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Swing Analysis - Matt Wolff - Driver

Matt Wolff is a great representative for the next generation of talent on the PGA Tour; he was able to claim his first victory in just three starts and in the process, became the youngest winner since Jordan Spieth in 2013. Wolff also stands alongside Tiger Woods and Ben Crenshaw as the only (3) players to have won the NCAA individual title and a PGA Tour event in the same year.

In light of Matt's recent 2nd place finish at this year's US Open, we will take an in-depth look at the moves that make him such an incredible driver of the golf ball; Wolff is accurate AND powerful with regular ball-speeds reaching over 180+ MPH.

Overall, Wolff is able to accomplish all of this through some great release mechanics and a very athletic pivot. When combined, these result in the famous "flat-spot" that is often found in the best ball-strikers on tour.

Tags: Driver, Analysis

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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at the driver swing of Matt Wolf.

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So we're going to take a look at what Matt Wolf does to make him such an exceptional

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driver the golf ball.

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We're going to talk about a couple keys that you can apply to your game.

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Matt has a great combination of distance and accuracy and there are a few things that you

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can learn to apply right away.

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Now when it comes to the driver swing, there are three main keys that we like to look

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for.

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We create a flat bottom of the swing.

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We want to have earlier face rotation rather than later and we want to have a body driven

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swing or body driven pivot.

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We're specifically going to look at that third piece with Matt Wolf because he does a great

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job of using his body.

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Okay, let's get those first two kind of out of the way and then we can talk exclusively

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about what's going on with his body and his pivot.

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So first one we're looking at the flat spot.

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On the face on camera, I like to look for the height of the club head to be close to

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the height of the golf ball from about right foot to left foot.

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You'll typically see poorer drivers of the golf ball will be coming in a little bit higher

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or exiting a little quicker.

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So if we take a look, we can see that Matt does a pretty darn good job of getting the club

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download of the ground and then having this kind of sweeping action on the way through.

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And it's really not until after here that you start to see the club get higher than the

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high of the golf ball.

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That gives them a pretty good margin of error in terms of solid contact.

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Now Matt has a weaker grip.

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So we would expect to see a fair amount of Boeing of the lead wrist and the trailhead

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and really getting on top to help square the face.

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So over here on the right, take a look at the unique transition movement.

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A lot of people like to discuss, but if we just hone in on the club face, we can see in

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this position the club face is pointing way out to the right or way up towards the sky.

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That's quite an open position.

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And now once you get down to about here, the club face is pointing more at the golf ball.

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So really between right around here and right around there, you can see the club face

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rotate.

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Other specific videos where we focus on that, but getting the club face to rotate into

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a more close position allows you to have more lag and still have the club face pointing

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at the target instead of out to the right.

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So it seems to be much more consistent to get that squared up earlier.

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And really as long as you start that rotation before the club gets to about parallel,

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you should be in good shape.

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Matt does it early enough to allow for his excellent body driven pivot.

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Matt will start with his little preset move, which is just a reminder to himself that he

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wants to get his body open.

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It's a kind of built off of a drill that he did with his coach for a long time and it

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just stuck in as a pre shot trigger to remind him to get his body open.

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Now as he goes up towards the top of the swing, we'll see that the arms and hands really

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haven't changed a whole lot from where they were at setup.

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So at setup here, the club is basically perpendicular to a spine.

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As it gets up here, it's still perpendicular to a spine.

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And you can see that his trail risk that right wrist hasn't really changed yet.

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Now we know that when he gets down into this kind of loaded position during the downswing,

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he's going to be reaching his maximum extension of the wrist somewhere around here.

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What messes a lot of amateurs up is that they overset the wrist.

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They get up to the top of the swing and they hinge up as much as they can and there's no

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slack.

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So we'll try to get it for that wrist to go and so we'll tend to start casting or early

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releasing the club early in transition.

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One way to guarantee that you're not going to early release the club is to never set

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it during the backswing.

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And by not moving him in the backswing, he's using exclusively the transition to make that

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movement.

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Now if you're going to have a body driven swing, if we're going to get the legs in the

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core and the chest all involved, this is a great model and a great swing to look at.

