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In this analysis video, we're going to look at impact.

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Now, in the concept videos, I talk about how impact is really just a flash in the middle

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of the movement.

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Now, the movement will be the release, which is roughly from waist height to waist

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height, like so.

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Now, we will get into the specifics of the release in the release section.

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But here for impact, we're going to take a look at the static differences between impact

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positions set up positions for both professional golfers as well as amateurs.

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In this analysis of impact positions, we are going to break the swing into two major pieces.

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First, we're going to look at the body and how it has changed or how it's different

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from it was set up.

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And then secondly, we're going to look at the arms, everything from the shoulder to the

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hands and how those are different.

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So let's proceed with the body.

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It's important to realize that the body is really going to look very different than it

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did at setup.

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Now, a lot of amateurs and a lot of beginners start with the concept of I'm trying

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to get back to where I was at setup, but as you'll see through this video, that's not

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the case with most high level golfers.

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Now, the body has changed in a number of ways.

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There to set up posture, the spine is going to be much more flexed like so.

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It is going to have more of a right side tilt, like so.

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We're going to talk about something that we call early extension or looking at the space

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of the pelvis compared to the golf ball.

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And then we're going to look at the amount of body rotation as it compares to setup.

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So let's begin with the spine flexion or how the spine has changed.

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In elite level golfers, the spine is going to be a lot more flexed or rounded if you compare

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setup position to impact.

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So here on the left I have Dustin Johnson and it's set up, you can see the solid line goes

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from roughly his hip to roughly his ear.

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If I then take him through his swing until he gets to impact, which will be right about

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so you will see that there is now a pronounced curve to his spine.

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This is a side flex to the right, but it also affects forward as we can measure on 3D.

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This flexing forward and flexing to the right helps transfer energy through the abdominals.

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So when you use your legs, you have to transfer the energy through your body somehow.

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If you're going to use your abs, it will cause you to do almost like a crunch, which will

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get you into more of this rounded posture.

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That keeps your upper body closer to the ground, which allows you to build chaffling with

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your arms, which we'll get into in later section.

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Here's another example of an elite level golfer at setup.

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This is Roy McRoy, you can see that straight line from ear to hip and then as he approaches

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impact, you will see that his spine now has that gentle curve and slightly flex to the

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right.

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This is a great trait and it's a sign that you're using your body effectively for transferring

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energy from your legs to your shoulders.

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Now let's take a quick look at a couple of amateurs to see the difference between what

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pros are doing.

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On the right, I still have Roy McRoy.

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The straight teal line is representing his spine at the start of the swing and then the

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curve red line is representing his curve and his spine down in this impact interval.

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Now here we have an amateur, unfortunately the camera moves a bit, so this will be harder

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to see, but the blue line or the teal line is what it was at setup and then as we get

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to impact.

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You'll see that the curve is roughly the same, especially through the majority of the lower

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back and mid back.

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He's using more of his hamstrings and his back to transfer the energy, which isn't going

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to curve his spine the way that using your abdominals would.

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So this spine curve is very important for making sure that you're using the proper muscles

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to transfer energy effectively, keep your alignments as well as avoid back pain.

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Let's look at another one.

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Here's an example of another golfer who starts off relatively similar angle to say,

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Roy McRoy, although we already used him for an example of S-posert because he is a little

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more curve to it, but let's see what happens as he goes into his downswing and approaches

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impact.

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You'll see that as he approaches impacts, yes, you'll have a little bit of curve and his

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upper spine, but you can see for all intent and purposes, his spine is pretty straight

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because he's used primarily his lower back as well as his hamstrings to transfer energy

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from the legs to the shoulders as opposed to Roy who is using more of his abs.

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The using the abs creates the space for the elbows to work in front of your body, for

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this gentleman is forced to have his elbows hit his rib gauge, which causes some of this

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early release issues.

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So just pay attention to how much spine flex you have at setup and then follow the drills

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that help you learn how to get the proper spine both side tilt as well as flexion as

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we go into impact.

