point control is destroyed.

The misconception is that it will create more speed, but that's often the opposite of what happens. Golfers often feel they swing "easier" but FASTER with wider trail elbows. Want to play better golf with a shorter backswing? Don't bend your elbow so much.

#2 - Hip (Pelvis) Turn

I see this all the time: a golfer's hips are only 5-10° open at impact, but he turns them back 60°+ in the backswing. Unless your father is The Flash, your hips are probably not getting 40° open at impact from there! That's more rotation than Rory!

Golfers who over-rotate their pelvis often over-turn everything - trail thigh/knee, chest/shoulders, etc. They have more work to do in the same ~0.3 seconds as a Tour player who turns back ~40° and turns through to impact 40° or so.

Want to shorten the pelvis turn a bit? Learn to internally rotate into the trail hip, externally rotate away from the lead hip, and do "less" with your knees (extending and flexing) in the backswing. Learn some separation between chest and pelvis.

#3 - Rolled Inside and Lifted Up

Amateurs love to send the club (and their arms) around them. You see the red golfer here all the time at your local range. The problem? Your arms mostly take the club UP, not around. Going around creates no height until you have to hoist the club up in the air because you're halfway through your backswing and the club is waist high and three feet behind your butt! 😄 

Learn to use your arms properly. Arms = up/down, body = around. Most golfers learn how little their arms really have to do in the backswing. The picture here is all you've gotta do (but maybe with a properly sized club!).

#4 - Wide Takeaway

Width is good, no? Yes, if you're wide at the right time and in the right spots. Golfers seeking width often don't hinge the club much early in the backswing… forcing them to hinge it late.

Hinging the club late puts a lot of momentum into the club, wrists, and elbow just before we need to make a hairpin turn in transition and go the other direction at the start of the downswing.

When you're driving into a hairpin curve, you go into it slowly and accelerate out of it. Waiting to hinge is like coasting down the straightaway and accelerating into the hairpin. Your car ends up off the road, and your golf ball off the course.

Give hinging at a faster rate (earlier) then coasting to the top a try. You'll be able to accelerate out of the hairpin without the momentum of the arms and club pulling in the wrong direction.

#5 - Sway and Tilt

Some sway is good but sometimes I see a golfer who just… keeps… swaying… Their chest leans forward a bit for balance, resulting in a whole lotta lean. The green line below is the GEARS "virtual spine." Pros sway a bit, but stay ~90°.

This sway often combines with the extra pelvis turn because this golfer is not putting ANY limits on what the "middle of them" (their pelvis) is doing in the backswing. These golfers spend a lot of energy just to get back to neutral!

The best players begin pushing forward EARLY in the backswing. Often before the club gets much past their trail foot! Pushing forward (softly) first stops your backward sway and then begins to get your body moving toward the target. Push softly, but early!

Whether it's Scottie Scheffler using his training grip every day, or Justin Thomas learning that he needs to re-find his "home base" (X link) for his putting, or Tiger taking a year working on something before he calls Butch (or Hank, or Sean, or Chris) to say "I've got it," or even a golfer on the course aiming away from a flagstick, discipline may be the single most important skill in golf. Top three for sure (don't hold me to that! 🤣).

I don't always stay disciplined. I don't record video quite as often as I should… I don't go quite as slowly as I should. And yet… I do those things about 15-20x as often as most golfers.

Discipline is making yourself practice something at home at least 15 minutes a day (even if that's five three-minute sessions). Discipline is making yourself see no evil, hear no evil when looking at social media swing tips and just focusing on your one priority piece. Discipline is doing it with nearly constant feedback — recording videos, training aids or "stations" — at the right (almost surely slower than you most can possibly imagine at first) speeds. (Here's a search on X showing a few of my practice stations. They're often pretty similar because… I'm almost always working on similar things.) A typical golfer thinks I'm nuts. I've said on my podcast and written it here on GolfWRX that sometimes, a great practice session includes 50% shanks. Discipline is often not caring where the ball is going.

More and more society seems to be chasing instant gratification. Can't beat that game? Just buy a level-up. Want to get some "likes"? Post an (edited, quite often faked in some way) selfie or something from the beach (ignoring the screaming kids 20 feet away, the sand fleas biting your legs, the sunburn you'll get from forgetting to put sunscreen on the back of your calves, etc.) and your friends will like it by rote and you'll feel a smidgen better about yourself. Golf is not that. Golf is not instant gratification. Golf is WORK. Improvement at golf requires trust that the light will be at the end of the tunnel, because unless you're highly sensitive to seeing light in a small change (or a larger change at a slowspeed), the light at the end of the tunnel is often a LONG ways off.

(This is one of the reasons why some people — I'm not saying anyone here — love the "work on your short game and putting" approach. It's one of the closest things to instant gratification that you'll find in golf, limited as the gains may be. They can see a few more balls going in the hole and see tangible relatively quick improvement. Again, though, it's often small improvement, and it doesn't necessarily stick.)

Few things are more frustrating than giving a great lesson to a 20 handicapper, having them pause, using mirrors, recording every third swing and reviewing it with them, making them hit the ball only 50 yards or so, and leaving them with a very clear message about what and how to practice… only for them to text you the next day with "I went to the range, it went horribly, here's a video of my swing (at full speed, with no rehearsals), what am I doing wrong?" (This is particularly frustrating when you've helped someone for free and they seem to understand and believe everything, and then you see the same type of response and no evidence of them actually putting in the work.)

Even super experienced golfers and lower index players often think (subconsciously at least) that they're going to "get better" from just taking a lesson and practicing for 40 minutes during that lesson. After all, most golfers start to hit it better at the end of the lesson than they were at the beginning. But… golf doesn't work that way. Not at full speed, not quickly.

