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According to Dr. Phil Cheetham, 96% of tour pros demonstrate a pattern of a linear movement toward the target. This move is often described as a "bump". In this video, I show 2D and 3D examples of how this pattern looks to help clarify your transition pattern.
Tags: Not Enough Distance, Driver, Member Question, Concept, Advanced
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This concept video we're going to talk about going laterally before going
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rotationally. So we're specifically going to look at transition and we're going to look at
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the movement of the pelvis and I'm going to use some 3D graphs, some 2D images, the
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help you see some of the subtleties of this key piece to your transition. In the forces
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emotion, seminar Dr. Cheedon presented in his database which is one of the largest databases
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of Torpros in the world. In his database, 96% of the Torpros demonstrated this pattern.
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Now I've looked at my own and I've seen pretty much the same pattern but I'm going to
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break it down into hopefully a little bit more detail. So the pattern is essentially that
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the lateral motion towards the target is going to proceed to the rotational motion towards
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this target. So basically they're making their backswing. At some point the pelvis is going
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to start moving towards the target while it's still rotating backward and then it's going
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to rotate forward. I'm going to talk a little bit about how I think that's happening
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and why and what it means for when you're training and trying to put in reps. But
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there's generally two different patterns that I see on Torr. One would be that it happens
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relatively early in the backswing and that tends to happen if the golfer has a slower hip
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contribution. So the people who have really explosive hips tend to do it a little bit later.
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I'll show you when these two phases happen. So I don't have a single golfer who has their
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pelvis move towards the target during the takeaway. So but some golfers will have a little
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bit of movement away from the target and then right about here, Chef Parallel is where the
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transition of their lower body from moving away from the target towards the target happens.
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So they'll start kind of shifting towards the target gradually and a little bit more
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slowly than the ones who go a little bit later. The second option would be right around or
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a little bit past or in Parallel the pelvis starts moving towards the target as they get an additional
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maybe five degrees of pelvic rotation. So there's this little lateral movement while the pelvis
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is still rotating away from the target. That's similar to that Jackson five move which is why I'm
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big on teaching that especially if you struggle with the driver or slicing the ball. So getting
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a little bit of that lateral movement before you start to get any of your rotational movement can
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be important for your transition sequencing. Now I think it's important to recognize that some
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of this transition lateral movement doesn't have to be an active feeling. So I usually describe
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it as either a feeling of falling into the front foot which some of the vertical force talks
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about some of the vertical force studies will show that there's kind of an unweighting of that
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front foot and you can see if my pelvis and my upper body are not directly over my foot or directly
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over my right foot. If I then unweight my left foot that's going to cause my body to fall that way.
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Now I can also fall in a little bit more golfish way where the pelvis leads and the upper body
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doesn't quite go with it but that will give me enough of the lateral bump that when I then
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actively start rotating my lower body it's already taken care of with the lateral. That'll
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tend to happen a little bit more with the the the second pattern which is a little bit of the
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later lateral movement. I've had some golfers question about you know using that trail hip
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to really initiate it. The trail hip rotators will tend to cause rotation even if you're trying
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to get more of that lateral movement. So that's why it's a little bit of a softer movement
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for most people. Some golfers if you're really tied into kind of a spinning pattern you may have to
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feel a little bit more of an active movement but I think of it more as almost like the intensity
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of a step or a fall not so much like not quite so much like a jump. The active phase I think
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comes a little bit later so after you've already kind of shifted and gotten into that front foot that's
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when a little bit more of the intensity kicks in. This lateral movement before the rotation
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tends to give a little bit or tends to give the look of that squat in transition as opposed to if you were
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to just spin as you go to go down that wouldn't give quite the knee separation or the look of the squat.
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One of the reasons that this can be important is amateur's as I said tend to struggle with rotation
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and then moving lateral kind of like this as opposed to linear and then going into rotation.
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So they go like amateur's a little go like this and then move forward kind of like that in one
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movement and when ends up happening is they don't move the pelvis as far forward as the
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to our per average of about half a pelvis a third of a pelvis. So they'll tend to kind of stay a little
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bit more centered which causes steeper angle of the tack and causes leftward path causing toe hits,
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poor contact and troubles with the driver. So if you're struggling with those then I would recommend
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that you take a closer look at your transition movement of your hips whether it starts at
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shaft parallel or sorry yeah shaft parallel or arm parallel but it's going to hopefully happen
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well before you get the arms all the way to the top of the swing. So in the rest of the video we're
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going to look at 3D and 2D examples to help you visualize this pelvis movement during transition.
