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

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Now, the release is basically what happens after transition and takes you all the way until the

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follow-through position.

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And we're going to discuss it from the arms perspective as well as from the body's perspective.

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But we'll start with the body, which is a simple mechanism.

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The body is just going to brace in order to transfer energy into the arms.

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Now, this isn't a conscious action.

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This isn't something that someone is going to be trying to do.

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But in order to create maximum speed in the hands, the body must be bracing.

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So to clarify what I mean by bracing, the lower body is going to be pushing in the ground.

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So the legs and the pelvis are going to straighten and come up.

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And the upper body is going to go back and away from the target.

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Here I'll show you a couple of different golfers.

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And we'll take a look at what the body's doing.

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So here's a line in this delivery position.

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And here's a line.

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You can see that he's roughly in a squat position with his body.

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His shoulders are roughly parallel to the golf ball as pelvis is a little open, but

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side tilt-wise, roughly parallel to the golf ball.

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Now, as he goes to release, you will see if you look at his head compared to the tree.

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And some you'll see in the head, but the place where we measure is more it's T3,

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which is kind of the center of the rib cage, but with a virtual center.

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So it's kind of the center of the rib cage.

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You could also look at the shirt buttons, but you'll see that upper body moving away from

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the target as the belt line increases or raises.

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So you can see how I had this line right where the belt or the top of his pelvis was.

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And now the top of his pelvis has raised a couple inches.

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Usually it's two inches or so, nothing too dramatic.

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But the combination of those two movements, the upper body moving backward, but not going

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up.

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And the lower body straightening or raising helps to propel the arms into a straightened position,

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which is a very, very big key to this follow-through position.

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And now we'll take a look at Justin Rose going through some of those same positions.

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So as we go down, you'll see right between here and here, his upper body is actually moving

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backward, his pelvis, which was down at where this belt line is, has raised up.

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You could also look at the garbage bag in the back because I believe the camera moves slightly.

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You can see that in delivery position, the top of his belt line is roughly parallel

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with that garbage bag and then into the follow-through position you can see his belt

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is raised because he's straightened his legs.

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That's kind of the jump move that I talked about in the squat and jump.

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And he's getting into this arms extended and shaft kind of extended away from the chest.

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This very good extension position.

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This is one of the traits that I love to see in a good healthy release.

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Now let's take a look at a couple of amateurs as they go through that same phase.

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So I drew those same lines and you can see that while the upper body moved back, his

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belt line barely raised and when he gets into his finish position, he still has a lot

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of flex in his knees.

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His lacking in that jump movement, which is going to basically mean that if he were to

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straighten his arms, he would probably hit the ball fat.

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So what he ends up doing is pulling in with his arms and you can see that instead of getting

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into those arm extended position, I'll erase some of these.

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Instead of getting into those arm extended position, you can see that there is a few angles

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going on in his arms as he is pulling the club in towards his chest to prevent it from hitting

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the ground.

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And here's one more amateur golfer demonstrating a belt line that doesn't raise or legs

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that don't necessarily push through the ground.

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And as a result, through the ball, he's going to have more of a shrugging type movement

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with his arms instead of a releasing type movement of his arms.

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Now I largely think that what the body does is a result of what the hands are trying

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to do or what the arms are trying to do.

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So we'll spend a little bit more time looking at different ways that you can use your arms

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and hands through the release.

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In looking at the arms and hands, there are three things that we're going to look at.

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The movement of the left hand and arm, the movement of the right hand and forearm, and

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then the timing of when the right arm is going to straighten.

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Let's look at them sort of together because hard to isolate exactly what one hand is doing

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versus the other because they're both so close and the grip.

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So here we have Rory in delivery position over here on the left and you can see that his hands

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are pointed directly away from his chest.

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Now I'll leave this one here.

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Now if I were to take him through the release all the way until the end of that follow through

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position, you can see that now the back of his left arm or the back of his left hand is pointed

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directly away from where the golf ball was.

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So it went from pointing towards the golf ball to away from the golf ball, which is a sign that

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it has supernated.

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So now we can look at Justin Rose and we can see it from the face on view.

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You can see the back of his hand is clearly pointed straight out at us.

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I can't draw arrow directly at us but you know what I mean.

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And then as he goes into the follow through position,

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the back of his right hand is now pointed directly at us and the left hand is pointed directly away.

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Again that is indicating that the left wrist has supernated and the right wrist has

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pronated during the last phases of release.

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And here we have a couple more examples.

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We have looped Donald here on the right and you can see close to delivery position.

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The back of that left wrist is pointed at the golf ball.

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And then as he goes through the release, you can really see those four arms rotating

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and the back of the left hand pointing away from the golf ball.

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And now we can take a look at Bill Nicholson.