Being disciplined isn't much fun (getting better can be, but there are a lot of valleys between the small peaks). It means spending 15-60 minutes a day (or five days a week, or whatever) being focused on taking small steps. It means knowing that some days you may actually take a step back, but it won't be as far back as going two or three days without putting in the work. It means knowing that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

How disciplined are you? Could you spend ten minutes less scrolling Instagram or X and spend that on your golf game? While you're waiting for your popcorn, could you use the reflection in your patio door window to work on your golf swing? Can you go at the right speed, with a station set up, and record yourself frequently?

Can you?

Or, more importantly…

Will you?

That's the original link… here's my YouTube copy of the same video:

Here's what a… let's go with "knowledgeable" friend said to me about this video:

Why on earth would you need to test someone's ability to touch their toes to see if they have the physical capability to get into a good set up position? At the beginning of the video Greg demonstrates the hip hinge movement he wants, just see if they can do that. No toe touching required!

He also said they aren't interested in whether a golfer can actually touch their toes, he's trying to see how they hinge from their hips. This doesn't make any sense, as in their screening the criteria is pass or fail for touching toes, there's no scoring for how the person did it, other than that they didn't bend their knees… which is again moronic because you can bend your knees in the swing!

The toe touch isn't a hip hinge test either: it's a hip hinge and spinal flexion test. Everyone that touches their does does so with a combo of both. It's a perfect example of a screening being a distraction rather than additive.

Sure, having good mobility is better than not, but how can a toe touch be informative of the ability to get into a good setup? You can just ask the golfer to set up and see if they can do what you want!

I think it's interesting how many PGA Tour players fail at the TPI tests.

P.S. The Toe Touch test has always been, AFAIK, about the hamstrings. Tight hamstrings = gonna early extend. (But even that's not a truth.)

This video is 11 years old and Dave Pelz has since passed on. And the video above reminded me of this gem of a thread:

I have two issues with this video.

First, Dave's math is once again wrong. Winners historically putt to a level where it accounts for 35% of their "win." Very little of a win is short game, leaving most of the 65% for the full swing.

Second, and perhaps most importantly… he makes the opposite point he thinks he's making. He proves that the short game is easier and that putting is easier to reach a high level, and that most people have no hope of improving their full swing to the point where they can compete with a PGA Tour player. Because that's the area where better players separate themselves the most. That's the area where the biggest batch of strokes to be gained or lost exists for almost every player.

We'll take a look at each of these in a moment, but consider first how putting can behave like a pendulum.

In virtually all good putting strokes, the ball is hit with a slight positive angle of attack (AoA) - about 2-3° or so. This positive AoA helps minimize backspin, produce no spin, or even to produce a tiny bit of forward spin if the dynamic loft is 1-2°. But the point is: the ball is struck while the putter head is ascending, or after low point .

If you were to swing a pendulum back and through, maximum speed would be where? At the bottom. At low point. At every point after that, the speed would be lower. Even one tenth of one degree after low point, the pendulum is slowing down (negative acceleration, or deceleration).

The best putters almost all tend to have a decelerating putter head at or even slightly before impact. Their putting stroke resembles a pendulum, reaching maximum speed at or slightly before impact.

Consider also the length of a pendulum's swing. A theoretical pendulum (no loss of energy to friction) swings as far past center in one direction as it does in the other direction. Whether you measure it in degrees or a linear measurement, the pendulum swings 22.7° left and 22.7° right, or 13.1 inches left and 13.1 inches right.

The best putters almost all tend to have similar length backswings and through-swings in their putting strokes. Their putting strokes continue to resemble a pendulum in this sense.

Now let's take a look at each of these putting strokes.

Here's a putting stroke typical of a golfer who has a terrible time controlling their distances. This golfer may have a great sense of touch from 5-10 feet, maybe even out to 15', but when you ask them to hit a 30' putt, you start to see issues. They'll hit one 27', the next 34', the one after that 25', and then maybe 33'.

These golfers often make a backswing that's - let's just say - eight inches for a six-foot putt, nine inches for a 12-foot putt, and ten inches for a 30-foot putt. They're almost the same length. Then they have to accelerate their putters various amounts to reach various speeds at impact to send the ball various distances.

If you wanted to make a pendulum swing faster at the bottom of the arc, given the same pendulum length and weight (we aren't changing putters or our setup appreciably), how would you accomplish this?

Why… you'd simply pull the pendulum back farther before letting it go.

So look at the speed and time plot of the poor putter above. I've marked the instantaneous speed at two points: just prior to impact and just after impact. Note that impact - even on a putting stroke - severely slows the putter head down. I've exaggerated it quite a bit in these graphs, but that's something I can do given that I haven't added any scale to these charts. :D It simply makes things clearer to see and thus easier to grasp.

At any rate, note that the direction of each of the arrows - both the dashed (pre-impact) and dotted (post-impact) lines is pointing upwards. This means the putter head has positive acceleration. It's speeding up. Note the pronounced "hump" after impact. Though the ball slows the putter head down temporarily, it's still speeding up, so you see a second peak speed after impact.

This golfer is roughly 99% likely to have poor distance control.

Let's look at the good and great putting dynamics (and by good I mean pretty darn good, because as you'll note the differences between these two are subtle):

Note how in Good the putting stroke reaches maximum speed at the ball. The proof of this is that the acceleration is neither positive nor negative - the arrow is pointing horizontally, indicating that the speed is neither going up nor down. Constant speed is no acceleration (positive or negative). Notice that this condition continues immediately after impact, and the putter head continues to slow down thereafter.

