Hi, Adam Bazelgette here in the golf studio,
two-time PGA teacher of the year award winner
down here in Florida and founder
of Scratch Golf Academy.
Let's take look today at the great
Phil Mickelson, stay tuned.
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Well as you'll see, Phil does a few unconventional things,
he also does some great things.
At the end of the analyses I'm gonna come back
and give you a couple of things I think you might be able
to work on to take something away from this video.
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Let's have a look at Phil.
Okay so here's one of my favorites
and no doubt just about everybody's favorites,
Phil Mickelson, 40 tour wins, flamboyant guy,
very generous guy I'm told you've probably
read that too in the golf magazines.
Couple of things we certainly noted for his short game
which is just extraordinary, I mean it's really remarkable.
And his nerve as well, to pull off the shots he pulls off.
But in terms of his full swing, there's probably
two things you could say are hallmarks,
number one, on the negative side, if there
is any possibility of being negative towards this guy,
he's not always the straightest hitter.
Now someone who hits it as far as him is bound to
hit it off line at times but he can get a little wild,
although not you see his 140 times
he's able to control it a lot.
But on the other hand of it,
he hits the ball a predeciduous distance,
always has so he's a guy that when he's on,
and he's frequently on with his talent,
he overpowers the course and then you throw
the short game and the guts and the energy
and he is pretty tough to handle when he gets going.
So why is he a little inconsistent directionally?
Well this is what I would say, he gets the club in
a pretty flat position there, there's our target line,
you would typically see that club pointed much
more down towards the target line or even
between the feet and the target line.
And then he does something that's I guess common
for this tendency but very uncommon for a tour player.
There's his club again in that somewhat flat
look going back, now usually when someone
gets the club flat they're gonna have
to over swing a little bit to rebalance the club
and frequently they'll point the club across the line,
which is something he does.
Pretty long swing for, probably a two
or three iron off the tee there.
But here's what happens, he goes back into that
yellow line flat and as he loads the club he
starts down significantly steeper than he went back.
You just don't see that a lot from great players.
And it's a little bit of a tough way to play
because now the club is effectively too steep
Now it's not way out here where it's over the top
but the shaft angle's steep so he now has
to drive his hands out there to reposition the shaft.
You see them really working out in front of him.
Which he has done, but one of the things that
tends to show up when you have this movement pattern,
is there tends to be a little bit of a backing away
from the ball, now it's not to a great degree
but you can see his back has pushed back,
his back is arched and his head's moved back
away from the ball a little bit.
So he's got a lot of movement in his golf swing,
it's flat, it's long, it gets steeper,
then he drives this out to reposition that,
loses a little bit of his body angles
and just lashes it.
So what that takes is a heck of a lot
of timing which of course he has,
he's kind of a golf genius if you like.
But it isn't certainly the recipe
for absolute directional consistency.
Why does he hit it so far?
Well he's six feet three, he's about 200 pounds,
he's super talented so we'll start with that.
Here's a couple of things I think you can pick up,
and we'll talk about a little bit when we get together
after this video and I give you a couple of thoughts.
Big wide back swing, lot of freedom of movement,
like Nicklaus a little bit, you'll see how much
he allows his lead knee and hip to coil.
Big back swing, soft wrists so it's a long back swing.
And he does a fantastic job of starting
with his lower body and letting that load his wrists.
So with the soft, pliable wrists
and the club going this way he starts this way
and it creates a tremendous loading of the wrist.
Look at the difference between that and that.
I mean the angle difference
and how much more the shaft is close
to his body here than there is just staggering.
And of course it's a recipe for killing the ball
and he just pounds it through there.
So lot of freedom, lot of length,
lot of languid, soft look in the wrists,
they load and he kills it.
So let's see how you could learn something from that.
Okay so we saw some slightly idiosyncratic movements
in Phil where he went from shallow to steep.
We've got a lot of information about how to get
it on a good plane at scratchgolfacademy.com
But what we saw, that he does so effectively
I guess amongst other things, is he creates a lot of speed.
So I'm gonna swing this driver here,
a practice swing naturally I'm a right hander.
Phil is actually a right hander, you may not know that,
he just plays golf left handed because he grew up
standing in front of his dad hitting and mimicking him,
kind of an interesting story.
But here's what he does so well.
First thing I want you to do is practice a couple
of pivots and in order to really get a full turn,
allow your lead knee and heal to raise a little bit.
A la Jack Nicklaus, we had a video on him.
Once you've felt that, pick the golf club up
and with nice, wide free swing,
go ahead and let it swing all the way back,
let your heal raise and let the club flow all the way back.
A lot of flow in Phil's swing.
And then here's the big key, as you're finishing
your back swing, go ahead and start down
and like Phil, you've gotta have soft,
pliable wrists if you're gonna create
that kinda lag and speed.
And of course you'll know if you're creating speed
cos you'll hear the sound of the golf club.
So soft, pliable wrists, they're gonna respond
to that pivot motion
and you can create a lot of speed when you do that.
No rush whatsoever to artificially create speed,
let that happen in response to the body
with soft wrists.
Try it out a little bit, see if you can have some fun
with it, I bet you can hit your drives a little bit further.
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Thanks and I hope it's helpful to you.
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