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This is another in the fascinating series of lessons with Hall of Famer Tom Kite. He sent these swings in from the range after the first round of the 3M Championship in Minnesota, along with another fabulous look at his swing from 1992. The two things I picked out this time are the angle of the shaft at left arm parallel in the backswing, and the aggressive thrust and rotation of the hips through impact. Tom’s club is now flatter at left arm parallel than in ’92, and my thought is that the pattern of moving the shaft from flat approaching the top to steep immediately in transition is being caused by the fact that since the shaft is laid off a bit as it approaches the top it does not want to shallow further, and instead steepens so that the club doesn’t lay back behind him too much. I have shown many times in other great swings and in lessons that the opposite is actually true: if the shaft flattens early and steepens the rest of the downswing the arms get more in front of the chest and the shaft is less stuck. I think that if Tom would open the face a bit more and get the shaft pointing at the ball or even a bit inside the ball at left arm parallel going back like he did in ’92 then the shaft would be much more likely to flatten.
Another suggestion I make here based on the ’92 swing is for him to move his lower body more aggressively left and around in the downswing, focusing on using the gluteus muscles to drive the lower body, and thus the upper body, to the finish. His action in the older swing is highly reminiscent of Hogan. He has lost some of that, and even though he is 22 years older he is still in remarkable physical condition and could, I think, regain this if he concentrated on it.
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