In the Great image, the putter head is actually slowing down slightly at impact (the arrow points downward). Then you see the BIG deceleration caused by the putter impacting the ball, and then the deceleration continues from there.

Contrast those with what we often see from the golfers with the absolute worst distance control:

This golfer actually manages to reach peak/maximum speed after the ball has left the putter . Note that his acceleration curve going into impact actually steepens - he is accelerating more at impact than at any other point in the downstroke. Then he accelerates MORE until he rapidly decelerates, well after impact, to bring the putter to a halt.

This is more common than you might think. Golfers have been told for decades to "accelerate through the ball" and to "putt authoritatively" and so on. This advice ranks near the top of my list for counter-productive, harmful advice.

By and large, the poorest putters accelerate far too much for far too long (including up to and after impact), while the best putters have roughly matching backstrokes and through-strokes that deliver the putter head to the ball while it is either not accelerating at all or is negatively accelerating (i.e. decelerating, or slowing down).

If you feel you may be "accelerating" your putter into impact, put three coins on the ground, equally spaced from each other, in a line. Put the ball near the middle one, and practice making backstrokes that go to one and finish at the other. Try to feel that you're not adding anything to the downstroke or follow-through: you're not accelerating the putter much (just let gravity do it - in reality your muscles will contribute, but it's uncommon to feel much muscle contribution) and you're not forcing yourself to "brake" the putter too much at the end, either. Just make a natural, smooth stroke that matches - coin to coin.

To change how far you hit the ball, move the coins farther apart or closer together, keeping the distances the same.

If you still struggle with this, swing to the second or third longest coin, but still try to hit the ball a short distance and finish at the first or second coin on the follow-through.

It's that simple.

P.S. Note that I've made no attempt to show the scale of t and s. Specifically, I've fudged things a bit by implying that the the t is the same for all of these strokes, and that impact occurs at the same moment. This is very unlikely to be true: if you make a short backstroke and accelerate all the way up to and even after impact, you're likely to have a shorter (time) downswing and to reach impact sooner. They line up because I wanted to keep things simple, and because timing isn't really the topic here.

P.P.S. A really old example of a SAM PuttLab read-out can be seen here .

P.P.P.S. (2014-08-13) A great series of pictures and a simple explanation of the "why" is found in post #179:

P.P.P.P.S. (2022-03-20) If you read another post in this topic, check this one out:

But you and I aren't Jack Nicklaus, and I see a lot of players who might benefit from doing something a bit differently.

The clubhead travels over 12 feet during the backswing (and it may be over 15 to 18 depending on what club you're using). If your backswing takes about a second, then you've gotta move the club pretty quickly at some point!

The question becomes this: is it better to move it quickly during the early part or the late part? Should you be fast down near the ball, early in the takeaway, or gradually build up speed with a "low and slow" takeaway?

Let's take a look at a video which represents something I see fairly often from my students.

Let's take a look at the pictures (fast late is on the left, fast early is on the right):

Of course, that kind of gives it away. Look at the difference in the blur of even my arms on the right. I'm moving the clubhead fast here, early in the backswing.

At this point in the backswing, my "fast early" swing (right) is slowing down, while the "fast late" swing (left) is just getting going.

Because the "fast early" swing (right) is under more control, it coasts to a stop much earlier, leaving me in a more controlled (and "shorter") backswing leading into the transition.

In the "Fast Late" swing (left), I'm trying to take it back nice and slow, but unless I want to take three seconds, I've gotta speed it up at some point, so I speed it up late. On the right, I whip the clubhead back comparatively quickly, being fast early, and then just kind of gliding out or coasting to the top.

I think you can see, and probably would agree… that in my examples the right side — fast early — is the better looking swing. Why?

Well, in the "fast late" swings (left), I'm fast really close to the transition. When I want to have the club under control the most, I almost have it under control the least.

On the right, in the "fast early" swings, I throw the clubhead back pretty quickly, then sort of "catch it" near the top and slow it down under full control.

Everyone's unique, and this video is only a 43-second glimpse into it, but give this a try: instead of trying to take the clubhead back slowly, take it back fast and then try to "finish" the backswing by just coasting out not long after the clubhead reaches knee height.

If you found this thread by searching for information on the golf grip, welcome to our site, we have plenty of other great information HERE and make sure to JOIN, it's free! For any regular users of the site, hope this helps your game or confirms what you are currently doing with your grip.

There's another video filmed in 2021 here:

That video is:

Some pics to highlight some common mistakes:

Lead hand

Big NO in the left pic, grip in the palm. Right pic, heel pad on top, grip in the fingers, it will automatically feel more secure.

General idea of how it should look

Anatomical snuffbox. If you shot a nail directly through the top of the wrist (in that little indentation underneath your thumb - the anatomical snuffbox) the nail should come out directly through the bottom of your wrist and into the center of the grip.

Most poor grips would have the nail come out the bottom of the wrist and miss the grip on the left side. This would indicate the wrist joint not sitting on top of the grip.

This is an important aspect of the grip because the incorrect position would assist in early club head throw away on the downswing, basically the wrist joint can't support the downward force of the club.

Two sides of the spectrum here. Too weak in the left pic, note the left hand isn't turned enough and the "nail" would be coming out of the left side of the grip. In the right pic, grip is too strong, left hand is rotated too much, lots of cup (dorsi flexion) in the lead wrist.

This next bit is more of a variation than a commonality, but I think it's beneficial and probably something new even for experienced golfers. Left pic, short lead thumb, right pic, long lead thumb. Make it easy on yourself and go with the long lead thumb. Greatly assists in the mobility of the wrist hinge on the backswing and downswing.

