November, 2018 | Wayne DeFrancesco

Lesson of the Week: Scott Kremer- Posture Induced Hip Depth Issues Leading to Path Problems

After watching Scott hit his first few shots, I knew that we could make some serious progress right away given that he was setting up well back into his heels. His shot pattern was a pull draw that turned into a major pull hook, and it was obvious that after setting up in his heels he was moving toward the ball immediately in the takeaway with his hands and arms as well as his hips. This is a common issue that gives the player a backswing that has a large progression from P1 to P3, an upright appearance at the top, and no room for the right arm to get in front of the body without pushing the hands well away from where they started at address. Once I got Scott to set up more out over the ball and concentrate on trying to deepen his right hip in the backswing, we could then talk about the feeling of the left arm staying more against the chest and the club approaching the ball from more behind him. We then added the idea of keeping the hips deep in the forward swing and aiming the lateral movement more to the left instead of straight out to the target, which reduced his lateral slide and gave him the feeling of sidearm throwing. The shorter swings we filmed at the end of the lesson with the help of the Spine Board looked particularly improved, and Scott left feeling like he was definitely on the right track.

Playing for Money: Matt Shubley 3- Right Arm Issues Causing Stuck Approach

By Wayne | Videos: Playing For Money

I’ve been working with Matt for just over a year now and after graduating from college he has turned professional with his eye on next year’s Web.Com Q-School. Matt won his first event as a pro but has struggled a bit since with a 2 way miss. He has incorporated more lateral left movement into his iron game (he had little or none when we started) and improved his impact alignments significantly, but he always slips back into a pattern he has had long before I met him where he overturns his right arm and shoulder in the backswing and then drops his hands and arms straight down or even behind him in transition, which almost guarantees a “stuck” approach position with the clubhead heading toward impact from well behind his hands, leading to an overly in to out attack that precludes any sort of left to right shot and requires more face rotation through impact than we would like. My suggestions here are pretty standard for the issues: try to keep the upper right arm more in front of the chest in the backswing by encouraging more external rotation of the right shoulder along with more forearm rotation, then concentrating on moving the hands out toward the ball (or even above it) while leaning the shaft back on the right index finger in order to keep the shaft approaching from above the right forearm from P5 to P6. Matt has been successful at fixing this before, and the fact that the problem continues to reemerge goes to show how stubborn such patterns are.

Swing Analysis: Denny McCarthy- Extra Deep Pelvic Movement Provides Space

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

You may not have heard of Denny McCarthy but after his dominating victory in the Web.Com Tour Championship there are real signs that he is ready to make his mark on the PGA Tour. Denny is local to the DC area (3-time Maryland State Open Champion as an amateur, played in college at Virginia) and qualified for the Web.Com Tour at the end of 2015. He spent two full years on the Web.com, finally achieving his PGA Tour card for 2018, where he made 13 of 22 cuts and just under $500.000. His victory gained him the #1 ranking for money earned in the Web.Com finals, which gives him fully exempt status on the PGA Tour for 2019. He is small at 5’9” and 165 lbs. but in great shape and very strong, which is readily observable when you watch his pivot movement. He planes the club nicely and gets away with a substantial upper body back up in his backswing by keeping his pelvis deep and firing his glutes late in the forward swing, giving him the appearance of jumping up into impact without early extending. He keeps his arms and shaft well out in front of him which keeps the club from getting stuck and makes a left to right shot pattern more likely. His stats show issues with driving accuracy, but he showed huge improvement in that regard in 2018.

Lesson of the Week: Phil Cargile- Big Improvement in 2 Hours

By Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week

This video is a bit long but if you hang in there and watch the whole thing, I think you will find it quite instructive. Phil is 55, around a 10 handicap, and has a swing that looks much better than it works. His issues are classic; takeaway slightly inward and behind him, overuse of the right arm at the top, hands dropping behind him starting down, right leg firing under him in early extension, and a “stuck” clubhead at P6 leading to an overly in to out path through impact and a pronounced flip release. Phil has come to me in person once in 2016, once in 2017, and now twice in 2018, and you will see that while he definitely improved his right arm pullback the rest of his pattern is stubborn to say the least. By the end of the lesson you will see with the help of explanations, drills, and swing aids (the Sheftic Spine Board) Phil gets a different look and feel and makes some swings that show great progress.