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One of the reasons I really like his move is you'll see that he does a great job of maintaining

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the centeredness of his upper body.

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Even though there's a lot of dynamics happening and his legs in it is core.

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So from the down the line, you can see a lot of hip rotation and he picks his foot up

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to help serve as a trigger.

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It allows him to make a full backswing with the hips, but it also serves as a trigger for

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him to start the downswing, similar to say a jacknickless or bubble Watson.

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So we'll see that as he starts down, in the timing where he's rotating his pelvis back

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to square and planting that foot into the ground, you'll see that his arms have not lowered

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anywhere down compared to his chest.

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The relationship of the left arm compared to the chest, stayed at the same height during

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that initial transition phase.

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Now whether he feels like he's pulling down on the club or he feels like he's holding

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his arms up, that's a feel thing.

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But we can see that if you're going to rotate your lower body and you're going to rotate

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your core, it would make sense that the arm wouldn't pull down aggressively away from the

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chest or down vertically compared to the body.

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Because he hasn't done very much action with his arms and hands in the backswing, you'll

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see that that initiation, his lead foot is starting to press down and you'll see that the club

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is still kind of working its way to the end of the backswing.

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So he does a great job of sequencing the lower body moving first before his core gets involved.

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Now I'm going to cue in on one little thing that I haven't seen a lot of people talk

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about that I think is helpful for understanding how he's able to do this massive arm shallowing

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and body-powered transition.

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And that is if we look at his trail hand.

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So if we look at his trail hand, it gets a little grainy as we zoom in.

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But I want you to watch his right index finger right there.

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So as he gets up towards the top of the swing, you'll see that right index finger come

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off the club.

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I'm not saying that in order to use your body, you have to have your hand come off the club.

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What I am saying is that in order to power things with your body, you're going to have

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to have a little bit more softness in your forearms compared to if I was really going

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to pull down on the club.

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I would tend to have a little bit stronger hand tension.

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And so what you'll see is that hand that finger stays off of the club until he gets

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down to right around there.

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So we'll see that during this massive rotation, a lot of that is happening from rotating

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his body while having a relaxed or softer arm in form position.

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While his shoulders is shoulder is going into external rotation and his lead form is pronating

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or rotating this way.

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So a lot of that movement there is happening from having a softness in the arms rather

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than holding it really tight and trying to pull it down that way.

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If you were to hold it really tight and pull it down that way, it would typically mess up

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your sequencing.

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But if you feel it falling, then you'll tend to still be able to aggressively rotate your

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body, which meant a demonstrated really, really well.

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The last piece we're going to talk about is the use of the lower body.

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So we can rotate, we can push side to side or we can push vertically.

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To hit the ball far, you want to use a blend of all three of those and we're going to see

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Matt use a really good sequence of them.

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So as he starts his rotation, you'll see that the center of his pelvis moves from right

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around there to right around there.

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At the same time, it's rotating, but there's a little bit of the lateral movement initiation

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before the rotation really kicks in.

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But for all intent purposes, here during transition, he has more of this lower body

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slide and rotation, but you'll see that the belt height stays about the same.

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Now I'm going to put a couple little indicators here just so we can see what happens during

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the rest of the downswing.

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Now as when he's right around this point here is where he's going to really start getting

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vertical with that left leg.

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So you'll see that left leg straight and you'll see that right leg straight and he's pushing

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against the ground to raise his pelvis up.

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Now you will see that when he does that, you can see that the height of the pelvis tends to

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go up, but you can see that the height of his head tends to stay about the same.

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So while he's doing all this dynamic stuff with his lower body to help create speed,

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his upper body stays in a pretty stable location compared to the golf ball.

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In fact, if we go up towards the top of the swing, we'll see a minimal amount of shift

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of the upper body.

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A lot of higher handicap amateurs try to use the whole mass of their upper body either

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by swaying side to side or by really lifting up.

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And that tends to limit speed, even though you feel like you're creating a lot of force

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at limit speed, it also tends to make consistent contact a little harder to do.

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So if you're trying to get your body involved, this is a great pivot to study where you're

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able to rotate that lower body, but then when you go vertical with the lower body, it

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creates this hollowing out of the core as opposed to a vertical movement of everything.

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