Trail Hand

The placement of the trigger finger pressure point (first pad of your index finger just above the knuckle) is important. Too far under can cause the club face to appear too "closed", face aiming towards the sky at the top of the backswing. Too far on top can cause the face to rotate too far underplane on the takeaway.

Left pic, pressure point is "on top". Right pic is ideal, pressure point on the side or aft side of the grip.

Left pic, pressure point is "under", ideal on the right.

Another common mistake in the left pic, right thumb is running down the middle of the grip. A more functional position on the right, just the upper right "tip" of the thumb is in contact with the grip. Left pic position can contribute more to "casting" or losing leverage at too fast a rate.

The curvature of the rear hand fits into the base of the lead thumb.

Other than looking at your hand position, how do you know if your grip is in the palm of the lead hand? Take a look at some of these clues.

Left pic, the "V" of the rear hand is pointing at my sternum, should be aimed more towards my rear shoulder. In the right pic I haven't "loaded" my wrists enough, shaft angle is also too shallow. The shaft would be pointing outside the ball.

Since there is a lack of structure to the grip, the shaft "collapses" and gets close to my rear shoulder at the top of the backswing. From there I will have to uncock my wrist angles rapidly to get the club back down to the ball.

Golfers will also have a pattern of the location of the wear spot on their glove, under the heel pad, into the palm like the example below. The thumb can also get "shredded" pretty quickly due to the lack of stability in the hand.

When I first got my GEARS system, I immediately looked at the golf swings of the dozens and dozens of Tour players for which I suddenly had full 3D data. I created a huge spreadsheet showing how their bodies moved, how the club moved, at various points in the swing. I mapped knee and elbow angles, hand speeds, shoulder turns and pelvis turns… etc.

I re-considered what I thought I knew about the golf swing as performed by the best players.

One of those things dated back to the earliest days: that you extend (I never taught "straighten" and would avoid using that word unless in the context of saying "don't fully straighten") the trail knee/leg in the backswing. I was mislead by 2D photos from less-than-ideal camera angles — the trail leg rotates a bit during the backswing, and so when observing trail knee flex should also use a camera that moves to stay perpendicular to the plane of the ankle/knee/hip joint.

We have at least two topics here on this (here and here; both of which I'll be updating after publishing this) where @mvmac and I advise golfers to extend the trail knee.

Learning that this was not right is one of the reasons I'm glad to have a 3D system, as most golfers generally preserve the trail knee flex throughout the backswing.

Data

Here's a video showing an iron and a driver of someone who has won the career slam:

Here's what the graph of his right knee flex looks like. The solid lines I've positioned at the top of the backswing (GEARS aligns both swings at impact, the dashed line). Address is to the right, of course, and the graph shows knee flex from the two swings above. The data (17.56° and 23.20°) shows where this player is in both swings (orange being the yellow iron swing, pink the blue driver swing).

You can see that this golfer extends his trail knee 2-3°… before bending it even more than that through the late backswing and early downswing.

Months ago I created a quick Instagram video showing the trail knee flex in the backswing of several players (see the top for the larger number):

Erik J. Barzeski (@iacas) • Instagram reel

---

GEARS shares expert advice on golf swing technique, focusing on the critical backswing phase. Tour winners and major champions reveal the key to a precise and powerful swing, highlighting the importance of...

Here are a few more graphs.

Two LIV players and major champions:

Two PGA Tour winners:

Two women's #1 ranked players:

Two more PGA Tour winners (one a major champ):

Two former #1s, the left one being a woman, the right a man, with a driver:

Two more PGA Tour players:

You'll notice a trend: they almost all maintain roughly the same flex throughout their backswing and downswing.

The Issues with Extending the Trail Knee

You can play good golf extending (again, not "straightening") the trail knee. Some Tour players do. But, as with many things, if 95 out of 100 Tour players do it, you're most likely better off doing similarly to what they do.

So, what are the issues with extending the trail knee in the backswing? To list a few:

Pelvic Depth and Rotation Quality Suffers

When the trail knee extends, the trail leg often acts like an axle on the backswing, with the pelvis rotating around the leg and the trail hip joint. This prevents the trail side from gaining depth, as is needed to keep the pelvis center from thrusting toward the ball. Most of the "early extension" (thrust) that I see occurs during the backswing.

Encourages Early Extension (Thrust) Patterns

When you've thrust and turned around the trail hip joint in the backswing, you often thrust a bit more in the downswing as the direction your pelvis is oriented is forward and "out" (to the right for a righty). Your trail leg can abduct to push you forward, but "forward" when your pelvis is turned like that is in the "thrust" direction.

Additionally, the trail knee "breaking" again at the start of the downswing often jumps the trail hip out toward the ball a bit too much or too quickly. While the trail hip does move in that direction, if it's too fast or too much, it can prevent the lead side hip from getting "back" at the right rate, or at a rate commensurate with the trail hip to keep the pelvis center from thrusting.

Disrupts the Pressure Shift/Transition

When the trail leg extends too much, it often can't "push" forward normally. The forward push begins much earlier than forward motion begins — pushing forward begins as early as about P1.5 to P2 in the swings of most good golfers. It can push forward by abducting, again, but that's a weaker movement that shoves the pelvis forward (toward the target) and turns it more than it generally should (see the next point).

Limits Internal Rotation of the Trail Hip

Internal rotation of the trail hip is a sort of "limiter" on the backswing. I have seen many golfers on GEARS whose trail knee extends, whose pelvis shifts forward (toward the target), and who turn over 50°, 60°, and rarely but not never, over 70° in the backswing. If you turn 60° in the backswing, it's going to be almost impossible to get "open enough" in the downswing to arrive at a good impact position.