Online Lesson: John Lamendola 18- Extension past Impact and Full Use of the Pivot

By Wayne | Videos: Online Students

John’s swing has improved considerably over the time we’ve been working (mostly online) and he is committed to continuing to improve. We are to the point now where most of the major issues have been addressed, but as we all know there are always things to work on. In this video I suggest something that John had been thinking about for some time, the driving and straightening of the right leg up into the left in the impact area. When we started back in 2015, John’s pattern was to overturn with his right arm and shoulder, drop his hands down in transition, and early extend with the right side of his pelvis. A lot of that has been fixed (he will always be working on the “hands out” move), but as the hips stayed deeper and the lower body cleared better the right glute has tended to remain somewhat passive during the strike, not surprising when we worked so hard to keep it from pushing out to the right early in the downswing. I would like him to really fire that right glute up into the left as he also pushes up off the left leg, which in turn I am hoping will get him to extend more through the ball, using his pivot more fully and freeing up his arms as they move into the follow through. I think the combination of more vertical force and more extension will lead to more clubhead speed. One thing to note is that John mentioned that he has purposefully been trying to keep his left arm connected to his chest into the follow through (I thought that swinging indoors had engendered a cutoff finish), a thought I would like him to get rid of.

Swing Analysis: Ryan Moore- Big Changes from 2010 to 2018

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

I have an attraction to odd looking swings that work, and Ryan Moore fits right in to that category. In this video I compare his swing from 8 years ago to now, and we see some significant changes in just about all parts of his motion other than his set up. In 2010 Moore had the shaft beyond vertical at P3, then used a huge flattening of the shaft to recover from his across the line position at the top. That shaft shallowing kept going much longer in the downswing before the club steepened back onto the plane, thus taking his release more out down the line and out to the right. In 2018 we see more forearm rotation in the backswing moving the shaft more on plane and less vertical at P3, not crossing the line at the top, less need for shallowing from P4 to P5, and with the flattening happening much more quickly (ending by P5) the earlier steepening of the shaft from P5 to P7 causing the approach to come from more in front of him and his release to exit more around to the left. I also look at an odd angle swing that gives us a nice view of exactly how Moore goes about flattening the shaft, something that he has done to some degree throughout his career.

Swing Analysis: Cameron Champ Doing Pretty Much Everything I Teach

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

If there is a poster child for the Pivot Compression Swing and the various preferences, I have in general it would be Cameron Champ. He employs an on-plane takeaway with right loading to P2, then continues to load the upper body to the right with a massive turn while working the right side of the pelvis consistently deeper into transition, where he demonstrates the “hands out” hand path move with the shaft shallowing significantly as the right arm adducts, externally rotates and supinates. He drives that arm more forward than just about anyone I’ve looked at and even hits his driver with his hands way in front and the shaft leaning forward, producing an 8-degree launch angle and a descending blow. You might think that he was not optimizing his launch conditions but his 193-mph ball speed and 130 mph clubhead speed still have him hitting the ball further than anyone on any tour. He makes up for the forward leaning shaft with plenty of rightward spine tilt as his head moves hard right in the impact area with the driver and takes advantage of that approach by not doing that with his irons. The combination of today’s equipment with strength and technique has brought us to the point where players such as Koepka, DJ, Speith, Rahm and others are using a drive/hold release technique with their drivers and not only not losing distance but seemingly adding to their ability to create speed. Champ’s use of the sidearm throwing motion to create huge amounts of lag make his swing appear fluid and graceful, certainly not as violent as you might expect at such crazy speeds. It is also interesting that Champ feels like he is “jumping” up into impact, while his head stays perfectly level, another sign of his strength and athleticism. This would be a wonderful swing even if he hit the ball normal distances, but to have something so conventionally sound produce such power gives him a chance to be one of the greats.

Cameron Champ: Amazing Par Shows Golfers How to Score

By Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis

Cameron Champ has been aweing the golf world with his prodigious power, but in this short video I show how he recovered from two poor shots on one hole to pitch in for an unlikely par. I love his swing mechanics and the fact that he can produce the kind of speed he does and still keep the ball in play, but his ability to score when he doesn’t hit good shots is what will determine how far he rises in the world rankings, and that is what he demonstrates here by keeping his cool, grinding on each shot, and producing a momentum saving par with a great shot that follows two not so great ones. This is a wonderful lesson for all golfers, especially for those prone to getting upset after messing up. Champ just keeps moving on to the next shot, eyeing it without regard for what he has just done. It took me a long time to mature to where I didn’t let a previous shot affect the next one, and my message to anyone wishing for optimal results is to eliminate anything from your game that doesn’t help you succeed. It’s a brutal game and it is vital that you not let mistakes cause further mistakes.

Monthly Archives: November 2018