By Wayne | Videos: Playing For Money
Derek was playing the mini-tours a couple years ago when he found me down in Florida, and we worked a few times to try to improve his ball striking, which was pretty good but not good enough to shoot the kinds of scores needed to make money playing. After this is posted I expect Derek to post on the forum what he has done to accomplish such major changes.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis
This is a great companion to the Jimmy Walker high soft bunker shot video I did a few weeks ago. Here Castro takes his Pitching Wedge and hits what amounts to an open face punch shot from the sand that finishes about 6 feet from the cup. In contrast to Walker’s shot (wide open stance, out to in cut across swing), Castro plays this from an almost dead square stance, then makes an on plane backswing and flattens the shaft on the way down while keeping his left wrist cupped and the face open. He cuts off the finish at waist high, producing a shallow but driving strike.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week
Peter is a very good player (he has qualified for the U.S. Mid-Am) who works a lot and doesn’t have time to practice a whole lot. He enjoys working on his swing (he sees a teacher in Chicago) and is a willing student. He is quite strong and has a nice, fluid motion, and I have concentrated in the few times we have worked on helping him improve his grip, stance and posture while going over how I would like to see him simplify his swing. His tendency is to trigger his swing with a sitting back movement and then bow his left wrist while moving his arms and hands away from his body.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Articles: Becoming a Better Player
It would be nice if one swing would work fine for every shot. Certainly, every swing has elements that are similar or even exactly the same, but if you are going to drive the ball well and hit your irons well you are going to have to make adjustments. The key factor here is that with an iron the ball is on the ground (if you’re on a par 3 and can use a tee you should still tee it up low enough to simulate a very good lie in the fairway) while the driver is teed about halfway above the top of the face of the driver, a good inch and a half off the ground.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Improvement
We start this lesson with an idea and to get that idea across I use a face-on driver swing of Ben Hogan as an example of what I want Peter to try and do. Peter’s right hip is returning to where it started causing a lift in transition. I want him to keep his right hip deep and drive it forward towards the target like the Hogan example including the snapping the left leg behind.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis
This is a quick update on my progress utilizing the “drag, flare, and open” takeaway I came up with recently while studying Hogan for the millionth time. It is helping to accomplish a bunch of things I have trying to do with my backswing: get the shaft up on the plane from the beginning of the takeaway (instead of cutting under), keep my upper right arm spaced away from me and higher at left arm parallel, and keep the club on plane and not crossing the line at the top (rotating the wrists and keeping the left wrist cupped externally rotates the right shoulder sooner which in turn stops the lifting of the elbow and lays the shaft off more to the left).
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Online Students
“I had a decent summer. Hit it really well in the beginning of the summer and actually struggled mostly with my putting but the ball striking got a little shaky towards the end. I missed the cut in a web.com event by 1 putting horribly. I was medalist in my US AM qualifier but struggled at the Am mostly off the tee, missing the cut by 2.” – Jake was down to Florida to see me in January, so I took this opportunity to compare how he was swinging at the end of that session to the swings he just sent.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis
Grillo has a wonderful swing which produces Dustin Johnson and Jordan Speith-like impact positions without the bowed left wrist at the top of the swing. The secret here is his great pivot movement combined with wonderful use of the right arm and the squaring of the face with the left forearm and wrist. Grillo’s right arm action is not like Hogan’s at all in the backswing as he externally rotates his upper arm and elbow almost immediately in the takeaway and keeps it in front of him during the backswing, but in the forward swing he drives the elbow way in front of his ribcage and gets his hands forward at impact as much as anyone on Tour.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis
There’s not much to say about this one except that Summerhays has what I consider to be the best swing mechanics on Tour, or at least he swings as close to what I prefer in a swing as anyone. Watch and enjoy!
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis
Here we have a nice fixed camera shot of Rory striking an iron on a long par 3, and lo and behold there goes his head dropping copious amounts. Of course, I have always argued that this is a totally natural, athletic and powerful movement causes by the pivot, but you still hear knuckleheads talk about “dipping” being detrimental to the swing. What amazes me the most is how Rory has been spared the ridiculous criticism that was constantly leveled at Tiger Woods for doing the exact same thing.
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