Swaying/Lateral Motion

Occasionally a golfer who extends the trail knee too much will shift back too far, but more often the issue is that the golfer will shift forward too early in the backswing (sometimes even immediately to begin the backswing), leaving them "stuck forward" to begin the downswing. They'll push forward, stop, and have to restart around P4, disrupting the smooth sequence often seen in the game's best players.

Other Bits…

Reduces ground reaction force potential, compromises spine inclination and posture, makes transition sequencing harder, increases stress on the trail knee and lower back…

In short…

It's not athletic. We don't do many athletic things with "straight" or very extended legs (unless it's the end of the action, like a jump or a big push off like a step in a running motion).

Update: please see this topic for updated information.

I think we did the latter part, but in the show we did talk briefly about block vs. random practice. I asked him on the show about how someone might appear to be doing block practice (rehearsing the same move with a 7I or something, hitting the same type of shot on repeat), and he said that would likely be what he and others in his field would call Variable Practice.

Now, this is big, because I think block practice gets a bad rap.

In the post-show conversation (not recorded), I asked more questions about this. Basically, block practice to people in this field is literally doing the same exact thing over and over again. Given that definition, and except for the guy literally just hitting drivers on the range, I don't think anyone really ever does block practice.

It casts serious shade on the studies that show block practice is horrible and random practice is the only good way to go. If just altering what you're doing a little, by exaggerating more or less, or doing "the thing" a little more or less, or altering the speed a little is enough to make it "variable" practice, then… do that. It'll look like block practice to others, or at least what they think is block practice, but apparently… it's not!

So, anyway, I'd like to have a discussion on this stuff. The value (or lack of value) in how we practice to ingrain movement improvements.

You'll notice they shred the first six words, and are a bit softer on the last four. (I have a bit less of an issue with "arms straight" than they do, and "tuck hips" isn't terrible.)

Here's how we did it.

The short version? This right here.

The (slightly) longer version? Here we go:

Essentially… the nut of it all is this:

If you make a faster backswing that seeks to reach peak speed earlier, you must apply more force to STOP the club. That force is applied in the downswing direction. Thus, you put more force into the club in the downswing direction.

I see a lot of slow, long, saggy backswings. This golfer had a LOOOONG backswing. It both took a long time, and the club traveled well past parallel (blue = before, yellow = after):

What's interesting is the yellow backswing reached a peak grip speed that was nearly 30% higher:

You'll also notice how much EARLIER the player reached the peak grip speed — just above belly button height (yellow) instead of shoulder height (blue).

What's also interesting is… a backswing that used to take over 1.4 seconds… now took less than one second (0.994s).

The end result?

A nearly 10 MPH jump in clubhead speed, from below LPGA Tour average to 5 MPH above it.

All from making a FASTER backswing, that reached peak speed EARLIER, requiring the player to apply more force in the downswing direction for longer, shortening the backswing (length AND time), leading to a massive jump in clubhead speed.

I posted a Twitter thread about this. Please read it here.

That's the "friend" from the former post… who has worked with Tour players from all major tours and who is the owner/creator of GEARS.

Watch the video. See what you think.

I may eventually merge the topics, but I like this one here with this title for now.

Also, it's kind of a misnomer, because… the lie angles on the set don't curve. They're all the same. 😄 The amount of droop would curve, though…

I've recently switched over to using Skillest, and would like to invite you to join me there. If you've ever been on Evolvr, you can visit there for a lower cost plan that's similar to what I've always offered on Evolvr. If you're new to working with me, please consider working on your game with me at Skillest.

My page is here: https://skillest.com/@iacas.

Thanks! I'll see you there.

This article will assume that you're semi-familiar with the the concepts of course rating and slope, and really seeks to expel some basic myths and misconceptions.

Course Ratings Are the Primary Determinant of "Difficulty"

As you should know, when a golf course is rated (for "difficulty"), many, many, many numbers are generated for each hole. Most of these numbers are pretty objective: the width of the fairway, the length of the hole, elevation changes, the diameter of the green, the depth and size of green side bunkers, etc. A few are subjective, like "how difficult is it to escape if you hit your ball into those trees"?

Two numbers come out of this calculation: a scratch rating and a bogey rating.

The scratch rating is defined as the score a scratch golfer should shoot on rounds where he plays to his handicap index (of 0.0). The bogey rating is the same for a "bogey golfer," (who, oddly, isn't an 18.0 index, but closer to a 20.0, as they're about a 20 course handicap on a 113-slope course).

So, we have two numbers: the score for a scratch golfer and the score for a bogey golfer.

Some basic linear algebra and geometry are used as such:

• Two points define a line.
• We plot those two points on a graph, and draw a line connecting them.
• This line has a "slope" that tells us the "slope rating" of that set of tees.

Remember y = mx + b?

In this case, y is the course handicap, m is the slope (slope rating/113), x is the handicap index, and b is the course rating.

And that's just what we see in a graph:

This is a set of tees with a rating of 72.0 (note that I consider all tees to be par 72 for the simplicity's sake in this article) and a slope of 113.

y = mx + b
CH = 113/113 * (HI) + 0
CH = 1 * HI
CH = HI

This should make sense: on a 72.0 (par 72) course with a slope of 113, we have a basic line with a slope of 1. These golfers should shoot, on average for the eight rounds that count toward their handicap index, these scores:

We could keep the same slope and make the course rating 69.0, and the course would instantly be three shots easier for every golfer. And this leads into what seems to be the biggest misconception. Too many people look at one number - the slope - and use that to determine what the "difficulty" of the course is.

