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Dustin Johnson is one of, if not the, best driver of the golf ball in the last few years. He has an impressive combination of both distance and accuracy. Three keys that he uses to enable such driving ability are powering his swing with his total body, shallowing his arms in transition, and closing the club face to the path. Adding those movements to your own swing can help tremendously if you want to be a more consistent driver of the golf ball.
Tags: Not Enough Distance, Analysis, Intermediate
WEBVTT
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in this analysis video we're going to
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take a look at the swing of Dustin
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Johnson now Dustin Johnson is a driving
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machine and put on an amazing display
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this year at the US Open winning his
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first major last year at chambers Bay he
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put on an equally impressive round in
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terms of ball striking and his putter
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just led him down a little bit this year
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he made enough quality putts to really
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capitalize on his brilliant ball
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striking in this video we're going to
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take a look at a few things that he does
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in the downswing then make him such an
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exceptional driver of the golf ball in
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ways that you can emulate some of those
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key movements and put them in your own
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swing everyone who plays golf loves to
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drive the ball far in straight Dustin
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Johnson is able to capitalize on his
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physical abilities and drive the ball
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better than anyone in the modern game
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this year at the US Open he was
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averaging about 20 yards further than
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everybody else in the field yet he hit a
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staggeringly high percentage of fairways
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given how far he hits the golf ball so
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what does Dustin do that make him such a
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great driver of the golf ball we're
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gonna talk about three things that he
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does he's going to power the swing
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primarily from his body he's going to
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close the club face and he's going to
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shallow his arms in transition after we
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take a look at Dustin's swing we're
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going to compare him to someone who's
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more of an arm swinger so that you can
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see some of the differences and how they
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might apply to your game so if we look
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at Dustin's backswing we can see that he
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gets into a really good athletic
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position up at the top of the swing you
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can see that for all intensive purposes
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he's kind of maintained his spine angle
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or he's rotated the large muscles as
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he's created this backswing pivot so
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he's loaded the muscles in his core his
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hips and his trunk so that he can use
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those muscles to start the downswing
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basically his arms are going to be a lot
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more passive during the downswing or
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during the early part of the downswing
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while his body is responsible for
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creating the initial
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the rust or the initial amount of speed
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so as he starts into his downswing
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you'll see that while his he has
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tremendous sequencing you're going to
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see that his lower body tends to
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initiate the downswing followed by his
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core followed by his trunk and then you
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won't see his arms really extend until
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he gets very close to making contact
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with the golf ball this will make a
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little bit more sense when we take a
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look at John Senden and compare the arm
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swing of John Senden to the body swing
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of Dustin Johnson
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so one of the key movements to this body
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swing is the arm shallowing component
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and here's what I mean by the arm
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xiaolin component so at this point in a
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swing we're just going to make a little
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note of where his posture is and you can
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see that his arms or his elbows if we
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were to kind of connect the bottom of
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those are at a slight angle compared to
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his spine angle or his posture now what
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we'll see is as he goes into the
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downswing you'll see that he bends
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forward and actually steepens
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his spine angle how much you can't
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really tell by a 2d video but you can
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see that he has steep in his his spine
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angle or his upper body's bent more
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forward towards the ground now at the
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same time you can see that his arms have
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slightly flattened so the right elbow is
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slightly lower than where it was at this
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point in the in the backswing so he's
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done this rotational arm shallowing
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movement which allows for his upper body
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to flex closer to the ground so that you
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can continue rotating through the shot
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that key component of the upper body
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flexing and the arm shallowing allows
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his body to rotate so that when he gets
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the impact you can see that his body is
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in that tremendous position facing more
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out towards the target and less at the
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golf ball the more that the body is
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facing out towards the target and less
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of the golf ball you'll tend to see more
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of this rotation side Bend you'll tend
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to see that the right elbow or sorry the
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right shoulder is going to be closer to
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the golf ball and
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as a result you'll see that the right
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elbow is going to have some flex in it
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so that body powering the swing is going
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to allow that right arm there really
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straighten through the shot instead of
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approaching into the shot that allows
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him to have a really good wide arc width
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after the golf ball which which I've
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seen with my research looking at 3d
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graphs to have a high correlation
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between driving consistency now the
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other piece is since he's rotating his
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body so much that's going to create
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impact happening more behind his body or
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towards the right half of his body as a
