Lesson of the Week: Rick Moreau-Working on Increasing Lateral Movement and Shallowing the Downswing

Rick is a low single digit handicapper who produces a nice impact but often feels as though he is “hanging back” and unable to get fully to his left side in the downswing and through impact, causing some pulls and weak right shots. The video shows that Rick stays almost stationary on his right foot well past impact, and that his hips have only moved an inch or two forward of where they started. From down the line it is apparent that Rick has a bit too much of the hands out move without enough flattening of the club, leading to a steep downswing approach where the shaft gets well out onto the left arm between P5 and P6. To help the situation I encourage Rick to be more aggressive with his lower body, using the ground under the right foot to drive his hips more forward in transition as he rotates to the left. I had hoped that this would contribute to shallowing the club, but a down the line view suggests that he needs to train the left arm to stay closer to his chest in the early downswing so that the hands and the club could approach from a deeper position. To accomplish this, I put a long shaft (actually two combined) about 4-5 inches from his right shoulder at address so that the left arm can pass it easily on the backswing, but not so easily coming down.  The results are striking, and Rick began hitting nice draws as the video shows a totally different and better approach.

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