April, 2018 | Wayne DeFrancesco

Swing Analysis: Joaquin Niemann

This 19-year-old was the #1 amateur in the world before he turned pro last week at the Texas Open, where he finished 6th, shooting 12 under and birdieing the last 3 holes. I find his set up and backswing pretty standard for a Tour caliber player, but his swing really gets interesting in the downswing and into impact. He demonstrates a lot of what I like to teach, compressing hard into the ground by adding hip flexion in transition and radically flattening the shaft from P4 to P5. He keeps his right arm bent well past impact (I compare him to the great Byron Nelson) and produces and extreme amount of right side bend in the follow through. I guess 19-year-old bodies can handle this, and since he has gotten so good so quickly I wouldn’t expect him to change anything until something starts to hurt. Whatever the case, it will be fun to watch him as he tries to secure a Tour card without going through Q-School.

Lesson of the Week: Mark Armstrong 2 – Posture, Width, and Impact

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

Mark was referred to me by his friend Derek Gillespie, the Latin Tour Professional from Canada. Mark is a good player but seeing the improvement in Derek’s swing he was inspired to first send in his swing for an online lesson, then come down to see me at the club in Boca. Mark feels that it is his ball striking that is holding him back from reaching his next level, and he is looking for advice on how to improve it. When I saw his first swings I immediately focused on his posture. I think it is a huge deal to have a stance that promotes the things you would like to do with your swing, which is why I’m so against heel-oriented set ups. I don’t ever want to feel like I’m moving forward in the direction of the ball, and if I set up with my weight in my heels and I’m a normal person I’m going to gravitate toward my toes during the swing.

Lesson of the Week: Chuck Winograd 3-Seeing Nice Improvement

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

Chuck lives in Canada and I won’t see him again probably until December, so this video is a summary of our work over the 3- month period at Boca Rio in Florida from Jan.1 to April 1, with reminders for things Chuck needs to focus on when he practices and plays this summer and fall. Chuck wasn’t doing so well when we started, and it was a real struggle at first, but he really started showing signs of coming around by the end of our time together.

Wayne D Working on Bunker Technique

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

I hadn’t been in the bunker with the camera for a while and since I am changing my technique a bit from an out to in path with an open stance and open face to a more square stance and a shallower approach I thought it would be a good idea to see if I were really doing what I was thinking about. As you will see in the first attempt I am still keeping the shaft in front of me and coming from quite a bit out to in.

Set Up Routine: Rose, DeChambeau and Woods

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

I didn’t pick these players for any particular reason other than the TV coverage caught their entire set up routine, and I like to look at and time what they do before each shot. Routine is an especially important concept for young players to learn, but it can help anyone who is serious about the game by standardizing their movements prior to starting the swing. Having a routine helps in several ways, the most important of which is having a way to quickly go through a checklist (grip, alignment, distance from the ball, balance front to back and side to side, ball position, foot placement, etc.), making sure that you are not dooming yourself before the hard part starts.

Lesson of the Week: Mike Barile PGA- Trigger, Tempo, Impact

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

Mike is an assistant professional working in Orlando who has watched the Wayne D. website for years and has now taken advantage of me being in Florida to come down and see me in person to hopefully change his swing for the better. His reporting on his play in general has the usual focus points: inconsistency and overall below standard ball striking leading to scores that don’t garner high finishes in the professional events in which he plays.

Lesson of the Week: Jimmy Farina-Why is it so Different When the Ball is There?

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

“Why Can’t I Just Do That?”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that question when a player looks at a practice swing, or a drill swing, and compares it side by side with the one that has to hit the ball. Jimmy knows what his issues are and is consciously trying to avoid doing what you see him doing here, but unfortunately for Jim his swing is an engrained pattern and if he gets off to a bad start the bad pattern will always be close to the same. Here we see Jimmy on the course (the Medalist Club- what a great place! Greens were glass, so much fun to play) sabotaging himself with his trigger, not an uncommon thing. Anyone with an early extension, right hip thrusting, goat humping issue simply cannot afford to have a “sitting” trigger where the knees bend towards the ball and the foot pressure moves towards the heels. He must become more aware of what his pelvis is doing, and the best way to get the brain to remember what to tell the muscles to do is to set up and start the club back with the midsection muscles engaged enough to either maintain or increase anterior pelvic tilt.

Lesson of the Week: John Krystynak Part 6

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

John decided to come to Florida to see me in person after seeing his last video lesson from a month or so ago. He has worked hard on changing his swing but there are too many issues to concentrate on, and the pattern that has been ingrained is a particularly difficult one to alter. Our first issue is John’s takeaway, which triggers with a tightening of both arms and a pull back of the upper body. We want to quiet his first move by keeping his elbows soft and utilizing the upper trunk to move the arms back instead of rotating the left arm outward and pinching the right elbow in. Changing a trigger is a tough deal and requires a lot of focus and concentration, and that is only the beginning of what John needs to do to get his swing to be where he would like it to be. John also tends to slide his hips a bit to the right going back, another item to try to fix up. We work with stop and goes to practice hitting with the backswing changes, also raising the grip up at address to make it easier for him to swing the hands and arms more deeply across his chest getting to P3.

Swing Analysis: Alex Norén- What’s Up with that Rehearsal?

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

Alex Norén has been playing some great golf recently and should have won the Match Play Championship or at least made it to the finals had his putter not gone ice cold against Kisner in the semis. His ball striking is phenomenal and obviously superior to just about anyone else out there, and one of my best golf nut friends reported in from the range at the Honda Classic that he hadn’t seen or heard the ball struck like that since he watched Hogan. What I concentrate on here is Norén’s pre-swing rehearsal, where he purposefully drives his upper right arm and elbow in front of his ribcage while squeezing the left arm against his chest and opening his hips to a maximum degree prior to the clubhead reaching impact. This comes directly from Hogan, who demonstrated many times his idea of the importance of the hips leading the downswing with the right elbow pitching in in a combination underhand, sidearm throwing motion. In his rehearsal Noren’s hands move outward, but in his actual swing they move more straight down, something that most players who are as vertical with the left arm at the top will do. Norén’s move with his right arm ensures him that it won’t get stuck behind him, and as his hands get well in front of the ball at impact with his left arm being pulled by his trunk his release is well around to the left. Interesting stuff that has proven results, and something I’ve been teaching forever, although not with this level of exaggeration. If you try to emulate his rehearsal you will see and feel how physically demanding it is.

Monthly Archives: April 2018