Tour Players and Celebrities | Wayne DeFrancesco

TP&C: Willy Wilcox- Going Back to the Old Swing

I did a video of Willy in 2015 when he was on TV and playing great, noticing right away how open his stance was in relation to his target line. I have an affection for open stances as I’ve always been a Trevino fan and I played that way myself for many years. I felt that with the open stance I could clear my hips much faster and easier, and since I have always been prone to flatten the shaft, be slow with my hips, and thus get the club stuck behind me on the approach, dropping my left foot back made a big difference. One of the reasons I went away from it was due to the problems with teaching all day talking about alignment and swing plane, items which are much easier to visualize and explain when all the lines are parallel and perpendicular. Anyway, when Willy got in touch with me and came to my club the first time we worked mainly on short game, but when we did hit some full shots I was surprised to see a dead square stance. I didn’t really have time to go over much in that 2-hour session as far as the full swing was concerned, but when he came up again the next week I made it my mission to get him back to what had worked so well back in 2015. I suggested he go back to the open stance and pull the hands in deeper on the backswing while opening the face a bit. From there it was all familiar to him and he started hitting it nicely right away. He has had some nice results in the past month (22nd, 8th, 3rd) on the Web.Com Tour, and is in position to regain his Tour card.

TP&C: Willy Wilcox- Part One, Full Swing

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

When I first saw Willy’s swing on television in 2015 I was happy that I was recording the tournament. They showed him several times and I did a video analysis of his swing. I loved it. It was certainly unconventional with the ultra-open stance and whippy-fast action, but it just looked like (without the aid of slow motion) it was producing an extra high-level strike on the ball. When I did slow it down it looked even better. He kind of disappeared for a few years and from out of the blue he contacted me through Messenger and expressed interest in chatting about his swing and his game and perhaps coming up to Baltimore to see me since he was going to be fairly close by anyway. The first lesson was 95% short game (I did a video on that as well), but in the second we had twice as much time so after another round of short game work we went out onto the course where I filmed him hitting various shots. With his conventional (square) set up he wasn’t opening his upper body enough to keep his hard flattening action from getting the club stuck behind him, so I suggested that he go back to opening his stance, which agreed with him as it was quite familiar. He went away from it while searching for answers to his suddenly erratic ball striking, while at the same time making his backswing far less deep. I suggested he also go back to pulling his arms across him in the backswing, and he had no problem with that either. I really wasn’t doing anything except having him go back to what at one point hit the ball as well as anyone in the world. If you look at his stats for that period (11 events) it might as well be Henrik Stenson, it was that good. He has played well since I saw him, and I look for great things in the future.

TP&C: Ozzie Newsome-Overcoming Old Habits

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

I’ve been working with Ozzie on and off for years but haven’t seen him since 2015 until this month when I returned to Woodholme where he is a member. Most of Ozzie’s issues stem from the way he is built, 6’4” and 250 lbs. of muscle with emphasis on huge shoulders and almost no neck. Ozzie has long legs and fairly short arms, and thus feels like he needs to bend over quite a bit to get down to the ball at address. We are working on standing taller and closer to the ball with the hands higher (that keeps the chest more up), while trying to get his backswing not to get laid off at P3 and P4. I would like him to strengthen his grip and maintain the cup in the back of the left wrist throughout the backswing, and I want the clubhead not to lift so quickly in the takeaway. If he keeps the club outside his hands going back it invariably works sideways as it gets to the top, and from a laid off position he always steepens the shaft and pulls on the grip. Speaking of grips, we are trying to strengthen Ozzie’s so that when he bows his wrist at the top the face gets super shut and he hits it dead left, a nice incentive to keep that wrist cupped. He also need to focus on keeping his right-hand pressure points throughout the backswing and transition. If we can get the shaft more vertical at P3 and continue that to the top where he is more on plane I think his athletic ability will eventually allow him to flatten the shaft, which will give his lower body incentive to open quicker so that he can get his hands forward and achieve more extension through the impact area.

TP&C: Gary Hallberg- Better Posture to Keep Hips Deeper

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

Gary and I go way back to Wake Forest days in 1977 and 78, and I have worked with him off and on since then. He was the first player ever to achieve First Team All-American status four years in a row and was PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 1980. He is one of those guys who stands out as an enigma, like how did this guy not become one of the great players of his generation? The simple fact is that when Gary hit his first ever slump back in the mid-80’s he became a swing nut, asking anyone and everyone for advice, taking lessons from everyone you could think of and some you can’t think of.

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.

TP&C: Online Lesson: Tony Romo

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

This is not a long video for the simple reason that Tony’s swing is improving and he is gaining on the things we have been working on. He tends to push his hands well out away from his body in the takeaway while fanning the face open, which gets the club flatter than the plane at left arm parallel (P3) and leads it to lay off and get a bit stuck in the downswing if he doesn’t rotate fast enough. Tony, like many powerful amateur players, sees a draw ball flight and tends to approach impact from the inside, which is why we have worked on visualizing a straight to left to right ball flight.

TP&C: A Nice Foursome: Playing with Tony Romo, Jordan Spieth, and Carlos Ortiz

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

One of the perks involved with teaching a celebrity (Tony Romo) is the possibility that you might wind up playing with some other interesting people. In this case it was Tony’s good buddy Jordan Spieth, presently #1 in the Fed Ex Cup standings and #2 ranked player in the world.

TP&C: Tony Romo Part 5

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

I’m back down in Texas at Trinity Forest with Tony Romo, and we are making nice progress with Tony’s swing as well as his ability to manage himself on the course. I’m focusing on educating Tony about what his swing tendencies are and how he can address issues and improve over time by understanding what will make his swing more efficient and repeatabl

TP&C: Tony Romo at the 2017 Celebrity Classic

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

It’s always nice to be able to see your swing under pressure, and when you’re Tony Romo and you’re paired with Steph Curry and Justin Timberlake in a televised event there’s a good chance you’re going to get some nice air time. Of course, this gives me a great opportunity to watch Tony perform when it counts and it gives Tony a good idea of what his tendencies are when he’s got some heat on him.

TP&C: Tony Romo Part 4

By Wayne | Tour Players and Celebrities

A few weeks ago, I met Tony up in New York where we played 18 holes and took some shots of his swing on the course (you can watch that video on the website). Since then Tony had me come down to Dallas where we met and worked at the new Trinity Forest Golf Club, site of next year’s Byron Nelson Classic. Tony was excited about the suggestions I had made after our first encounter (we actually met four years ago but he has been injured pretty much the whole time since then) and had started hitting the ball better.

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