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result of the club not catching up in
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front of his body until after impact he
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has to have the lead wrist flexed he has
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to have the clubface rotated more closed
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than it was at setup that's what allows
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the clubface to point in the general
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direction of the target even though the
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club is well behind his body as it
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swings around the circle the club being
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well behind his body allows it to
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continue in a wider position through the
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follow-through which again helps with
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some of this flat spot as well as
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consistency that he's able to produce
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with his both paths as well as angle of
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attack so now we understand that having
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this great sequencing having the arm
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shallow and having the club or the lead
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wrist
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what more flexed during the downswing
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that was it setup those are all good
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keys to having a body driven athletic
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movement just like Dustin Johnson now if
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you decide that you don't want to have
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this athletic body driven movement then
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you want to swing more like a John
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Senden so what we'll do now is we're
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going to compare the body swing of
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Dustin Johnson to the arm swing of dust
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of John Senden so that you can see how
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these pieces fit together and which ones
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might apply most to your own swing so if
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you're going to be more of an arm
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swinger you will tend to see a couple
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common characteristics a
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you're going to see the height that they
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set at setup stay a little bit more
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consistent and more stable it's one of
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the things that kind of drives me crazy
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is when you hear the announcers on TV
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talk about how a lot of tiger shots a
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lot of the bad shots were caused by the
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upper-body dropping but they fail to
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talk about how Dustin Johnson and Rory
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McIlroy and some of them
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Adam Scott some of the more amazing
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drivers the golf ball in our era have
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significant upper body drops there's if
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we were to place the club at impact and
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just kind of lock it in a vise so that
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it's a certain distance away you can see
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that both of these two golfers roughly
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have the club in a similar somewhat
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position but their bodies are in totally
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different positions the more that I'm
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going to rotate my body towards the
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target the more that I'm going to tend
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to side Bend and so as this right
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shoulder gets more down towards the golf
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ball you'll see that the right elbow is
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going to externally rotate and Bend in
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order to accommodate for that distance
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the more that your head stays the same
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height the more that your upper body
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backs away you're going to tend to see
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that right arm straightening to
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accommodate the increased distance
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between the shoulder and the golf ball
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when the shoulder is closer to the golf
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ball as Dustin is demonstrating here
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you'll see him be able to extend his
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arms on the way through
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we're with someone like John Senden
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you'll see the arms are pretty much
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straight just after impact and then as a
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result you'll see the club pass and the
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body just kind of support the movement
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oh if you're going to be more of an arm
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driven swing or have more of an arm
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driven swing then you really want to
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swing easy and within yourself or else
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you're going to tend to have face
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control issues and tend to hit shots
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that start well off line the good thing
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about the body driven swing that we see
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with Dustin Johnson or Rory McIlroy or
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Adam Scott is that they are able to
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swing harder while still controlling
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their path and face to path relationship
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so if you're going to go more of this
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arm swing where
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you're using your arms to power and
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create the speed from the top you're
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going to tend to see less body rotation
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and impact you're going to tend to see
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less head drop and you're going to tend
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to see a straighter arm at impact so the
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less head drop more arm driven straight
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arm at impact tends to give you a little
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bit more difficulty creating a real long
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flat spot at the bottom which does
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produce some consistency issues with the
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driver especially if you err on swinging
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harder so if you're going to swing hard
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you want to be more like Dustin Dustin
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Johnson if you're ok swinging easy
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possibly playing a shorter club you'll
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do you'll probably do better and fit
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better into more of a John Senden model
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now the neat thing is that it's not a
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one-to-one it's more of a spectrum so if
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you are in this John Senden model where
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you're more of an arm swinger the more
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that you can relax your arms in
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transition power it more with your body
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and get closer towards this Dustin
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Johnson move in general the more
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consistent your ball striking is going
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to become especially with the longer
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clubs like driver and 3-wood so if
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you're not quite sure about these pieces
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and how they fit you're welcome to
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subscribe to our youtube channel so you
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helping you understand the key movements
00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:17.010
and micro movements that helped produce
00:10:17.010 --> 00:10:19.740
this tour model whether it be the Dustin
00:10:19.740 --> 00:10:21.839
Johnson swing or the John Senden swing
00:10:21.839 --> 00:10:23.910
and how you can apply those key
00:10:23.910 --> 00:10:27.050
movements to your own game