If you haven’t seen these they’ve been out for a few days. I wanted to share the links and offer them up for discussion in the forum. The first link is to a pdf with proposed rule changes for 2019. I can’t imagine no changes or additions will made so it will be interesting to see what makes the cut, what does not, or if they all do. The second links to a pdf of the distance report.
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Derek is on the cusp of being a high- quality Tour player, but he has been held back by inconsistency in his ball striking. His pattern since we have first worked has been to overuse his right arm and shoulder in the backswing, cross the line with the shaft at the top, and then move both his knees forward toward the ball in transition.
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TJ is now 9 years old and has performed well in the U.S. Kids championships for his age group the past two years, finishing in the top 30-40 both times. TJ’s father watched some of my videos, liked my ideas and methodology, and sent in TJ’s swings to get some ideas and a direction for what to work on. At TJ’s age I don’t think it’s a good idea to get into too much in the way of mechanics, so here I address what I see as two major items that are common among thin, young players, the grip and the tendency to swing the arms back too far behind the head.
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Gary and I go way back to Wake Forest days in 1977 and 78, and I have worked with him off and on since then. He was the first player ever to achieve First Team All-American status four years in a row and was PGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 1980. He is one of those guys who stands out as an enigma, like how did this guy not become one of the great players of his generation? The simple fact is that when Gary hit his first ever slump back in the mid-80’s he became a swing nut, asking anyone and everyone for advice, taking lessons from everyone you could think of and some you can’t think of.
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Jaime is the PGA Head Professional at the Wheatley Hills Golf Club on Long Island, New York, and a good friend of long time Wayne D. website member and student Peter Procops. Jaime has been working hard and having children the last 10 years or so, and his game has suffered from a lack of practice and competition. He has had some good results in the past, however, and is anxious to get his game back in shape and return to tournament play.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week
Andrew is a 6 handicap who could be much better given his athletic ability and the nice sequencing of his swing. He complains of inconsistency, and I spotted two things immediately that I wanted to change that I felt would simplify his swing and make him a better ball striker. The first was the radically closed clubface in the backswing.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week
If you’ve been watching my lesson posts you must have noticed by now a common pattern whereby an address position pressured more toward the heels inevitably leads to the entire pelvis moving forward toward the ball during the swing, leaving the left leg in the way of the swing’s rotation and causing the right upper trunk to hang back in the forward swing. There is no way to achieve much of a forward leaning impact when the body is facing the ball at contact, so the first priority in a swing like Gene’s is to get him some depth in the right side of his pelvis in the backswing, then keep that depth in transition and into the downswing so that he has a chance to drive the right shoulder and arm down the plane and to get the hands more forward at impact.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Swing Analysis
I’ve been trying to figure out why I consistently lean into the front of my left foot in transition, a move which I believe throws off my sequence and eventually is one of the causes of my throw release and forward exit. I am now focusing on the lifting of my hands and arms from P3 to P4 while I straighten my right knee, which, along with a bit too much rightward movement of my upper body in the backswing, leads to the move I hate. In this video you can see my left arm looks more horizontal at P4, which gives it a deeper, more Hogan-like look.
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It’s obvious why Harley is a low handicap player: he has an excellent swing. In this lesson my suggestions focus on posture and transition, where I see Harley raising up from P3 to P4 and then dropping his hands and right arm behind him from P4 to P5. I trace this issue back to Harley’s initial posture at address, where being a bit heavy in the heels and not really out over the ball leads to the right side of his lower body not deepening in the backswing, and as his pelvic motion works into his left hip heading to the top he lifts his arms and comes off his tush line. The usual pattern follows where you can see the butt end of the grip work backwards behind his right side while his hips continue to drive out toward the ball.
Continue readingBy Wayne | Videos: Lesson of the Week
Seth has been a website fan for some time and traveled all the way from Texas to pay me a visit here in Boca Raton. After watching his first few swings produce less than stellar shots I could see right away that we needed to focus our attention on the takeaway (which whipped way behind him) and his alignment and weight distribution at address, as he was aiming to the right (even with an alignment stick between his feet and the ball) and had his weight back into his heels. As usual with this type of setup for non-tour players, the general pivot movement during the swing works toward the ball, which, along with having the lower body closed, does not allow for timely rotation of the pelvis and encourages right leg thrusting and early extension.
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