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We'll start by looking at some video because if you're not used to looking at 3D sometimes
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it's a little bit of a challenge. So if you're looking at 2D video you can look at the space between
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the outside of the pelvis or you can try to imagine the volume of the pelvis and look at where the
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center is. So in this particular example with the Anthony Kim you'll see that black pole in the background
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lines up pretty well with his right hip and now what you'll see is right in here is
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the space is increasing and you'll see that his pelvis is slightly moving towards the target.
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So basically between right around here and right around there even though his pelvis is continuing
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to rotate or his hip is rotating which moves his pelvis in the backswing you'll see that he's
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shifting towards the target and it's not until he gets in right around here that you'll see
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more of the rotation happening. So probably right around here is when it's starting to rotate
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but all through here it is slowly, laterally moving in the direction of the target.
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We'll be able to see it a little bit easier from the back view so you can see that lateral movement
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happening even though his pelvis is still or his hip is still rotating. So right in through there
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he's still rotating into the hip as his pelvis is moving towards the target and then right in
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through there is when he starts rotating but by then he is already kind of initiated the slow
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movement of his lower body in the direction of the target before the rotation. So looking at a
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couple more examples here we can see Rory who's got good little sway during his takeaway
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but then you'll see that the pelvis starts to move towards his target right around there
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and it's not going to start rotating until right around there just before his hands start
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changing direction so you'll see that that lateral movement right in through there is going to
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lead into or happen before the pelvis rotation and then they'll both continue through the
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majority of the downswing or through the majority of the transition until he gets into his
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bracing pattern. And then over here on the left we've got matculture so less of a sway off the wall
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but a little bit of a shift through his takeaway and then you can see it start moving right in
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through here in the direction of the target. It's a little bit more subtle with his pattern but you'll
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see that it's got that lateral movement happening right in through here before his pelvis gets into
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its rotation through there. So while roughly 96% of Torpero is demonstrate this pattern of
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slide or bump before rotation, next we'll take a look at a couple amateurs demonstrating the
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rotation before the bump. Now let's take a look at two amateur golfers demonstrating the
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rotate then slide pad. Now it can be a challenge to see on 2D so we'll look at some 3D
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right after this but what you'll tend to see is as you go up towards the top of this swing you'll
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see that there is no little bump movement. You'll see that that pelvis starts rotating right in there
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and then it starts shifting. So it'll be a rotation movement and then possibly a shift or in this
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particular days not much of a shift at all. Now over on the right we'll see the sway continues all
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the way up towards the top of the swing and then if you watch his belt buckle you'll see it start to
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rotate right there. Let's see the pelvis start to rotate and then it's still rotating as it now
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gets into its lateral movement or slide pattern but this will be easier to see when we compare the
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pro and the amateur golfers on 3D. All right hopefully you follow it along with the videos those
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are sometimes easier to see. Now we're going to take a look at some 3D graphs. If you've never seen
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a 3D graph it's basically a timeline of a golf swing so the bladder black vertical lines represent
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different events in time. Here we have a dress or the start of the swing. Then we have top of the swing
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impact and finish. So all this is backswing from this line to this line is the down swing and from
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this line to this line is the follow-through. The two different lines I have represent the lateral or
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the rotational movement. So the red line is the pelvis rotation. The pelvis rotation you can see goes
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negative when it's rotating away from the target and then when it changes direction is when the
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golfer starts rotating towards the target when it crosses zero when the pelvis would be facing
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the golf ball and then it when it goes positive it's rotated more towards the target. The green line
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is the pelvis sway when it goes negative. The golfer is moving the pelvis the center of the pelvis
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away from the target and when it goes positive it is moving in the direction of the target.
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Now because I have them both on the same screen and the rotation is much bigger in terms of value
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you'll be it'll be a little harder to see the exact pattern of the linear movement. So what I've done
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is I've taken the snapshot of the golfer here that rep that's where this green line
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falls on the graph. So this position right here is this position on the graph and what you'll see
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is I've got it for the tour pros where the pelvis starts moving laterally towards the target.
