Menu
Boo is one of the more interesting characters on the PGA Tour, and his swing demonstrates quite a few things that I like to focus on when teaching players of all levels. A couple of things that I would probably not teach (but wouldn’t change in player of Weekley’s caliber) are his strong grip and his locked elbow address position. He uses both to his advantage, however, and winds up with one of the strongest impact positions in golf.
In many cases with normal (non-tour) players the tight arms and pinched right arm backswing result in the right arm reversing to a more horizontal position in transition, which tends to steepen the shaft early in the downswing and causes many issues heading into impact. Weekley, on the other hand, takes the closely positioned elbows and squeezes them even closer in the downswing, giving him an approach that has the right arm in great position in front of the chest and rib cage, allowing his hands to be well forward at impact. His extreme forward lean allows him to keep the clubface open a long time, quite important for his strong grip type. He utilizes excellent lateral pivot movement, tons of clubhead lag, and quiet feet to consistently compress the ball as well as anyone on Tour. He also exemplifies the “hands out” move in transition, one of the reasons he is successful in getting the arms in front of his body approaching impact. His movement is fluid and sequences perfectly, and he frees up the driver swing with a nice lift of the left heel at the top. Another thing to note is his relative lack of right load, as although he triggers his swing with a tiny bit of back up and right movement he quickly cuts back to the left and stays left for most of the backswing. It is my thought that the quietness of his lower body and feet allow this to work, as any overdrive with the right leg would get him in trouble with too much forward lean. It certainly helps to be 6 feet tall and 210 pounds (I don’t think this type of weight transfer would work for a less strong player), but most of what he does could be used as a model by anyone looking to achieve a better strike on the ball.
Join the forum discussion on this post