Swing Analysis: Ryan Moore

This is another great example of a non-traditional swing that still demonstrates some of the key movements that make great players what they are. When you consider that some teachers insist that a swing must be “on plane” in the backswing, Moore’s swing, much like Jim Furyk’s and many others, flies in the face of that conventional wisdom. Moore’s move has the shaft vertical to the ground at left arm parallel in the backswing, but he counters that by flattening the shaft up to 60 degrees in transition, giving him an approach that looks much like any of the great conventional swings you could find. The reason he does it this way is that it is natural to him, and since it worked out that he could hit the ball extremely well and play his way out onto the Tour with it we are looking at it to figure out how and why it works. If you have watched my videos over time you have seen that the flattening of the shaft in transition is a staple of great ball strikers. What is not so normal here is that Moore has an incredible amount of upward progression in his backswing, with his hands starting extremely low and ending up relatively high at the top, and thus has to drop the hands almost backwards to start the forward swing in order to not have the left arm approach from too far in front of his body. At the same time, when most people who drop their hands straight down steepen the shaft, Moore flattens it like crazy, achieving what appears to be the largest lay back of the shaft in transition in the history of the game (at least as far as the swings that I have seen). His lower body action seems like it is about to get him seriously stuck, what with the right leg pushing toward the ball initially, but he saves it just in time and drives his hips back to stay “in the box” and produce room for the right arm to pass through and enough rotation to take the flattening shaft and pull it around onto the hitting plane with a nice arc through impact. He employs a massive lateral move to help facilitate the body pull necessary to get all this to work, but watching it all unfold is very cool and quite educational. It is simply and exaggerated example of what I try to teach all the time.
 

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