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Now, the next piece to the body puzzle we're going to look at is something referred to

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as early extension, which is basically looking at the location of the head and the tailbone

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throughout the golf swing.

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Now, both these swings are not on tripod, so there's a little bit of movement, but you

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can see basically from the top of the swing down towards impact, roughly his tailbone

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or his left hip or some part of his pelvis is up against this line right here over here

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on the right without him's got and you can see that his head has barely moved off this

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line if at all.

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So he's kept basically the same spatial orientation between his head and the pelvis and

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the golf ball.

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The only thing that's having is he's curved his spine, so his head has dropped down

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some.

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Now, here's my student and again, the camera is not on a tripod, but you'll

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clearly be able to see that as he approaches impact, his lower body has moved towards

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the golf ball and his upper body has moved away.

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This is an indication that he's doing more of a spine extension and that takes away all

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the room for his arms to do the proper movement.

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So this gentleman struggles a little bit with his release.

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Now I want to use this example of Paul Casey to show that while we want your pelvis to

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stay roughly in the same orientation, it's not absolutely critical.

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There are golfers who from their setup position will move slightly in, such as someone

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like Paul Casey, but you can see in his case his head doesn't move.

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You will rarely see both of them happen the way that we're seeing over here on the left

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with this amateur, but the one on the left is very common for amateurs, where we see a standing

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up during the downswing.

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You'll understand much more about that as we get into transition.

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One of the big things to pay attention to though is because the golfer on the left has stood

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up in order to shallow out the club and create his speed on the downswing.

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You will see that there's very little rotation, as in you can't see any part of his left

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shoulder in very little of his left hip and left back.

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The golfers who use more of this flexion and right side bend, you'll be able to see his

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entire left side of his back is left hip is left leg because he is rotated and

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cleared his body to create to help create the leg which is a big power source.

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Now in finishing with the body as it relates to the impact, we're going to talk about weight

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left or having your left hip on top of your left foot.

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So here on the right we have Zach Johnson and this will relate a lot to that right side bend.

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What you'll see is as we approach impact, you'll see that the penonone camera angle,

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a significant portion of their body will get over their left foot. In his case you've got his

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belt buckle which is roughly where his hip is right on top of that left foot.

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Now the thing to notice with this is in order to have the lower body move that forward forward

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and the upper body not move forward with it, the head is going to have to drop down.

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I don't know if you saw that but focus on his cap. From the top of the swing you'll see his head

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drop down pretty significantly compared to the top of the swing. Now tighter woods is frequently

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chastise for his head dropping but you will rarely see a good ball striker especially with a

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driver who does not have his head drop. Now I'll show a couple examples here on the left

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of golfers who don't really drop their heads and don't get quite as much of their weight on

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the left side. So here you can see this golfer had the same head height at the top of the swing

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as he does at impact. That's limiting the amount of side bend he would have but works well with

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the release that he is trying to accomplish. And here's another example of an amateur golfer

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who does not have a lot of lateral shift or right side bend. So as we go to the top of the swing

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you can see his there's a little bit of space between his head and that line. You'll see that

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small little drop but it basically stays about the same the entire down swing until he makes contact.

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You can also see that greater someone likes that Johnson or we'll bring up another pro

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example here in a second but you can see that his there's still space between his left hip

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and his shoulders were shoulder right side bend is nowhere near in the same category as

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Zygdance and over here on the right. So those two kind of go hand in hand with the release

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or with what your arms are doing which is what we'll get into in the second half of this video.

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Again on the right we've got Ray McRoy now this camera angle is not perfectly square to him so it's

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not going to look like he shifts quite as much but it would be very difficult to have that much

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head drop from the top of the swing and not have his lower body get on top of that leg.