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So you can see this right here is where this golfer has moved the furthest away from the
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target and his pelvis is going to slowly start moving towards the target and then it picks up a little
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bit of speed right around there. So if you wanted to you could think of the early movement as more of
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that fall and then as it starts accelerating that would be a little bit more of the push and you
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can see that both of those are happening well before the pelvis changes direction which will be
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much closer to the top of the swing. In AMM the top of the swing is defined by when the club
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had changes direction. So you can see there's a lateral movement before and well before the
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rotational movement. We'll look at a couple other tour pros and then look at the amateurs to see
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the subtle differences between the two. All right here's another tour pro. This one is demonstrating
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where the late pattern. So you'll see a little shift during the takeaway and then a secondary
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little shift as he goes to set the club and right around here is when the pelvis is going to start
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moving towards the target but you can see that there's still a good few degrees probably about five
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degrees of pelvis rotation away from the target while the pelvis is still moving laterally or while
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the pelvis is already started moving laterally in the direction of the target. I've got one more
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example for you. This is the same golfer same golf swing I've just got two different points in
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time snapshot. One would be when the pelvis is the furthest away from the target so you can see right
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there in the middle of the takeaway for this particular golfer is when the pelvis is the furthest away
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from the target and then it starts moving back towards the target from there. That's where some
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golfer's feel the bump really early. Now you can see that there's a little bit of a plateau
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kind of right here around zero. That's this point. So right around here is when the golfer is
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kind of going to set his arms and having a little bit less of the lateral movement towards the
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target but after that you can see that there's a clear pattern of the lower body moving in the
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direction of the target laterally and you can see that that pattern starts right around here but the
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pelvis rotation would happen much closer to when the club is near the top of the swing. The
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golfer is probably going to get the top of the swing pretty close to parallel and the pelvis
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rotation would happen 10 degrees short of parallel or something along those lines. Now we'll look
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at a few amateur golfer's and we'll be able to see a clear distinction where a clear difference
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in the pattern of how their pelvis and their lateral movement and rotation relate to each other.
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Now with amateur golfer's I've got the green line at the bottom of the pelvis rotation. So what
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you'll be able to see is from this point on the pelvis is now rotating towards the target. You can
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see what this particular golfer is. It's very close to where the bottom of the sway slide graph is
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but it's actually the sway slide graph is just a couple clicks after it. So this one's very,
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very close but I wanted to show you kind of a closer pattern similar to what we might have seen
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with one of those amateur golfer's on the 2D where they're pretty much changing direction at the
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same time. Typically when they have that pattern you won't see nearly as much of a shift of the pelvis
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towards the target which can cause the steeper angle of attack as well as the path problem
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specifically for the driver. Here we have another golfer has a little bit of that double peak pattern
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but you can see this is the change of direction of the rotation and you can see that the change
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direction of the lateral movement happens again a few clicks after the pelvis changes direction.
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This is much more common with an amateur golfer compared to the 96% of tour pros who have the
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pattern that we looked at with the first three patterns. Okay we've got one more example. This golfer
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has been told that he hangs back is very little lateral movement towards the target and what you can
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see on the graph is that the pelvis changes direction rotationally here before the top of the swing
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but you can see that his pelvis doesn't change direction linearly until the pelvis is rotated a good
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10 degrees open in the downswing. So his pelvis is basically going to look like it stays over that
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right foot as it starts rotating and then it's not until well late in the downswing that you're
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going to see any amount of lateral shift. So hopefully this discussion video helps clarify what's
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going on with the pelvis during transition. Again 96% of tour pros demonstrate the pattern that we saw
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both in the 2D versions as well as the 3D versions where the pelvis is going to move
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laterally towards the target before it goes rotation. This doesn't mean that you have to be really
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explosive as you saw some of them do it very gradually and more like it is falling towards the
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target but it is a key part to the proper pelvis transition sequence especially when you get into
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the ideal angle of attack and path for creating optimal launch with the driver. So if you're struggling
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with your pelvis hopefully this helps you start to understand and visualize how to use some of the drills
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here in the transition section to help you with the lower body movement as you go from swinging the
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club back to swinging the club towards the target.