- Hi Adam Bazalgette, two time PGA Teacher of
the Year award down here in Florida.
Today I want to talk to you about
the swing of Jason Dufner So stay tuned.
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Okay, Jason Dufner, one of the really consistent and
excellent players on the PGA Tour in the last few years.
Simple motion, as you'll see.
And I think there's a few things we can learn from it,
so at the end of the video,
at the end of the analysis,
I'm gonna come back and show you a couple of drills and
a couple of things I think you might benefit from.
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But let's have a look at Jason Dufner.
Okay, so let's have a look at Jason swinging the club there,
we'll look from a couple of angles.
It's a very simple compact motion,
no wasted movement in there,
he's a very, very consistent ball striker,
and a very straight hitter at the ball.
And when I get back in front of the camera
I'll talk a little bit about
not only what you can learn from it,
but what kind of body styles
likely are gonna work for this swing.
So here he goes,
nice little trademark waggle we've all seen that
for whatever reason, that certainly seems to keep him loose,
he stays in motion,
you can tell he's not too stiff in those wrists,
or he wouldn't be able to do that.
And here's the first thing I notice about his motion
is his club really responds to his body.
He's got a little bump to his back leg which you can see
it almost becomes a little bit more of a convex angle there.
Concave I should say as he starts back
at the club's almost dragging,
so the body dominates it,
once he's back to about here,
the wrists kind of snap into action,
but there's really no leftover arm swing at all.
And as he's finishing his backswing,
he's already making his transition with his lower body.
Hallmark of great players,
but it's very pronounced here with Jason,
so just watch his body in this area and as he
finishes that backswing, he's already moving forward.
And you can see as just as he was loose
of those wrists at the beginning
they stay nice and loose and they load well there.
And he just makes a strong turn through it,
makes a good rip at it with his right side there.
He lets his right wrist and arm
really straighten out and snap through,
but it's in conjunction with the release of that right hip
and right side as he goes through.
So very simple swing.
Let's have a look from this angle.
He tends to get bent over pretty far,
gets his hands fairly low.
A lot of times, just the actual act
of getting your hands that low,
his hands are, his clubs pointed below his belt buckle,
will tend to slightly push you over the ball,
so that's possibly what's happening there.
But it's a good shot posture.
And again from this angle
we'll see those hands are very passive,
the club's literally staying over here and dragging
in front of his hands.
Now once he picks up speed,
his wrist start to snap into action there,
and I think it's more the momentum
of the club's snapping there
rather than him deliberately cocking his wrists,
and he has that very compact kind of a look for his arms.
It is rare that you will see a great player
hitting a full shot, where if you profile their shot,
their arms are within that profile.
Normally, they'll have enough length of arm swing,
you'll see a little bit of a window that you would see here,
but you'll see that up above their shoulders,
so very compact swing.
You've gotta love the simple one plain kind of a look there,
but you need, as I'll show you later,
you need a pretty flexible right arm to do that
the way he's doing that.
Notable a flexible right shoulder as well.
So he whips it back, he's on one plain,
again, I want you to notice
one of the really good things about his swing
is he's already changing direction with his lower body
before he's completely finished going back.
So that completes that feeling
where his arms respond to his body there,
club picks up momentum and sets,
and then before his arms have run off,
he's changing direction with that lower body.
Just pulls his head back a little bit,
probably cause his posture's pretty bent over,
hips stay in a great spot,
and like all great players as he's hitting the ball,
you can really see a lot of his back.
And that's a sign again, his body's working well
and it really frees him up to release down the target line,
and through he goes.
So nice, simple, simple swing there from Jason Dufner.
Let's talk a little bit about it.
Okay, so you can see some of the great things,
the simplicity of Jason's swing.
Now in order to apply those to you,
you really need to be relatively flexible,
and you need to have some body speed.
You need to have some strength and speed in your body.
If you don't feel like you can create much speed
in your body, maybe you're getting a little bit older,
you might need a little bit longer backswing than that
to really make it work but it's awfully simple if
you feel like you have some strength and speed.
You'll also need a flexible pair of wrists.
You need a pair of wrists that will
hinge the club fully and freely,
course you need a grip that allow you to do that.
And finally when will look in a minute from the plain here,
to get your right arm where his is,
I'm going to suggest to you,
if you can't stand there and rotate your elbow back,
rotate your forearm back pretty far,
and you'll notice my body's vertical,
I'm beyond vertical with my forearm there,
you just don't have a flexible enough elbow
and shoulder to do that.
Now you could still make a flat swing,
but you're gonna have to let your right arm give
and get a little bit more behind you there.
So let's get into it.
The two main things I think you can
take away from that swing,
one of them I love, and I stress in a lot of the videos
if you watch some of the videos I've done,
really like this factor, and that is
the golf club and the arms respond to the body.
And you get this kind of two way motion,
it's like loading a whip or a towel,
and it is very, very repeatable.
I promise you, once you start snatching the club back,
and moving the club head in a manner that isn't
originating from your core,
you can do it but it's difficult to be consistent.
So here's what I would suggest to try to mimic this,
setup stance a little bit more narrow,
this is a seven iron,
we're just going to hit a fairly small shot,
and practice that feeling where as you engage yourself,
the weight of the club is so passive to you
that it almost slightly causes your wrist to go concave.
You'll see that in some of the great players of yesteryear,
Bobby Jones certainly comes into mind.
Ben Hogan a little bit there,
and get used to that feeling of moving your body this way.
Now, once you've moved and your arms and club
are starting to pick up some momentum,
then you can let the weight of the club
snap past your wrists.
Now I kind of phrase it that way,
I don't think you want to get here
and then suddenly decide you want to cock your wrist.
They should be mobile enough that once you're in motion,
you sort of sense the weight of the club sling back.
Here's the key and this is a big one.
Once you've moved, once you've pivoted
and you start to sense the club head
really picking up speed,
in a smooth fashion, just go ahead and change direction.
That will increase your wrist cock
and galvanize that downswing.
So you can just hit some little short shots,
rehearse the takeaway.
Once it starts to snap into motion,
just go ahead and change direction like that.
It's a great practice habit, even if your intention isn't
to make a swing that small and short.
Now from this angle over here,
what we want to feel like I think
if you're right-handed golfer, and a right-hander by nature,
which is typical for a right-hander,
if you could feel that feeling of like
carrying a pizza tray,
and I realize that would actually be horizontal,
but a little bit of that image at any rate,
even though the pizza would slide off.
You're gonna need some flexibility in your arm.
And once you've made that initial drag,
snap it right into that spot like that.
Nice little pizza tray feeling,
snap it into that spot and go.
And you'll find this club will create a very consistent,
shallow sort of a plane.
So I hope those ideas are good for you.
Again if you like the video
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Thanks for your time.
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