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Exploring The Path Of The Takeaway

The shaft parallel checkpoint is very useful when looking at the swing from down the line. In this video, we look at what movement combinations typically get the club moving too shallow or too steep. This can be a big problem for less than full shots, but can also reveal tendencies of your stock swing.

Playlists: Understand Your Swing Plane/Path, Build your one piece takeaway, Swing Plane Simplified - Working with steeps and shallows

Tags: Not Straight Enough, Draw vs Fade, Iron, Backswing, Concept, Intermediate

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This concept video is exploring the path of the takeaway.

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So in the downswing we like to use this shaft parallel checkpoint and shaft parallel

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and the follow-through as good checkpoints.

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You can use the checkpoint in the backswing as well just to see what you're doing during

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your takeaway.

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I tend to find if you're having dramatic takeaway issues, they tend to not be an issue unless

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they call as top of the swing or for your short, you know, your finesse wedge, your distance

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wedge shots where you don't have as much time to make these big body movements to get

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back into position.

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So as we discuss in the takeaway movement, the majority of the takeaway should be kind of an

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upper body or core rotation movement with, well we say it's very little going on in the

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wrists.

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I'm going to talk about the two major issues that you'll tend to see.

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Now just as a reference guide, I've got the stick on the ground roughly even with

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my toes.

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If I was to make a pretty good takeaway movement, this would roughly be on top of

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that club.

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If I would make my takeaway movement in a shaft parallel, it's either kind of pointed

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way out there or even more common.

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It's a pointed kind of way in here.

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That means that I'm getting way off of playing or off of path and I'm just going to make

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have to make a bigger adjustment at some point during the swing to kind of get back on

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track.

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The two most common would be more of an arm lift and going up and out kind of like that

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where you'll see very little body rotation.

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You'll see that it's very much, you can compare the height of the shaft to where my body

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is.

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If I do it more with the body, you'll see that the hands stay kind of below the belt.

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If they tend to go up here, it's definitely more of an arm movement.

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But I could also err on getting this inside and there's a number of different ways that

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that can happen.

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One would be if I was to just use my shoulders and pull them kind of across my body

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like so.

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So basically in that one, my arms are actually just going like this.

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That's getting the club kind of in this shut across my body almost stuck position.

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From here, I'm just going to have a lot of rerouting in order to get my arms back in front

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in order to shallow the club during transition.

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The other option would be if I keep my arms pretty straight, but then I have a massive hip

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movement to bring the club back to waist height.

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So this was not really core, this was all knees and feet.

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So it was kind of looking like this and that also unless I make an adjustment with my arms

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contend to get the club in a shut position.

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If one of the things that was interesting for me to first look at was when James Seekman

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and Greg Rose when they were talking about the Finesz wedge shot, you know, five or six

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years ago when I was taking a class, they were talking about more form rotation during

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the takeaway for a chip shot than on a normal swing.

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And in my mind at first, I didn't make sense because I felt like a putting stroke or

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a small chip shot would have very little form rotation.

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But if we think about it with the shorter shot where my body is going to be a little

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bit quieter and I'm dominating it more with the upper body, what would happen is if I don't

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rotate my my forearms and shoulders, then the club would just move straight that kind

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of like this.

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Now, if I in the normal swing I add body rotation, that's fine and now the club is pretty

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close to on plane is just a little shut.

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In the shorter shot, we're going to tend to have because the body is not going to move

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as much.

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These arms have to rotate in order to get this club on plane like so.

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Otherwise what would happen is I would use either my body standing up, I would use hit

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movement, I would take it away in a very closed position kind of like so.

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So getting into some of these details and just analyzing what you do during the takeaway,

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especially if you've trouble with the finesse wedges, can help reveal how you're getting

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off plane, how you're losing control of the face.

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If you're getting the face too shut, it's almost always collapsing in this left wrist

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and not having enough arm rotation or not powering in enough from the core so that combination

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of power core rotate the arms, don't collapse the wrist, then does up looking like that.

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Where if I exaggerate it and I use my legs so I don't use my core, I flex the wrist and I

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don't rotate, I can get that extremely inside.

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The opposite would be typically in the guys who tend to have more of this big sway, they'll

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tend to bring the club kind of straight up like so and that's usually just not having

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enough of that body rotation or possibly shoulder rotation in order to get the hands in that

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path.

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So there's a lot of details you can look at in the details of the takeaway.

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I tend to not go there unless it shows up elsewhere in your swing that you have a hard time

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adjusting from that position but if you're working on building your sockful swing from the

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ground up, some of these takeaway keys are making sure that the body is rotating from the core

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and the wrists have done very little but the forearms and shoulders have corroded just a little

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bit to kind of help that takeaway movement.

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So hopefully that helps you understand your pattern and all the patterns that you might see

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with golfers on TV of what they're doing during this initial movement called a takeaway.

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