Student Lesson: Kenny Engel

This is an interesting view of how I initially look at a swing, decide what items need the most attention, then go through different shots and drills to try to narrow down what the root causes of the problems might be. It is obvious from the first swings I show here that Kenny has issues with his sequencing, his path and his impact alignments, but it appears to me that the impact is much worse than the rest of the swing leading up to that point would suggest. In other words, I see many players who achieve an approach position like Kenny and hit the ball much better, with more forward lean and sustain and less “flip”. This leads me to believe that Kenny’s main problem is that he has never really hit the ball with his hands in front of it, and doesn’t really know what a compressed and sustained impact feels like, much less how to accomplish it. Thus, I spend most of our time working on punch shots and various drills within the punch shot form in order to give Kenny the sense of what a good shot feels like and what it looks like on camera when he gets one to be more correct. This, combined with some sidearm throwing practice (there is a particularly interesting shot of Kenny throwing a junior club into the net) serves to help improve all the issues we decided needed help, including keeping the head from leaning too far forward in transition, shallowing the club instead of steepening it at the start of the downswing, and opening both the lower and upper bodies as the club gets to impact and moves beyond.