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So here we have that delivery position where the back of the right hand in his gaze is pointed

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at the golf ball and then as he goes through,

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you will see his right wrist pointing away from the golf ball.

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Now, Bill has a, there's an interesting camera angle that demonstrates one of the principles

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that I discussed which is that the lead hand controls a lot of the rotation.

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You can really see it with fill and with BJ sing.

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That in this position right here there's actually a little bit of space

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between his left hand or trail hand and the grip hand, indicating that a lot of this movement

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at least for fill is being controlled by his lead hand or right hand.

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And we'll do a couple more examples.

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So here we have Jason Duffner over here on the left and as he goes from this delivery position

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through his release, you can see his left hand now pointing away from the golf ball

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and actually pointing slightly towards the ground.

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That's one of the points that I failed to mention in the first couple which will,

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which would be, as you can see it rotating, you would see that right when he gets into this position,

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it would be pointing slightly at the ground behind him instead of having his left wrist pointing

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more up towards the sky, which will probably see when we look at a few amateurs.

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Now over on the right we have Charlie Wee and here's what you would see from the face

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on view for someone who is rotating their forums.

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You will see that as he makes contact and after he makes contact, we can see the inside of the left

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elbow. That's a clear indication that the shoulder or the left shoulder has rotated.

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In addition, when he gets into his full extended follow-through position, you can see the fingers

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of the lead hand or the left hand underneath the fingers of the right hand.

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So notice how you can see his glove hand by this waist position and the club is in a great

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straight line position roughly with his right forearm. So there's a very small angle there.

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Now we'll take a look at a few amateurs to see what some of these differences might look like.

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Now we'll look over here on the left and we can see as we get into the delivery position,

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the hands are pretty much facing the golf ball but they're a little bit more behind their his

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body. We'll get into that when we talk about the right elbow. Now as he comes through,

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we want to see the inside of his elbow and we want to see his left hand get underneath his right hand

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as those arms extend. And what you'll see is as he comes through on this swing, we never really

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see the inside of his elbow pit. We actually see the tip of his elbow right there, meaning that his

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arm has not rotated. The other thing we see is as we go here, we cannot see any of his fingers

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of the left hand underneath the right hand. There's a whole mechanism that's going on here where

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instead of letting the arms extend and rotate, he's basically held off with that left arm.

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Now the problem with this is all the stress is going to get absorbed into his shoulder and into

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his elbow and not get transferred down his body the way that the pros were down the straight.

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Now let's take a look at this gentleman on the right and you'll see that as he comes through,

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we're going to see a similar pattern with that left elbow where we can't really see the inside of it.

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Now he does a good job of getting his arms to extend but again we do not see the continued rotation

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and we do not see the fingers of his left hand underneath the grip until he finally

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lets them roll and rotate right there. That ideally should be happening if you are going to have a

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downward angle attack with shaft lean then this is probably going to happen through impact instead

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of after impact. In let's look at a couple more so on the left we have a higher handicap

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female and you can see that as she comes down through there's not going to be a lot of rotation

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and there's not going to be a lot of extension just as we talked about in the follow-through position

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you're going to see those elbows getting wider further apart from each other and we're not going

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to see the left hand underneath the right hand ever in this golf swing. So there's not a lot of

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rotation going on but that's partially what because of where the club is coming from which we'll

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talk about in the next section. Now over here on the right we'll see a pretty good yall for it

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and he's a pretty good yall for so you'll see some of this rotation you can see how we can see

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the fingers of the left hand underneath so he has pretty good rotation a thing that I'd like to

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highlight that you may or may not have picked up on is as he comes through if I draw a line straight

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out from that club shaft most of the tourfers had that club or the club shaft following that line

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until his hands were about parallel or hip-hop. So you can see that he has done more of a wrist

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hinge through his release instead of letting those arms just extend out.

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And now let's talk about the right or the trail elbow and when it extends. So in the transition

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we talked about how the elbow is going to work in front of the body or towards the belly but

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all I want you to do is watch as Dustin Johnson goes down and I want you to see when his right

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elbow starts to come away from his side or starts to straighten. You can see that it doesn't really

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start to leave until right there and now if you look at where the club head is compared to the golf

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ball that's very very late in the swing. Now we'll look at Bubba going through the same

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face or the same pattern. So you'll see that elbow staying close to his side and then it starts to

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straighten kind of right down in this area. It's slowly straightening before that but this is when it

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really starts to pick up straightening speed. Now we'll look at a couple more to show you how the

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elbow straightening and the timing of when it straightens tends to be more exaggerated where it happens

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earlier with an iron than it tends to with a drug. So here we have Paul Casey on the right and I want

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you to watch this right elbow and it doesn't start to straighten until right there which is actually

