BACK TO BASICS: SEQUENCING

My favorite swing of all time! The one and only Tiger Woods, the G.O.A.T.

Let's take a deeper look at some things that make his swing so repeatable. Last week we spoke about G.A.S.P. This week we are talking about the sequence of events that lead to a solid ball strike:

The Rotation: Easily the most forgotten part of the swing is rotation; take a close look at Tiger’s motion here. We have some waist turn and a huge shoulder turn (power generator). I once heard Ernie Els say that he wants to turn his shoulders as far as they go before his arms start to go up. A common question I ask players is “If I cut your arms off right now, can your arms pick the club up and hit a ball?” the answer is unequivocally, No! To me that explains the true worth of using the body in the swing; the torso is the true driver in the car called your golf swing. So we must rotate to get the initial movement of the club to start.

The Lift: Once we rotate we must lift, rotational momentum should allow your arms to move freely to the top of the swing. But what about position at the top? There’s two things that I want to feel in my swing at the top: Hands above the right shoulder and not swinging past my right ear (this will help those over swingers out there).

The Drop: The down swing starts with; you guessed it, another hard rotation! Your belt buckle and shirt buttons are going to rotate towards your golf ball, leaving your club in “concrete” at the top (meaning we want to let the club stay a little behind us). Once you do that, just hang on a little longer and pour on the power. The rotation continues to your finish position where we want those shirt buttons and belt buckle facing your target.

Work some rotation in your practice and you’ll be hitting it farther and straighter!