But that fails, because lines are defined by more than their slope: the y-intercept matters. Imagine a course with a rating of "100.0" and a slope of "102." Nobody in their right minds would say that course is "easier" than a 72.0/144-rated course.

Here's a chart of four fictitious golf courses:

The graph of the course handicaps (note that rounding creates some "bumps" in the lines when the slope is not the whole number 1 (113/113):

Showing the trend lines much more heavily:

What these graphs show you is that course "difficulty" is a function of both the "m" and the "b" - the course rating AND the slope.

Look at the 74.0/118 course (grey) and the 72.0/136 course (green). Despite a difference of 18 in their slope, for the majority of these golfers, the 74.0/118 course plays "more difficult" due to the higher starting point of 74.0. It's not until you get out to about a 14.0 index that you start to see the expected scores for the 72.0/136 course take over due to the slope.

Look at all of the lines, in fact: the yellow line (69.0/140) remains lower for most of the graph than even the two 72.0 courses (blue 113, green 136), and well below the grey course (74.0/118). But this is because the course rating varies by 3 and 5 (69 to 72 and 74), while the slope can only make up fractions of a stroke (140/113 =~ 1.24 course handicap strokes per 1.0 strokes handicap index).

So, the course rating is the primary determinant of a course's difficulty.

The slope tends to matter in only two situations:

• The difference in handicap indexes is LARGE.
• The course ratings are quite close together.

The first matters because the slope has more time to keep adding "tenths of a shot" to the course handicap. The second matters because it's easier to overcome a deficit of 0.2 or 0.3 than a deficit of 2.4 or 3.1.

But What about + Handicaps?

Next look at the 72.0/113 course in blue. This course crosses the 72.0/136 (green) course at 0.0, and for everyone with a handicap on the opposite side from + handicaps, the green course is "more difficult" than the blue course.

But on the left side of scratch, the green course is "easier" than the blue course? Why is that?

Because the slope is the relative difference in difficulty between a good player and a worse player.

The "0.0" seems to throw people off, but the fact that we have + handicaps tells you that's not the absolute lowest anyone can go. Think of it this way: if a 13.0 gets 6 shots from an 8.0 due to the slope, then a +5.0 should give up six shots to a 0.0 too (there are occasionally rounding things that change this a little, on either side). The slope is the same, and so a change in "x" (the handicap index) should result in the same difference in course handicap (the y axis) because the slope of the line is constant.

Another way to think of it: add the course's par to the course handicap. If we called scratch golfers "72.0 golfers" on a 72.0-rated course, then you can see how a "67.0-rated golfer" should give up 5 shots to a "72.0 golfer" on a 72.0/113 course, and six shots to a 72.0/140 course.

67.0 * 140/113 = 83
72.0 * 140/113 = 89

Right?

The same math, essentially:

-5.0 * 140/113 = -6
0.0 * 140/113 = 0

Make sense?

Good. The final thing…

Stroke Indexes and "Hole Difficulty"

I'll try to keep this one short: the "stroke index" (handicap index) of the hole is NOT the "difficulty" of the hole.

It's a measure of where the higher handicapper is most likely to need a stroke against a lower handicapper.

Why are (or were, see the note below) par fives often the lower stroke index holes? Because:

• Better players tend to birdie or par them.
• Worse players tend to bogey them.

The increased distance gives a better player more chances to recover and more of an opportunity to show off their length. Consider the example of a one-foot putt versus a 50-foot putt: both the high and low handicapper are just going to tap in all the time on the one-footer, but the low handicap player is going to win a match of 50-foot putts against the worse player much more often.

To good players, par threes — often the high stroke index holes — are the "more difficult" holes relative to par. That's why they're traditionally the higher stroke index holes - the high handicapper isn't as likely to need a stroke against the better player.

Note: This stuff used to be calculated by courses literally turning in about 400 scorecards, which would all be entered hole-by-hole, and computed to determine which holes had the largest gaps between "better players" and "worse players." The holes would be ranked, the data massaged so that the first six holes didn't give out the strokes 1 to 5, and away we'd go.

The USGA and R&A have learned, however, that the actual location of strokes doesn't really matter all that much, so long as they're not clustered (like the example of stroke index holes 1-5 in the first six holes of the course). So, to make things simpler, they've come up with the idea of "triads" and are assigning stroke indexes via that method. You can read more about that method here: https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/handicapping/roh/Content/rules/Appendix E Stroke Index Allocation.htm. In essence, it maintains the idea of the relative difficulty* while making things much simpler and not requiring all the "massaging" that was done before, and adequately spreads out the low- and high-stroke-index holes so that matches are not decided in the first six holes or before the last six holes are reached.

* To quasi-make up some numbers, a par 3 is likely to be 3.3 versus 3.5, for a total of 0.8 above par, while a par five is likely to be 4.9 versus 6.3, for a total of 1.2 above par.

I think that I had a similar experience with three (the fourth episode wasn't really related) episodes of Golf IQ with Dr. Luke Benoit (links below).

I found these episodes almost provocative, and Benoit makes a few shocking (to me) statements. He also says a lot of things with which I agree, too, but I'm more interested in the shocking things. I'd like to think most of them aren't just a form of advertising, but… perhaps they are, as the podcast series seems to be at least subtly to promote his as yet unreleased $20/month Parallax app. It all seems to be tied to or similar to this: https://rypgolf.com/pages/ryp-ignite. That page says many of the same things said in the podcast, namely (emphasis added by me)…

Quote

Built around the proprietary 7-Step Swing Change™, you'll rebuild your mechanics from the ground up — the right way. You'll go beyond positions and learn how to sequence, integrate, and retain change through the 5 Up, 5 Down, 5% Rule™.