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So you can see that those two go hand in hand having significant amount of right side bend

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helps get the arm in front of the body helps get the lower body on top of the left leg. So these

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things kind of all play together which is why I'm going over them in each piece but we train them

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in chunks and you'll see in the drills that we combine these movements into trainable chunks so

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that you can learn how to do it without having to think about all these pieces but that's a pretty

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I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment of what the body should be doing at impact and how it

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compares to setup now let's go over the arms. When it comes to the arms and hands we've one

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simple object we want the arms and hands to be in a strong position so that they transfer energy to

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the golf ball. Now there's a few key points that we look for when we're looking at the arms and

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hands as they relate to impact. Here I've got Roy McRoy on both sides one with an iron one with a

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driver. At setup you can see that both arms are fairly straight but as we approach impact you will see

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that that right elbow is in closer to his side and is in a bent position it'll be easier to see

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when we look at it from down the line. In addition you will see that as I get him to impact you will see

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that there is an angle in his right wrist and his left wrist is relatively flat. Here you can see him in

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a similar wrist position on the right with a driver even though the shaft is in a totally different

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position. What it shows is that the arms and the hands work very similarly regardless of what club you're

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using at least in the full swing and what tends to change is more what the body is doing.

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From the down the line we get a pretty clear idea of what the trail elbow is doing.

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As you can see here with Keakin Bradley as your purchase impact you can see that that elbow is still

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more or less close to his body and you can see that there's a significant amount of armmen.

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Now I've done a video specifically on armmen in this illusion. Part of the reason why it looks like

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a lot of armmen which there is a good amount but part of the reason why it looks so drastic like

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almost 90 degrees is because the elbow is more in front of his body at this point as opposed to

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being behind it. I'll demonstrate that with a few pros and amateurs from the face on view.

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On the right we have Dustin Johnson and on the left we have a high handicap golfer. Now as you see

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Dustin Johnson approach impact you will see that there is a significant amount of space between

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his elbow and his ribs are his pelvis right here. If I go back up towards the top of the swing and

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come back down you can see that there is almost never any daylight between his elbow and his body.

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His elbow at this point is already starting to work in front of his body. That helps maintain the

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leg in the wrists and delay the release of the club. Over here on the left we have an amateur

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going through the similar phase and you can see that there is daylight between his elbow and his

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shirt. Sort of right in this area because his right arm is straightening away from his body instead

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of working past his belly button because a very different look to impact. In addition because his

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arms are not working across his body instead of working straight out in front of it this will

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limit how much side bend and how much weight shift and how much rotation he will be able to have it

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impact. So we know that the elbow is working across your body in order to get the hands more

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less out in front of the chest. Let's take a look or a close look at the hands specifically.

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So what I want you to notice is if I draw a circle around his hands you can see that the right wrist

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has a bit of a cup in it as he makes contact with the golf ball and the left wrist is fairly flat.

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Now if we compare that with where he was at setup you will see that at setup his left wrist

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had a pretty significant cup while his right wrist was pretty close to flat. So essentially they

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have changed orientation during the golf swing as they apply the force onto the shaft.

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If you look on the left I have an amateur who if you look at his wrist at impact the right wrist

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has a little bit or is relatively straight while the left wrist has a little bit of a cup in it.

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If I take him back to setup you can see that setup wise the wrist orientation is fairly similar

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between these two golfers but because of what they're trying to do on the downswing they end up

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in very different wrist alignments at impact. I teach primarily trying to get your full swing

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into the wrist alignment of having or maintaining a bit of extension or cup in the trail

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wrist and maintaining some flexion or flatness in the lead wrist and we have drills in the section

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of the release explaining exactly how you can learn how to do that.

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As you continue to study the golf swing and learn how to play it you want to try to emulate some of

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the common patterns that we see with the best golfers in the world. The issues that I highlight

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or the concepts that I highlight in this video are some of the things that I help produce the

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most solid and repeatable impact positions. But remember ultimately this is what we are trying to do

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as the club comes down into impact at least with an iron. You're going to see that the weight

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left, the side bend right and the hand position that I talk about will help get the golf club

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to hit the back of a golf ball before the ground. You will see this example he is making contact

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with the golf ball it's already leaving the club and now is when the club enters the ground.

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As long as you can do that and have the bottom of your swing far enough forward in front of the

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golf ball you have what it takes to have a consistent, powerful and repeatable golf swing.