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one frame before he or two frames before he makes contact with the golf ball. So it's pretty much

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his body, his bring has brought his arms and hands into position and all the arms and hands have

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done. It's square the club face with that motorcycle movement and organize the shaft plane with

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that flatening movement. And then once he gets to impact he's going to extend his arms to transfer

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all that energy very effectively. Now here's Luke Donald hitting an iron and it actually looks

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like it's fairly lofted iron possibly a wedge. And now if you watch when his right elbow starts

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the straight and you'll see it kind of starts the straightening in this area here which is much earlier

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than we were seeing with the longer clubs. And to strengthen that point let's look at Rory McElroy

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with two different clubs. So here he's got a longer club looks like about a three wood and watch

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that right elbow and when it comes off that side you'll see it stays there pretty much

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right until about there. So again just one or two frames right before impact and then over here on

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the right he appears to have some sort of wedge and you'll see that that right arm starts to

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straighten kind of right in here which is much earlier than it was with the longer club.

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Now let's look at that right arm straightening from the face on position or face on orientation.

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So if we were to come down we know that his right arm was starting to leave his side and starting

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to straighten right in here a few frames before impact. So what you'll see is that his hands are

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almost even with the ball and with iron they'll frequently be ahead of the golf ball when that

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right arm is starting to straighten. And that's usually one of the optical illusions that you'll

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have to get used to which most amateurs when I get them in that position that the hands are ahead

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of the golf ball yet the elbow is still bent and the wrists are still loaded they pretty much say

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I'm I'm gonna miss I've got no chance of hitting the golf ball and that's an optical illusion

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that you have to get over if you want to become a consistent ball striker. Now let's look at

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Zack Johnson going through that same phase so his radar him is going to be straightening kind of in

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this area right about in here but one of the things that you'll see as he goes through there

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is you'll see no gap between his right arm and and side or you can see the gap in there and it'll

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disappear very quickly as that elbow works across his body and in front of his hip. Here we'll go

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down and you can see no gap whatsoever and then as he keeps going through now the arms are straightening

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and extending through there. And now let's compare the timing and location of the right arm

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straightening for a few amateurs. So first over here on the left as we come down you can start to

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see that right arm straightening at the very latest between these two frames that right elbow is already

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starting to straighten which is much easier you or much earlier than we were seeing even with

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Roy McAureer looked on all with their sandwich and this is a t-shirt on a lengthy hole so ideally

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he would be doing other things than straightening that arm that suit. Over here on the right we have

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Charles Bartley who we know has one of the steepest golf swings on the planet and we can start to see

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that right arm straightening in a very similar position to where we saw this amateur on the left and

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again Charles is using a driver and that's not going to work having that arm straightening that much

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that suit. Now let's look at a couple amateurs from the face on position and you can see the timing

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of when that arm straightens and look for that space that we saw or the lack of space that we saw

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with the professionals. So here you can see a pretty big gap between the right arm and the body

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right there and you can see how if I were to draw a line from the body essentially that right elbow

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is behind the body instead of in front of his belly button. Now if you were to get his hands in front of

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his belly button without making other adjustments what he's doing with his wrist he would probably

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shank the ball. So it makes sense that he's doing this but if he wants to become a consistent ball

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striker like the other examples we saw this would be something you would have to work on. You can

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also see the timing of that right arm straightening which is way back here already starting to

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straighten that's just not going to work for having a downward consistent strike. We look over here

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on the left we'll see a fairly good golfer he's kind of a mid level handicap and you'll see the

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right arm straightening early there you won't see a huge gap between his elbow and his belly button

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you but you will see a little bit of a gap right in here you can see that there's definitely some

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disconnected space between his body and his elbow and another way that you can see that is the

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club is approaching the ground pretty quickly already and his hands are not even approaching near

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the golf ball if you remember when we looked at some of the other pros they were straightening that

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arm once the hands where the handle was even or passed the golf ball so he's doing it much earlier

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and this would help square the club face many amateurs will release the club back in this area

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because they don't know how to allow the motorcycle move to happen and the risk to square the club

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face on its own. Now I know that that was a lot but I want you to remember that the purpose of these

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videos is to help you understand so that you can start visualizing this not when you're swinging

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the club and hitting the golf ball because you don't have enough time to think of all these things.

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The time when you should be focusing on this is when you're doing the slow motion drills or when

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you're doing the isolation drills so that you can train these movements to be automatic so our goal

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with say the single arm release drills is to get a free flowing movement of the risk the way that

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tiger is demonstrating right here and just let the golf ball get in the way if you're used to not

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using your risk properly this is going to take a lot of thought at first but with practice and

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with the proper drills and the focus during these drills I know that just like my students you can learn

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how to have the efficient release that comes from a great transition that leads to very solid ball

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striking.