Menu
Noo is now 27 years old and has only been playing since he was 19. His normal game is around 85 and he struggles with hooks and mishits. He knows enough about his own swing to note in his email that his right arm moves out in transition and the shaft steepens, and he has been at a loss to fix the problem.
When you watch Noo’s swing you will see a common problem among decent players, the pinched right arm in the backswing reversing direction and falling behind the body in the forward swing. By reversing I mean the tendency for the right forearm to move to a more horizontal position as the arms change direction. What we would like to see is the forearm moving to a more vertical position, but this is difficult to do when the arm is “pinched” in the first half of the backswing, as it is not very deep at this point and seeks depth as it gets to the top, thus the “reverse”. When the forearm moves to more horizontal it is difficult to keep the shaft from steepening immediately, and we know that the idea is to flatten the shaft at the start of the downswing and steepen it into impact.
Another common problem you will see here is Noo’s sequence, as he starts forward from above the waist due to a lack of thrust from the ground under the right foot. I show an old swing of Stuart Appleby’s which demonstrates quite nicely the lower body drive that pulls the upper body into action. This sequence is essential to incorporating the sidearm throwing motion on which I base most of my swing technique ideas.
Join the forum discussion on this post