February, 2018 | Wayne DeFrancesco

Lesson of the Week: Andrew Teo – Tempo and How a Shut Clubface Affects the Backswing

Andrew is a 6 handicap who could be much better given his athletic ability and the nice sequencing of his swing. He complains of inconsistency, and I spotted two things immediately that I wanted to change that I felt would simplify his swing and make him a better ball striker. The first was the radically closed clubface in the backswing.

Lesson of the Week: Gene Slavens- Poor Posture Leading to Early Extension

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

If you’ve been watching my lesson posts you must have noticed by now a common pattern whereby an address position pressured more toward the heels inevitably leads to the entire pelvis moving forward toward the ball during the swing, leaving the left leg in the way of the swing’s rotation and causing the right upper trunk to hang back in the forward swing. There is no way to achieve much of a forward leaning impact when the body is facing the ball at contact, so the first priority in a swing like Gene’s is to get him some depth in the right side of his pelvis in the backswing, then keep that depth in transition and into the downswing so that he has a chance to drive the right shoulder and arm down the plane and to get the hands more forward at impact.

Wayne D. Changing Swing Shape- February 2018

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

I’ve been trying to figure out why I consistently lean into the front of my left foot in transition, a move which I believe throws off my sequence and eventually is one of the causes of my throw release and forward exit. I am now focusing on the lifting of my hands and arms from P3 to P4 while I straighten my right knee, which, along with a bit too much rightward movement of my upper body in the backswing, leads to the move I hate. In this video you can see my left arm looks more horizontal at P4, which gives it a deeper, more Hogan-like look.

Online Lesson: Harley Holohan – Heel Heavy Posture Leads to Arm Lift and Hands Dropping in Transition

By Wayne | Videos: Online Students

It’s obvious why Harley is a low handicap player: he has an excellent swing. In this lesson my suggestions focus on posture and transition, where I see Harley raising up from P3 to P4 and then dropping his hands and right arm behind him from P4 to P5. I trace this issue back to Harley’s initial posture at address, where being a bit heavy in the heels and not really out over the ball leads to the right side of his lower body not deepening in the backswing, and as his pelvic motion works into his left hip heading to the top he lifts his arms and comes off his tush line. The usual pattern follows where you can see the butt end of the grip work backwards behind his right side while his hips continue to drive out toward the ball.

Lesson of the Week: Seth Fuller-Working on Posture and Downswing Plane

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

Seth has been a website fan for some time and traveled all the way from Texas to pay me a visit here in Boca Raton. After watching his first few swings produce less than stellar shots I could see right away that we needed to focus our attention on the takeaway (which whipped way behind him) and his alignment and weight distribution at address, as he was aiming to the right (even with an alignment stick between his feet and the ball) and had his weight back into his heels. As usual with this type of setup for non-tour players, the general pivot movement during the swing works toward the ball, which, along with having the lower body closed, does not allow for timely rotation of the pelvis and encourages right leg thrusting and early extension.

Lesson of the Week: Chuck Winograd Making Progress

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

In this video I do a side by side of Chuck to show his progress from out first lesson a month ago to now. Chuck lives and works in Canada and has been in and out of town but when he is in Florida he has taken the time to see me about a dozen times. In talking to Chuck, it is apparent that he has never been given an objective assessment of his swing issues, and he gets frustrated at the lack of obvious improvement from day to day. This is usually the case with highly successful people who are used to being able to incorporate change almost immediately after learning new information, but, as we all know, this does not usually hold true with golf, especially if the swing flaws have developed over a long period of time and are deeply ingrained. As you will see here Chuck has improved just about every part of his swing, and if we can get his pelvis moving in the right direction I think we will take another substantial leap forward.

Online Lessons: John Krystynak Part 5

By Wayne | Videos: Online Students

In this video I compare John’s swing from April of 2015 to now, and while we see some improvement it is also obvious that John has swing patterns that are hard to change. My sense of John’s takeaway is that both arms get too rigid just as the club moves back, and the left arm is forced to move out and around a right arm that won’t bend enough to allow the left to move more across the chest. At the same time there needs to be more vertical raising of the clubhead from the beginning by adding wrist cock. The larger issue here is the failure to deepen the pelvis and the overuse of the right shoulder to extend the turn as he gets to the top of the swing.

Lesson of the Week: Lon Tabatchnik- Posture Causing All Sorts of Problems

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

Lon is a very strong, athletic guy who has managed to maintain a high single digit handicap despite some serious swing issues. Recently he has fallen on hard times, and one of his friends, a regular student of mine, gifted him with a series of lessons. What you see here is a result of only two hours’ worth of work, and I think you’ll agree that his rapid improvement proves that a good athlete with strength and coordination can accomplish quite a bit technique – wise in a short period of time.

Online Lessons: Phil Pfeiffer Part 4

By Wayne | Videos: Online Students

My actual game on the golf course is telling me that we must be making some real progress. My handicap index is down to 0.6 (the lowest of my life), I’ve had a couple nice tournament results, and I almost never shoot anything higher than about 75 in casual rounds anymore. I still don’t really strike it with consistent solidness, but I just don’t seem to hit very many damaging shots either. It’s like we’ve gotten enough good stuff in there so that I can at least play.

TP&C: Tony Romo Swing Golf Swing Analysis February 2018

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

I had a great time playing 3 straight days with Tony as his partner in the Isleworth Invitational, a Pro-am event with players such as John Cook, Nick O’Hern, and many other excellent players including a lot of younger guys working at Isleworth and playing the mini-tours. Tony has made some nice progress with his swing technique over the past year after coming back from multiple back surgeries due to football injuries, even while missing a bunch of playing and practice time with his new position as lead NFL announcer for CBS Sports.

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Monthly Archives: February 2018