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Discussing The Elbow Pattern

I typically use this breakdown for some of my higher handicap students, but it can be useful to any player that is struggling with both consistency & power. Often times, these issues will arise due to excess tension, poor wrist mechanics, or a lack of involvement from the larger muscles. Ultimately, when facing more than one swing "difficulty", it is often best to adopt a multi-pronged approach. However, we must remember to stay mindful of the strengths/weaknesses for each possible "fix".

Tags: Fundamentals, Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Not Enough Distance, Standing Up, Chicken Wing, Cast, Backswing, Release, Concept, Beginner

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This concept video is discussing the elbow pattern.

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So the elbow pattern is a phrase that I use.

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It's really elbow shoulders.

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But I tend to use this for a certain population of golfers who tend to complain about

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not hitting it consistent or far.

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So tend to be more in this 20-25 handicap zone.

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And basically what's happening is in this pattern, they will take a grip and they'll basically

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lock their wrists and their forearms in place.

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And then they'll almost lock their posture so they won't have a whole lot of rotation

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or extension.

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And so all the movement is going to happen more with the arms and the shoulders on both sides

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of the golf ball.

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So you can see I've got very little wrist movement and all my body movement is more vertical.

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I'm basically pulling the club around my body just like so.

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They will tend to have the club look really wide, early in transition.

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So if you're looking at your video and you're seeing that it gets out there, that could

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be part of your pattern is that you're just controlling this swing too much with your elbows

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and your shoulders, not enough with your wrists and your body or your core.

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So oftentimes in that pattern, you'll have success with working on either trying to get

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the arms to say more connected more in front of your body.

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And therefore forcing more body motion, that will help you ultimately hit the ball much

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more solidly, sometimes further but definitely more solidly.

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If you're mangle, if you have that pattern in your mangle as distance, then we have to

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risk getting some wrist movement involved.

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And so working on some of the release drills, specifically working on some of the loading

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and unloading or working on some of the supination drills to get a little bit more

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hand action but ultimately get some hand action that helps you control low point.

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That tends to have one of the bigger impacts as far as creating speed.

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So this can be a challenging pattern to break because you're so used to having the arms

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as a locked to control face and solid contact.

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When you start adding speed, oftentimes, if I'm still doing my elbows, it will, while

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I add some wrist speed, it's unlikely that you'll make really solid contact like I did

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on that demonstration there.

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And so there's potential for a little bit of growing pains while going through it.

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I would recommend in that pattern to work more on getting the arms to be a little bit

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more connected and control it more with the body and then adding a little bit better

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wrist action on the way through.

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I've had it work both ways but ultimately what you'll have to do is you'll have to coordinate

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or learn to control your arms and your shoulders, your elbows and your shoulders from dominating

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the movement, get more action from the hips and more action from the wrist.

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And that combination will ultimately give you a lot more distance and more consistency

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as well once you get past the initial growing pains of losing what feels comfortable.

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So one of the last pieces of this pattern is the rhythm and the tempo tends to be a

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big piece for this.

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Oftentimes when you feel like your elbows and your shoulders are doing a lot, the swing tends

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to feel very quick when you are tending to use more of your body.

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The swing tends to feel slow but when you add your wrist what will end up happening is

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it will feel slow and transition and very fast or quick in terms of the feeling of the club

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head down to the bottom and you may feel more speed after the golf ball.

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So if you see it on video and you have more of this action here, the good news is there's

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a really big ceiling and we've got drills that will help you both get your lower body

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more involved as well as get your wrist them all and that's going to totally change the

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way that you're experiencing ground contact and speed creation for your golf swing.