But I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit. The short version of my notes from each of the three (or four) podcasts is below. Please assume all quotes are lightly paraphrased, and it should hopefully be clear which thoughts are mine and which are Benoit's:

Podcast 1: https://overcast.fm/+7Qf99wzRQ

• 2:50 - "Blow up traditional model of golf teaching, best way to get better is not to go to the range." - I tend to agree, and often recommend to students that they get some foam balls and make motions in mirrors or in their garage. As little as 3 minutes, 5 times a day can lead to change. (Not a ton, but more than doing nothing five days a week and going to the range once and playing once.)
• 3:40 - Benoit/his players struggled to make changes because he tried to hit good shots while changing his swing. Again, I tend to agree.
• 6:20 - First mention of seven step process. I'll talk more about this later on, but this isn't fleshed out well.
• 8:00 - "The engine is the pivot, the arms are the steering wheel." One of the confusing things here is that Benoit talks about how he doesn't work on backswing much, but the pivot which is step 1, and the steering wheel (particularly at the top and through the transition), are backswing, no? I agree with the descriptions: pivot = engine, arms/hands = steering wheel. I disagree strongly that most golfers don't need to work on the backswing.
• 9:20 - Benoit says "first we make sure the pivot is good, then we start 2/3 back and into the downswing." So what do you do when the pivot isn't good? Benoit gave an example of how he fixes EE by forcing the golfer to move the chest down dramatically (example). Hmm.
• 10:00 - "Some coaches think the backswing matters. … Let's fix terrible transition and terrible impact. … Pretty easy to attach a good backswing later." Hmmmm again.
• 10:45 - Mentions starting with no ball, then alternating freezers and smoothies. Gives GG credit earlier for popularizing the freezer, which… That's been around since teaching.
• 12:30, 13:00 - 30 days to get "close to Tour player looking swing." and "Modern instruction sucks at teaching change." Hmmmmmm. Big promises.

Episode 2 - https://overcast.fm/+7Qf-QTNOQ - Skill transfer episode

• 1:11 - No ball, foam ball, real ball. No problem with that progression from where I am. I've started using no ball and foam balls more. Golfers are more accepting of it than I thought they'd be. Being indoors I already saw benefits of not worrying a ton about ball flight immediately (even though my QuadMAX is running all the time).
• 2:00 - Mentions the seven-step process and Parallax app again.
• 3:00 - Criteria is "within 5% of a PGA Tour model for five consecutive swings. … You start every session at the beginning, with the pivot/engine" with no ball and a club on your shoulders before you get to move on. This is backswing, right?
• 4:00 - Engine (pivot), steering wheel (arms), foam ball, real ball. At this point I'm still not really sure what all seven steps are. Best I can figure:
  1. Pivot with club on shoulder (backswing only?)
  2. Pivot with club in hands (steering wheel)
  3. Freezer
  4. Smoothie
  5. Hit a foam ball
  6. Hit a real ball
  7. ???
• (cont.) Are 3 and 4 without a ball? I know he wants you to alternate freezers and smoothies at one point, too. Maybe the real #3 is a good pivot backswing and downswing?
• 7:00 - ACE loop - Analyze, Calibrate, Exaggerate. Okay… Fine with all of those. That's how I teach people to practice, and feedback is critical.
• 8:10 - "Perfect process is pivot at home (club across shoulders, no ball), freezer (add steering wheels, full speed downswing), step 3 is freezer/smoothie alternating" - Not clear on the seven steps.
• 9:20 - Benoit wants you to think about 17 things, not one, two, or three, and "in 2-3 weeks your swing will look 'unbelievable'." Hmmmmm.
• 10:50 - After freezers/smoothies alternating, real golf ball with same alternating. Still not sure what the seven steps are — maybe I'm a dummy.

Episode 3 - https://overcast.fm/+7Qf9oUORI

• 1:00 - Benoit hates block practice. My problem is they never define it very well, like good block practice. Also, I'm not sure how just working on the pivot until you can make 5 swings within 5% of a PGA Tour player's pivot isn't block practice.
• 2:00 - "Look at how people practice in other sports and there's very little debate." @MonteScheinblum and I have talked about this too — players in other sports do a bunch of block practice. They do a bunch of skill practice, too.
• 4:00 - LKD points out that it's block practice when you just work on the pivot. 😄 
• 5:00 - Impact opposites. "Solves path and face issues. Just do opposites. … We don't care about how your mechanics do it." Hmmmm. IMO golfers who try to hit hooks (or whatever) to fix their slice often learn a horrible way to do it. Golfers rarely self organize well/efficiently.
• 6:30 - "Good players use alignment sticks. … Lab step 1 - good setup, consistent. Step 2 - no alignment rod, switch targets."
• 8:30 - "If you're shanking it I'm just going to teach you to hit the toe and it's not that hard." We disagree here. Sometimes it's a hand-eye coordination thing, or a concept mismatch, but most often, IMO, it's a swing that's prone to hitting it off the toe. I can shank a ball on command, but I tend to palmar flex and get a little handle high and hit it out of the toe. Changing the mechanics is the true long-term fix, not just learning to shank it on command.
• 12:00 - "You should never be thinking of swing thoughts on the golf course." But then he says swing feels are okay? I call them one and the same.

