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Jonathan is an Air Force pilot (I think that is correct, as he is a member of the F-22 Squadron) who has been in Russia for 4 years and now is getting back into golf. He used to film his swing quite a bit in high school (using Freddie Couples as a model) and has a pretty good awareness of what his flaws are. I noticed that Jon’s right hand grip was a bit weak (V pointing to the right of the chin) and that it appeared that his right palm separated from the left at the top of the swing. He mentioned that he had a history of loosening the grip and thought it was because he had always tried to imitate Couples’ open clubface at the top of the swing. He also said that he had a history of moving off the ball in the takeaway, but in these swings his hips stayed in the box nicely, so he would just have to eliminate some of the upper body sway to have a nice right load and still be ready to move forward. For the most part his backswing is his strong suit, and most of his attention should be on the transition and forward swing.
One thing that would really help Jonathan would be to work some compression into his pivot both going back and coming down. This has to be combined with moving the hands more outward in transition and getting the right arm more in front of him, as lowering without getting the hands more forward at impact can lead to a bunch of fat shots. He has the pattern that we have seen so frequently with all the lessons I post on the site, that of starting the forward motion from above the ground, dropping the hands and arms downward, pushing the right leg to the right, and moving through impact from an in to out path with the club releasing early. This action can look fine at regular speed, but usually produces less than acceptable club/ball contact and erratic results. Jonathan’s prescription is a lot of punch shot work (all types) along with concentration on feeling the pressure changes in the feet to get the pivot moving correctly. He is moving to an area close enough to me to be able to drive up for some lessons, so I am looking forward to some hands on work with him.
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