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When using 3D data & video to analyze a swing (regardless of skill level), there is one concept that can reveal whether a golfer will likely struggle off the tee, especially under pressure; this key trait is known as clubface "rate of closure".
If you are having trouble finding fairways, you are likely relying too much on a last second squaring of the face. To remedy this, we will discuss the patterns utilized by the best drivers on tour, a few old-school fixes, and one simple checkpoint to determine whether this may be the cause of your driver woes.
Tags: Not Straight Enough, Cast, Driver, Impact, Release, Concept, Intermediate
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In this video, I'm going to talk to you about how you can hit your driver's
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straighter. I'm going to give you two different ways to hit more
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fair ways. One is going to come from understanding what the consistent
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tour golfers do and then two is going to come from understanding how you
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could take your current swing and apply something out on the course tomorrow.
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One of the questions I always get asked is what's the difference between the
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driver and the iron swing and I actually did a presentation at the world golf
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fitness summit a few years ago where we looked at the 3D differences.
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There are definitely differences between the ideal driver swing and the ideal
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iron swing. In general, the guys who are really consistent with the driver tend to
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use more of their lower body to create the speed compared to their arms and
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shoulders and they tend to square the club face up earlier. And what that looks
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like is from the down the line camera, you'll see the club face pointing
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more at the ball earlier. So then when they come through, they don't have to rely
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on lining up the face. What you tend to see with good iron players is they'll
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swing more with their upper body. In doing so, they might get a little bit
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steeper and you'll tend to see the club face stay open longer and shut a
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little bit faster down in the bottom. You don't have to. You can use this
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early club face closing with every club. But that's just one of the trends that
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you'll see on the 3D data of tour proes is that good drivers would go off
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ball tend to close the face earlier. So then it has more of a gradual change
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down at the bottom instead of a fast change. So in the next section where we
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look at it with the GoPro, we're going to take a look at a checkpoint when
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the hands are basically even with the right thigh, roughly what angle is that
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club face. If you find that when you get down here the club face is pointing
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more at this face on camera or compared to this down the line, the club
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face is pointing way over there. You'll see that the club face is almost 70, 80
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degrees compared to the target and I'm going to have to try to square that up
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very late while the club is moving fast. Instead, if I do a little bit of what
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we call the motorcycle movement, if I get a little bit of earlier face closing,
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now when I come down, I didn't have to rotate it that much and now the
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club face is pointing closer, we get that even better there. The club face is
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close, pointing closer to the target. So then all I have to do is continue
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turning through and just let that club face continue closing at a more
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gradual rate. So if I close it early, I can do it gradual, that's going to
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give me a little bit more consistency than if I wait longer and I have to
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close it fast when the club face is moving really quickly. So I've got lots of
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different drills to help you feel what it's like to close the club face,
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whether you do it more with the left hand or the right hand, if you're pulling
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down that tens of the open face, we got lots of ways to kind of work through it.
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But in this video, I'll just give you one simple checkpoint when we look at the
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GoPro section. Okay, so if you're setting up this little station for hitting your
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driver straighter, we're going to line which is roughly going to be where we're
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going to put the golf ball. And now just to give some type of standardization to
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this so that I know that we're on the same page. I've got my eight iron here. I'm
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going to take it and put it about a foot behind the ball or behind this first line.
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And then I'm going to draw a line kind of along the top line right here, not
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the leading edge, but the top line. So now I've got a line kind of at an angle
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roughly kind of like this. That's going to be our reference as far as getting the
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club face closed. So now if I get set up and put a ball on that first line, I'm
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just going to go into a look at when my hands are even with the golf ball, or
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sorry, even with my thigh kind of like this, where is the club face compared to
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this line right here? So as I come down, you'll see if I was to keep that club face
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open. You would see a right of this line. But if I do the motorcycle move with
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kind of an extra grip, it'll start to see that that's coming in a more like
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parallel to this line or square to that line position. Now I'm going to do a few
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kind of pump style drills where I'm just going to bring the club just check.
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That was a little open. Pretty good there. Pretty good there. Once I've got that feeling,
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now I'm just going to do a nice easy maybe 60-70% swing. Just to see if I can get the
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club face that come in pretty square. Now I had a nice nice ball flight. I was able
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to get it pretty square. So then I can just work on taking that feeling, adding
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more and more speed, adding more pivot and lower body, but still focusing on getting
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club face to get matched up to that line quicker. If it's still wide open or
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pointing right, you are going to have to stall and flip and that stall and flip is
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going to add a big timing element to your driver swing. So now we'll do one more
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at closer to full speed. Pretty good ball flight there. Now for some golfers
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doing that feels really uncomfortable. They're not used to thinking about their
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hands. They don't even feel the club face and so trying to become aware of it
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really creates almost a sense of panic. So then the other option is, well, all right,
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I can't feel my hands. I'm not really comfortable trying to close the face. What
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should I do then? Well then we're going to rely on some more kind of old school
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teaching and we're going to talk about swinging more in rhythm or swinging a
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little bit smoother. Now you might be thinking, okay, why what does that have to
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do with club face control? Well, what can happen is if I'm relying on the arms
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of the hands to square the club face very late, I hate the phrase but it becomes a
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little bit more timing dependent. And so there are two things that really disrupt
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timing for these late closing of the club face, especially with the driver. And the
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two things are either getting nervous or swinging hard. So if you would
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recognize, like let's say you take a look at yourself on video and you look and
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you see that the club face is still wide open when your hands are even with
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your right thigh. If your hands are, or the club face is really open at this point,
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then I would encourage you to work on your rhythm and make sure that you don't swing
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too hard. When you swing hard, that's often going to disrupt this timing and you
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can either have big right or big left misses. The other one that's a little bit
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harder to control is getting nervous. So you might want to work on relaxation,
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deep breathing, your ability to stay in rhythm even when it's really important.
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Because oftentimes, golfers who tend to have this late closing pattern will have
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really good range sessions where they can hit, you know, 6, 7, 8 out of 10 into a
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fairway sized target. But then when they get on the course at 10th of breakdown.