Episode 4 - https://overcast.fm/+7Qf_uta5g

• 1:00 - Discusses transfer to the arena (golf course), so… not particularly relevant to this thread/topic. I will say that they differentiate between a swing thought as a sentence or words and I think of a swing thought and a feel as the same thing, because I've not really known anyone thinking "keep your left arm straight" during the backswing (but I'm sure they're out there). Anyway, not really the topic, so…

So… some thoughts. Consider these bullet points, but just in paragraph form.

I'm still not sure what his seven-step process is. They touched on it a few times, and maybe I missed it or I'm being a dummy… but what are they? Maybe the step I missed is moving from your garage/home to the range to the course?

The "attach a good backswing later" part stuck out as one of the most intriguing things he said, because… I teach a lot of backswing, and golfers generally make a much better downswing from a better backswing. They have a different problem to solve. I also found this bit confusing — the pivot and the "steering wheel" stuff felt like it was backswing… and the pivot within 5% of a Tour player stuff includes the backswing… no?

I think he's going to be hard pressed to actually come up with something that will have everyone making a "tour looking golf swing" (paraphrased) "in about 30 days" (barely paraphrased). Golfers have deeply embedded patterns that are tough to change. Even going from no ball where you can exaggerate the crap out of a movement to a foam ball sees a huge drop-off in quality or amount of exaggeration, in my experience.

The backswing stuff, man, I'd love to dive deep into that. So many golfers create such a screwy backswing, with momentum and body parts going all the wrong directions, that I have a lot of doubt about "attach a good backswing later." Just as I have a lot of doubt about the ability of golfers to truly "fix" things by just doing the opposite.

What are your thoughts? I gave links above, but I'm sure you can find the episodes on your podcast player of choice.

Does anyone know what the seven steps are?

What do you think you can add to the list?

And before I get a bunch of people saying a bunch of things… here is a brief list of things I am not saying in this post:

• Their results stink.
• They should have changed their swings and/or would have had more success with a different swing. (Though, interestingly, all three were regularly talked about as having underperformed in their careers.)
• I (or anyone else I coach or know on a personal level) have a better swing.

What do these swings have in common? They're lauded as great swings. Why? Because they're smoooooooth. At real speed, we see the tempo and rhythm and flow and the way the swings "gather" at the top… and call them good because they're pleasing to watch.

A lot like this fella (originally from here, but since IG doesn't embed anymore…):

This guy got a lot of traction for a hot minute on how great his swing looked. But…

🤮

If this guy likes what he's doing… more power to him. But if he wanted to get better at golf… I have some ideas. 😉 I just hope the butt of his grips are clean, because if not, he's gonna have streaks across his right pocket.

I named a few people up above. Major champions. All lauded over the years, but…  Let's take them one by one.

Ernie Els

Known far and wide as "The Big Easy," Ernie won 19 times on the PGA Tour including four majors. But, the way he uses his lower body always bugged me:

Ernie's right knee almost surely increases its amount of flex, with a decent amount of pelvis movement toward the golf ball (really "early extension") during the backswing. I can't help but wonder if Ernie would have hit it much farther than he did (though Ernie wasn't a short hitter by any stretch of the definition, Tim Herron — a guy named "Lumpy" — outdrove Els in 1996) if he used his legs differently.

This unique knee action led to a bit of a "stuck" position on the downswing:

I'd be really curious to see Ernie's GEARS numbers for hips and shoulders, as the latter appears to lag well behind the former. But he didn't get the nickname "The Big Easy" for no reason.

Louis Oosthuizen

Some long-time people will know where I'm about to go with this one. The one-time major champion (his only PGA Tour win) has been called a "sweet swinger," but does the same thing that draws the ire of recreational golfers across the globe:

That's early extension, with Louis looking like | at impact. Though he wants to ride around on his tractor and maintain a farm, one has to hope he doesn't have any goats on the farm. 😳

Fred Couples

Fred's swing reminds me of a lot of 12 handicappers who don't understand why they keep fatting the ball and hitting across it.

His swing starts with a minimal turn and a lot of elbow folding as he pulls the arms across his chest. Ultimately, he'll add a little turn at the end… as the right elbow works almost completely behind his shirt seam and away from the golf ball, ending up well "behind him:

This is "stuck" — but to solve it, Fred will try to tuck his right elbow in, but being unable to do that completely or fast enough… he'll just instead add a bunch of right tilt to help the clubhead get down to the ground:

That's to say little of the "fake strong" grip that's well up in his left palm, and which plays significantly weaker than it does.

I can't help but wonder if Fred's back issues could have been reduced without the need to turn in right side flexion as much as he did/does.

Again, I am not saying in this post:

• Their results stink.
• They should have changed their swings and/or would have had more success with a different swing. (Though, interestingly, all three were regularly talked about as having underperformed in their careers.)
• I (or anyone else I coach or know on a personal level) have a better swing.

So, what am I saying? I'm saying two things, primarily, and I'm not even saying these apply in all cases:

Smoothness

A "smooth" tempo and rhythm will make any golf swing look better to a lot of people. Nick Price was a better golfer than Fred Couples, but few looked at Nick Price's swing with the reverence they reserved for Boom Boom.

Pros vs. Ams

Pros can get away with a lot of stuff because it's their job and they've likely always swung that way. That doesn't mean that a guy who plays or practices two times a week should be okay with these moves, because they're going to have a much harder time timing them or getting the peak performance out of them.

And I'll be clear about this, too: generally speaking, pros make simpler, easier golf swings than regular players. They often move their body parts less than an average golfer, with fewer compensations. Most good golfers don't trap their right elbow way behind themselves like Fred does. Most don't move their pelvis toward the golf ball during the backswings like Ernie or downswings as much as Louis.

Bad golfers do those and so many more things.

These golfers are the exceptions; not necessarily swings to study and mimic.