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You’ve seen Justin before, and you probably have not forgotten the lesson video as it is one of the most extreme transformations in golf swing technique by an experienced player that you would have ever seen. Still, as far as he has come, we still have a ways to go, which is a testament to just how bad it was when he first came to see me at Woodmont. He has not relaxed from his search for better technique, so we keep at it two hours at a time and work relentlessly to get his right arm to move in the right direction in transition and for his hands to get more in front of the ball with his irons.
This lesson is particularly interesting because it highlights the attempt to create more lag in the swing by “catching” the backswing with the forward swing. Just about everyone knows that you are supposed to initiate the forward swing from the ground up, and certainly Justin does that, but here we tackle his right arm movement problems (his forearm still has a tendency to tip to more horizontal instead of more vertical, making a true sidearm motion impossible) by changing the timing of his sequencing and starting the lower body well before he would have thought was ok to do. The clubhead is still moving backwards with some pace when he drives off his right foot to start the hips driving forward and left (45 degrees left of target) and the result, as the pivot motion catches the left arm, mashes it against the chest, and pulls it into the forward swing. At this point there is a nearly simultaneous feeling of driving the right upper arm and elbow in front of the chest while letting the wrists take the weight of the clubhead and increase their amount of cock. You see the effect this combination has when applied correctly as Justin does it quite well without a ball in front of him. A major problem to overcome at this juncture is that the clubface will feel much more open for a much longer period of time, which will suggest that every shot might be a shank or a dead block. But if we remember that the whole thing is a throwing motion, and that the goal of a throwing motion is to release the ball, not to hang on to it, we begin to realize that the hands are not passive and must understand how to square the face through impact, an impact which is now much later than it was before.
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