Online Lesson: Owen Otto- Sergio-like Action Needs Trail Arm Training

Owen is a 9^th grader (just turned 15) and is relatively new to golf, having concentrated more on basketball until Covid shut down the indoor sports.  He started with a swing that went well outside and looped back inside and has worked recently on gaining depth in the backswing to eliminate some of the need to shallow the club.  One of the main problems here is that Owen is right-handed, but always set up from the left side when given a golf club.  He is obviously an excellent athlete and has gone from a mid-80’s shooter last year to low to mid 70’s this year.  In comparing his swing with Sergio, we find the biggest difference in the trail arm movement during the swing.  Owen pulls his left arm and shoulder back to create more backswing turn and then drops the handle even more behind him, a move leftover from his big loop swings.  If Owen were left-handed it would be easy to change this as I would just suggest the athletic analogy of throwing a ball sidearm, but it is not so easy to throw that way with your non-dominant hand/arm.  It will take some focused training to keep the trail arm away from the body at the top and in transition, but I believe it is essential not to have the arm move into internal rotation (stay up and back behind his left side) to simplify the combination of squaring the face with compressing the ball with forward shaft lean.