Robin here, with one of my recent lessons. I think this is a good lesson for anybody
who consistently struggles with push shots, you find that you feel like you struggle to
release the clubhead, but mainly players who are struggling to correct clubhead speed.
You feel like you put a lot of effort into the swing, but you don't get much out. You
feel like maybe your body type and your athleticism, you should be somebody who creates a fair
amount of clubhead speed, but you don't, this might be a good lesson for you.
Now, I think most players understand some of the components which have an effect on
clubhead speed. Maybe pressure transfer between right and left foot, rotational speeds of
your body, the hinging and unhinging of the wrists, the kind of leverage you create in
your wrists, and yes, those are all important components of how much speed you create. What
many players don't realize is that there is also a vertical component too. There is a
vertical force in the golf swing which will greatly affect how much clubhead speed you
can create.
This player is a great example of this. She's a good player. Obviously, somebody shooting
in a round even par but struggles to create clubhead speed. Definitely, doesn't hit the
ball far enough at this stage to compete on a higher level, but I won't go into huge detail
there. I am focusing on the one area we worked on and the effects that had. But if I take
you to impact, you can see how her lower body, a simple way to look at that, it was higher
than...almost her knees look collapsed. They look too much down. They look too close to
the ground. Her right knee is kind of rolling in towards the target, left leg still looks
bent. It doesn't really look high enough. It's telling me she hasn't really got that
vertical component in her swing, that vertical force, which is affecting her clubhead speed.
So another thing, it will get a little bit more complicated, but because she doesn't
have this vertical force, her hips don't stabilize, which doesn't allow her to release the club,
so she struggles with push shots to the right as well for the same reason.
All right, very simple. We just simply did some drills here. One leg only, this is the
left leg only, whereas she put her right foot behind her left up on its toe, tried to make
her back swing that is close to normal as possible but then simply learned to push up
from her left foot. Used the ground, she used that force to push up. She feels like she's
jumping.
Now, maybe you might not believe me, but we tested this with TrackMan, and from this one-foot-only
swing, she was actually creating more clubhead speed than her normal two-footed swing on
the left. She was hitting the ball farther here on the right than with her normal swing,
which instantly tells us that she didn't have this vertical force in her swing. That's a
good way for you to test are you using the ground in the most effective way. Give it
a try, maybe not in the first ball, but within 10 balls, if you don't have this component,
you will be at least hitting the ball the same distance from this drill as you will
with your normal swing if you don't have this force in your swing.
Now, let's skip forward, and this is really only a few weeks later. You can see now, at
impact, there's a little bit more thrust. Certainly, her knees don't look as collapsed.
She's working up away from the ground, and on these swings, her clubhead speed, on average,
was eight miles an hour faster. Now, that's a huge difference actually. It's almost 10%,
so she went from somebody whose distance was a little bit below average to someone's distance
which was a little bit above average. Actually, her swing speed in the right here was above
the LPGA average.
And I was really only thinking about one thing, that left foot drill and then repeat the same
feeling during the shot. Let me show you why that will also have a little bit of an effect
on the direction. So before on the right, right knee sort of collapses,
everything collapses, so actually, here her right knee gets on the ball too early, but
here you will see she is pushing up, so this stabilizers her hips. This one, her hips spins
back more, so her hips don't stabilize. Her hips don't slow down, so she can transfer
the speed into the clubhead. But yes, effecting distance, but also affecting the release of
the club. This one, the club releases more freely, so it helps the clubface square up
instead of...very commonly for her, the clubface would be left open at impact. The ball would
start to the right.
So simple but very effective lesson, and I think a lot of golfers out there can benefit
from some of this in their game. I say simply trying that left-foot-only drill, you will
soon work out whether you're using the ground correctly. If not, give this a try. This is
showing her swing here at full speed. It looks a little slow motion, looks almost a little
sloppy, should I use the word, while here now, you can see definitely a little bit more
of life in the clubhead through the ball from using the ground.
By the way, I don't want to blow the trumpet too much, but why I'm showing you this, she
went from shooting evens, one overs, and then in her most recent tournament, she just shot
66 final round. So hitting the ball for her farther in the ladies' game really makes the
game lot easier. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope that some people out there get some
benefit from that, and thanks for watching.